We’ve noticed a trend in a handful of our neighborhood bars lately. It seems that staff who pride themselves in stocking high-quality, flavorful beers are figuring out ways to undermine their need to sell yellow water to the masses. And they’re speaking up about it.

The Black Squirrel, for example, has a section of their beer list dedicated to “lightly-hopped lagers” and describes them as “classic” and “mild,” the kind of beers that “whisper instead of scream.” A use of euphemism if we’ve ever seen one.

The Reef’s approach is even better. Their description of Miller Light states it’s from “somewhere in America” and reads, “The aroma of beer precedes a distinct beer taste. Finishes like beer.” Next to their thoughtful descriptions of the craft and imported beers they can always be trusted to have on draft, this is an obvious slight.

Bourbon is by far the best example, as you can see from the photo above. They boldly state how they feel on their board, as well as their beer menu, which has ”Something Light” listed where the  fizzy yellow stuff should be. When we asked our server recently why they couldn’t bring themselves to write  the B-u-d word anywhere in the bar, he said they didn’t like that stuff there and that it was a jab at the weekend clientèle who demand it.

We’ve heard some bar owners say it’s good to carry what your customers want and then nudge them along toward more flavorful styles. We’ve also heard beer directors with a “no-crap-on-tap” mentality say that the big beer companies make enough money without their help. We pose the question to you. Have you seen treatment like this anywhere and what do you think about it?

Mmm…beer and cheese. Better yet, beer and cheese made with great care by monks in Belgium. You can get your hands on some this Thursday from 5:30 to 7:30pm at Marvin. James Williams from Manneken Brussel Imports and Jeff Wells of Ale Street News and DOPS, Inc., will be highlighting the wonderful Trappist Ales from Abbaye des Scourmont, producers of Chimay. The cheeses, Vieux Chimay and Chimay a la Biere, will be free while supplies last. Although you have to buy your own beer, you do get a complimentary Chimay glass with any purchase of Chimay Red, White, or Blue (just one per person; it’s not a free-for-all like we’ve seen before). For an extra special treat, at 6:30 sharp James and Jeff will be popping open two Jeroboams of 2008 Vintage Chimay Grande Reserve. That’s what we’ll be going for. We’ll see you upstairs on the patio.

Kelly Zimmerman leading a ladies-only tour of Clipper City

As a follow up to yesterday’s post about prominent women in the national beer scene, today we are posting a list of local and localish beer-loving ladies. DC and the greater Washington area have a very decent number of beer women, from restaurant and bar owners to brewers, wholesalers, and other business folk.

And this segment of the local beer scene continues to grow, as exemplified by female-themed beer events like the Clipper City ladies night (pictured above). Tammy attended a ladies-only chocolate and beer pairing at the Baltimore brewery in July and highly recommends going next time. Better yet, why not start having events like this here in DC. Any takers?

As with yesterday’s list, the group of names below is not exhaustive. For example, there are a number of great female bartenders and servers who spread the beer gospel every day. Feel free to chime in with shout-outs for other noteworthy local libation-loving ladies in the comments.

RESTAURATEURS

Diane Alexander – Co-Owner, The Brickskeller, irrefutably the DC beer institution. If you’ve ever been to a beer event there, she’s most likely taken your ticket at the door. She’s seen and heard a lot, as The Brickskeller’s hallowed halls have been graced with many beer greats over the past 25 years.

Ruth Gresser – Owner and Chef,  Pizza Paradiso and the women who agreed to turn her restaurant’s basement into the outstanding beer bar it has become. She has continued strong beer programs in her additional locations (a third one coming soon!) and is well on her way to having a little empire of top beer destinations in the area.

Jamie Leeds – Co-owner and Chef, Commonwealth, the gastropub in Columbia Heights. There are almost 30 British beers in her selection, as well as around a dozen American craft brews to sample in her U.K.-centric restaurant.

Amy Bowman – Owner, The Black Squirrel and enthusiastic proponent of all things beer. Check out one of Black Squirrel’s DCBeer-sponsored events for a chance to meet her and share her passion.

BREWERS & BREWING SUPPORT

Ellie Tupper – Brewer, Tuppers’ Hop Pocket and honorary Brickskeller beer event moderator (although her husband is usually the official moderator, she always ends up adding something enlightening to the conversation). She has tasted and logged over 17,000 beers around the world. ‘Nuff said.

