Beer Notes

-- Just added captions/explanations for the bevy of pics in the posts below. I spent last Friday jumping around from Frederick to downtown to sneak in a few beer visits. Its pretty cool what one can do on a tank of gas and with a little energy to enjoy good beer in Maryland.

-- Now on tap at the great Brewer's Art: their new Clamper's Ale, described on their Twitter link as 'draft brewed w/Sorachi Ace hops and lemon peel!' Mmmm. Also: their Coup De Boule, Le Canard Belgian brown and Virgo (see here) the first in a monthly Zodiac series of pale ales. Oh and their new Autumn menu was released not long ago, yay menu variety.

-- Speaking of Twitter, be sure to follow my MDbeerspotter Twitter account, I try to repost interesting items and there's some cool interaction going on with other local beer geeks, beer writers, beer reps, breweries, bars, and so on.

-- Here's the FULL Baltimore Beer Week schedule. Great stuff.

-- Beer and food pairings (so DC!) from Metrocurean -- Orr Shtuhl and Melanie Corbett.

-- The New York Times spends 36 hours in Baltimore and smartly makes a pit stop at Brewer's Art.

-- Alexander Mitchell (Beer In Baltimore) is killin' it this week. Metropolitan Coffeehouse Beer Week events, more info on the opening day events for Baltimore Beer Week, Christmas beers (they're comin'!).

-- Gilly's down in Rockville is hosting its second annual 'Gillys-Tober-Fest on Saturday October 10th from 4-7 PM. All listed beers (below) will be available to sample free. Some of the craft brews will only be sold by the pint. There will be sales, tons of glassware, and a fun overall experience. Seriously this is a cool little sandwich shop/deli with a couple rotating taps and a really cool selection of bottled beers (and glassware) and wines. They even let you open any purchased refrigerated beers to go with your food (for a small corking fee, free on Thursdays)

Brooklyn Oktoberfest & Post Road Pumpkin
Southern Tier Pumpking
Dogfish Punkin
Sam Adams Octoberfest, Imperial White, Cherry Wheat, Boston Lager
Clipper City Prosit!, Big DIPA, The Great Pumpkin
Flying Dog Dogtoberfest, Double Dog Pale Ale, Tire Bite Golden, Doggie Style Pale Ale
Becks Oktoberfest
Starr Hill Festie & Northern Lights

-- Bad Decisions' raved-about 'Bacon & Beer Happy Hour' is returning (Edition VI) on Tuesday October 20th from 2-close. Its a big party with an all-bacon menu and bacon themed libations.

-- Just ... dammit. On Monday DC's Brickskeller let loose a couple bottles of Lost Abbey's Red Barn, a Saison style and one of my favorite beers, ever.

-- OK that's all for now, Baltimore Beer Week is finally here! Keep the emails, Tweets and other communication going, cheers.

Who Is That Strange Man?

Could it be?

Been there, done that.

In The Mail

A nice collection of beer goodies sent from my good friend and California native Steve, who writes the Summer of Beer blog. Many thanks.

One bottle each:

Gueuze Girardin 1882
Lost Abbey Carnevale Ale (a saison/blonde)
Port Brewing 2008 Ne Goeien Saison
Ballast Point Sculpin IPA

That is an awesome haul I'll have some fun with as we head closer into the cold Eastern winter.

San Diego Day II

On this day I was finally able to check out the famed Pizza Port. Pizza Port is a pizza and beer place that is basically the same company as the great Lost Abbey Brewing. Where Lost Abbey operates as a Belgian inspired brewery with tasting room, Pizza Port is the classic pizza and beer joint, except with incredible beers. There are three Pizza Port locations, in Solana Beach, Oceanside and San Clemente (Orange County).

I made a stop at the Solana Beach one since it was easily the closest of the bunch. Unfortunately it also happens to be the smallest, so there was no bar, but rather a walk-up order counter and their famous first-come picnic table seating. Not feeling supremely hungry I ordered some beer buddies (see their menu) and a Lil' Wednesday "Extra Pale" Belgian pale ale. I've got a thing for Belgian style beers, and this thing lived up to the general style. It was exciting, light and refreshing but with that weird flavor created with Belgian yeast, a creamy texture, slightly cloudy, just hit the spot.

After that I ordered what I think was called Black Spider, a black west coast pale ale, on cask. Usually I'm conservative when ordering new beers and I had wanted to try several other of Port's options, but the risk paid off, another delicious offering with a huge frothy head thanks to the cask kicking just as my pour went through.

Pizza Port has exactly the right concept of family friendly vibe with various video games and pizza on the menu, to go with that beachy feel. There were several surfers taking a break inside while I was there. Its a few blocks from the beach in one of my favorite beach areas in San Diego, Solana Beach, not far from the Amtrak station there and a street designated purely for artsy type shops. The pizza + beer thing reminded me of the Russian River Brewpub in Santa Rosa. Its all very relaxed and unlike most pizza joints paired with great beer.