Gwen Conley – Quality Control Manager, Flying Dog Brewery who is called the “Sensory Goddess” for her ability smell and taste subtleties in beer. She has great suggestions for beer and food pairings and is eager to share her love of beer with others.

Kelly Zimmerman – Marketing Directory, Clipper City Brewing Company and general women-in-beer advocate. She heads up the Ladies’ Nights at Clipper City and is a member of the Pink Boots Society.

Hollie Stephenson – Future Brewer, Black Squirrel who spent three weeks this fall taking a brewer’s course in the U.K. in preparation for heading up Black Squirrel’s microbrewing efforts. We look forward to seeing how her passion for beer translates to making her own brews.

Chris Ames – Manager, Maryland Homebrew who delivers very knowledgeable and patient on and off-site “tech support” for novice homebrewers like the Lagerheads. She knows beer and brewing and is eager to help get more ladies involved.

BIZ

Erin Tyler – Sales Manager for Legends Limited, a local specialty beer wholesale company. She is a beer expert and advocate for craft and imported beer (the flavorful kind) who is often called on to share her knowledge at beer events.

Susan Greene – Sales Manager, Global Brewers Guild. You are likely to run into her manning tables at local beer festivals, pouring the excellent brands her company makes available to the area. She cares about bringing the best beers she can get to you.

WAIT, ONE MORE…

YOU – Beer enthusiast and soon-to-be female beer connoisseur who, after reading this post, decided to get out that there and learn as much as you can about beer. Go get ‘em! First stop: Meet & Greet with beer experts Christina Perozzi and Hallie Beaune tonight at ChurchKey.

As we mentioned, the Lagerheads have been reading The Naked Pint by Christina Perozzi and Hallie Beaune, in anticipation of meeting them this week (which you can do Tuesday night at ChurckKey). The book naturally appeals to women because it is written by two female beer experts, and when you’re into something not that many other women are into, it’s nice to be able to reach out to each other.

That said, although the female perspective represented in the book is both thoughtful and entertaining, The Naked Pint is a thorough guide to all things beer written for anyone, not just the ladies. Still, all this talk of women and beer got us thinking. In addition to gals like Christina and Hallie, what queens of beer do like-minded female beer geeks have to look up to? We put together a not-at-all exhaustive list below.

PIONEERS:

Carol Stoudt – Brewmaster and Owner, Stoudt’s Brewing Company, and the very “First Lady” of craft beer.

Kim Jordan – Owner, New Belgium Brewing Company, who has turned her basement brewing operation into one of the top three craft breweries in the United States.

Barbara Groom & Wendy Pound - Brewmasters and Owners, Lost Coast Brewery, and two of the first female brewpub owners.

ADVOCATES:

Teri Fahrendorf - Founder, Pink Boots Society, an association for women in the beer industry. She is a 30-year brewer and unofficial craft beer goodwill ambassador.

Sue Smith-Troy & Cinzia Wallace – Co-Founders, Ales 4 Females, a beer education and empowerment club in Colorado (link found under “About Us” on Left Hand’s site).

BREWERS:

Tanya Cornett – Brewmaster, Bend Brewing Company and first woman to win the Brewmaster Award at the World Beer Cup.

Jenny Talley – Head Brewer, Squatters, and winner of over two dozen medals for her outstanding beers.

MEDIA:

Julie Johnson-Bradford – Editor, All About Beer Magazine , organizer of the World Beer Festival, and overall awesome beer educator.

Lucy Saunders – Author of Cooking With Beer, Grilling With Beer, and a whole host of articles about beer and food.

Anat Baron – Director, Beer Wars, an insightful documentary about the business of big beer. She is also has years of experience in the beer industry (but not craft).

Carolyn Smagalski – Editor, BellaOnline Beer & Brewing.

INDUSTRY:

Lynn Kruger – President, Siebel Institute, a highly regarded brewers’ academy in Chicago.

Julia Herz – Craft Beer Program Director for the Brewers Association and beer event host extraordinaire.

UBER GEEKS:

Cornelia Corey & Diane Catanzaro – The only two women to have won Beer Drinker of the Year.

Paste Magazine’s most recent “List of the Day” surveys the 25 best American breweries of the decade. Just hours after it was posted, a friend asked us what we thought. Overall, we think it’s pretty solid. We’ve had beer from all of the breweries, some more than others, especially Paste’s picks for the two top spots, Dogfish Head and Allagash. Still, we have a few beefs…

We wouldn’t have placed Victory or Founder’s in the top five. Those spots should have been reserved for cutting-edge breweries like Lost Abbey and Russian River. Similarly, we love Weyerbacher but probably would have placed Bell’s in its top 10 spot. And Jolly Pumpkin way down at 19? We don’t think so.

Perhaps going beyond the bounds of Paste’s rating method, we would have  listed Brooklyn, Stone, and Samuel Adams much higher for their widespread efforts to inform American drinkers that there’s more to beer than Bud, Coors, and Michelob, as well as raise the status of beer in general. We also would have tried to squeeze Flying Dog, Left Hand, Troegs, and Duck Rabbit somewhere into the top 25.

Beyond that, if we could have done a Top 40, we would have tried to get O’Dell’s, The Bruery, Boulevard, Full Sail, Captain Lawrence, 21st Amendment, Sly Fox, Anderson Valley, New Holland, Clipper City, Bear Republic, and Elysian on the list, but it would have been very difficult to decide who goes where. Since many of the aforementioned breweries are up and coming, we have a good feeling several of them will be on next decade’s list.

For those of you who don’t have the patience to click, below is Paste’s list. We won’t take the time here to argue the reasons for our gripes, but let us know what you think in the comments and we’ll continue the conversation there.

1. Dogfish Head (Milton, DE)
2. Allagash (Portland, ME)
3. Avery (Boulder, CO)
4. Victory (Downington, PA)
5. Founder’s (Grand Rapids, MI)
6. AleSmith (San Diego, CA)
7. Russian River (Santa Rosa, CA)
8. Three Floyds (Hammond, IN)
9. Weyerbacher (Easton, PA)
10. Lost Abbey (San Marcos, CA)
11. Bell’s (Kalamazoo, MI)
12. Lagunitas (Petulama, CA)
13. Deschutes (Bend, OR)
14. Rogue (Ashland, OR)
15. Samuel Adams (Boston, MA)
16. Oskar Blues (Lyons, CO)
17. New Glarus (New Glarus, WI)
18. New Belgium (Ft. Collins, CO)
19. Jolly Pumpkin (Dexter, MI)
20. Stone (Escondido, CA)
21. North Coast (Fort Bragg, CA)
22. Ommegang (Cooperstown, NY)
23. Brooklyn (Brooklyn, NY)
24. Sierra Nevada (Chico, CA)
25. Great Divide (Denver, CO)

Christina Perozzi and Hallie Beaune are smart, funny, beautiful, and really know what they are talking about when it comes to beer. Their recent book, The Naked Pint, made our list of top five beer reads last week. At that time, we tortured you with the fact that we would be among the lucky few to meet the L.A. duo this month at an exclusive media-only event.

Well, thanks to the hard work of some folks at Flying Dog and ChurchKey, and steady encouragement and applauding from us, there is now a fabulous opportunity for you to meet the talented writers. Next Tuesday, November 17, from 7:00 to 9:30pm, Christina and Hallie will be at ChurchKey at 14th and Rhode Island, NW, doing what they do best, sharing their love of craft beer.

The two famous beer chicks will be on hand to talk about beer, give away signed copies of their book, and sample and discuss ChurchKey’s offerings with you. On top of the Logan Circle hotspot’s regular list, there will be a special selection from local award-winning brewery, Flying Dog. Drafts include Gonzo Imperial Porter, Double Dog Double Pale Ale, and Belgian IPA Raging Bitch, which the Lagerheads got to try at the beer’s world premiere at the Brickskeller in May. The cask will be Flying Dog’s Doggie Style Classic Pale Ale, and as if all this great beer wasn’t enough, the brewery will be giving away plenty of schwag.

About the authors:

Renowned beer sommeliers Christina Perozzi and Hallie Beaune met at the famed Father’s Office in Santa Monica, CA, and became fast friends over the bond they shared with their one true love, craft beer. After a long night of work answering the same questions over and over again, they decided (over beers, of course) to write a book about the best beverage in the world, so that everyone could know craft beer as well as they do.