I guess at the other two locations there's an actual bar to sit down to, and multiple levels. Next time. On the way out they had memorabilia, glassware and a few bottles of their own creations as well as those of Lost Abbey for sale.

After that I started getting a little beer heartburn, which seems to happen after I've been drinking strong for a few days. Its painful and slows me down so the rest of this day's trip was colored by that.

After leaving Pizza Port, I ventured down to the AleSmith brewery hoping their tasting room might be open. No go, however, as they're only open on Friday and Saturday.

From there I almost decided on a return trip to Ballast Point since I had so much fun, but instead went to Stone Brewing Company's World Bistro and Beer Gardens. I've been here a million times before but its always a great stop with all it has to offer. Unfortunately the heartburn was still flaring up so I grabbed a single beer before departing. It was an Echt Kriekenbier, another Belgian offering. I should have enjoyed this more, as its one of my favorite beer styles, a Flemish sour cherry ale and quite tasty when one is not in pain, heh. The rest of Stone's draft and bottle menu was great as usual, so a return trip would definitely be in the works.

However, that was it for Day II of the beer adventures.

Follow along with yet another custom Baltimore Beer Guy beer map.

Beer and Religion, Forever Linked

USA Today went to last week's Great American beer Festival in Denver and they found religion.

As noted in the article, Russian River has all kinds of religious names to some of its better brews. The Lost Abbey in my old hometown of San Diego is the same. Here in Maryland, the most popular brew at The Brewer's Art is "Resurrection". There's a great little Belgian themed beer bar in Fell's Point called Ale Mary's.

There are many more connections to be discovered.

(Via Chow.com)

Parallel Beer/Blog Tasting: Lost Abbey Bourbon Barrel Angel's Share

As is the occasional ritual at Baltimore Beer Guy (Example #1, Example #2), I did a parallel blog/beer tasting with Steve from Summer of Beer last week. Silly me, I forgot to write about it until now.

From separate coasts we simultaneously drank a bottle of the Lost Abbey Bourbon Barrel Angel's Share from Lost Abbey in San Diego, California. I haven't had a ton of Lost Abbey until this most recent trip (I'll write about that soon), so this was a treat and a hard-to-find offering of theirs.

Steve's got the full review, so please do stop over there for most of what went on and my thoughts. Hint: this beer is delicious.

Look What Arrived In The Mail

Want a good way to know when someone's a real friend? They send you the following, unsolicited, pure generosity of the heart type deal:

Russian River Pliny The Elder IPA (500ml bottle)
Lost Abbey Oak Barrel/Bourbon Aged Angel's Share (12.7 ounce)
Russian River Blind Pig IPA (500ml)
Founder's Devil Dancer Triple IPA (12 oz)
Firestone Union Jack IPA (12 oz)
Maui Brewing Co. CoCoNut Porter (12 oz can)

Ridiculous.

Those Russian Rivers are fairly hard to come by, particularly for us East Coast folk. In succession I now will be able to enjoy the No. 9 (Pliny), No. 11 (Angel's Share) and No. 46 (Blind Pig) beers on the planet, according to Beer Advocate users.

Having had a taste while on my trip to Santa Rosa a few months back, I'm positively giddy to dig into those Russian Rivers as well as the other offerings. I couldn't get enough Firestone while I was out there either. Maui is new to me but highly regarded and I love and respect their use of the can. Founders (out of Michigan) is also new, so that should be interesting.

And then there's the Lost Abbey, making Belgian inspired brews which has been my near obsessive focus of late. Good times.

Summer of Beer

That's the title of my good friend Steve's beer blog. At his site Steve threw some love Baltimore Beer Guy's way today (much appreciated).

Maryland doesn't just do football and crab cakes. They do beer too. So if you have some spare time (and you obviously do if you've found your way to this blog) and you like beer (again...), hop on over to a new blog from The Baltimore Beer Guy

His blog is the inspiration for Baltimore Beer Guy, so if you like it here, a tip of the hat is in order for Summer of Beer Steve. SOB (ha!) is based in sunny Upland, California where it's about 80 degrees today while us Charm City folks battle through a sunny but 45 degree day. Bastard.

So yeh, Steve's a good friend of mine and a full-time pharmacy student. That consumes much of his time but his passion for beer occupies many of those spare minutes when not buried in study materials.

Do yourself a favor and bookmark Summer of Beer. He capably covers an amazing range of beers in perhaps the most fertile craft beer area of the country. Maybe one day he'll even post his pictures from meeting Logan the Beer Thief at Lost Abbey/Port Brewing.