In The Naked Pint: An Unadulterated Guide to Craft Beer, Perozzi and Beaune offer a down-to-earth guide to craft and artisanal brews that celebrates beer for what it truly is: sophisticated, complex and flavorful. Covering everything from beer basics to the science of behind beer, food and beer pairings, home brewing, and tips for perfecting one’s palate. This edgy no-nonsense guide exposes hidden truths, debunks misconceptions, and reveals the power that comes from knowing your ales from a hole in the ground! Christina and Hallie live by the credo: Beer is good!

We’ll be there. You should, too. If for some insane reason this event doesn’t sound like you’re thing, however, there are plenty of other beer events going on that night. Check out our Google calendar for details.

We’ve written before about the aged-beer craze, but this is getting out of hand. This Saturday, the auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Son will host the bidding for a bottle of Lowenbrau lager that survived the 1937 crash of the Hindenburg near Lakehurst, New Jersey. The zeppelin was completely destroyed when it caught fire and exploded, killing 36 passengers and crew. From the ashes, a local firefighter pulled six bottles of beer and buried them before investigators closed-off the area. He went back later and dug them up. Today, only two bottles are known to remain–one having been returned to Lowenbrau; the other bound for the auction block. But even if you have the $8,000 that this particular brew is expected to fetch, don’t even think about drinking it: auctioneers say the beer spoiled in 1938 and today would taste “putrid.” Yum! Whatever the Hindenburg beer goes for, it will most certainly take the world record for the most expensive bottle of suds in history, easily displacing the current record holder, a $400-bottle of Carlsberg lager.

The little guys seem to be winning left and right lately, at least in the beer world. First we had the Rock Art Brewery vs. Monster Energy (but really Anheuser Busch) debacle over the word “monster.” After an intense social media campaign, the corporate giant meanies backed off and brewery co-founder Matt Nedau declared victory.

Then just two weeks after all the hub-bub about Black Rooster being forced to close its doors, we heard the DC bar was being allowed to stay at its downtown location.  According to Mike Dolan at DCBeer, the bar is open for business again starting November 16, and they are set to have a Grand Re-Opening Party November 20.

Just when we thought the underdogs’ day was done, we got news last week that there are plans to reopen Dr. Dremo’s at a new Clarendon location. The historic bar closed in January 2008, a casualty to a land redevelopment plan, but owner Andrew Stewart has a grand scheme to bring Dr. Dremo’s back this spring. Yours For Good Fermentables has all the details and a set of links with background info.

If you read our posts you know we have a soft spot in our livers for a handful of things, and Dogfish Head Brewery founder Sam Calagione and collaboration beers are two of them. Now that Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada are producing what will be each brewery’s the latter’s first collaborative effort, Life & Limb (and companion beer Limb & Life), we seem to have hit the blog jackpot.

The supportive atmosphere and camaraderie among American craft brewers is often commented on,  so it should be no surprise that brewery founders  Sam Calagione and Ken Grossman decided to make a beer together over a couple of cold ones at last year’s Craft Brewer’s Conference in Boston. In early September, just months after Grossman initiated the idea, the two met to brew at Sierra Nevada’s pristine facilities in Chico, California.

The beers were designed to show the personalities of each brewery and the men behind them. We think they have done just that. According to the Life & Limb website:

Life & Limb is a 10% ABV strong, dark beer that defies style characteristics— brewed with pure maple syrup from the Calagione family farm in Massachusetts and estate barley grown on the Grossman “farm” at the brewery in Chico, CA. The beer is alive with yeast—a blend of both breweries’ house strains—bottle conditioned for added complexity and shelf life, and naturally carbonated with birch syrup fresh from Alaska. Life & Limb is dedicated to the family of beer drinkers and enthusiasts worldwide who continue to support the little guys, iconoclasts, entrepreneurs, and pioneers who risk life and limb to shape the vibrant craft-brewing community.

Limb & Life is a ’small’ beer, made from the second runnings of the larger brew, Life & Limb. Limb & Life has a roasted malt flavor reminiscent of dark roasted coffee and toasted bread, combined with a pronounced hoppiness from the use of bold and aromatic American hops. Limb & Life is an easy drinking ’session’ beer – an antidote to the heavy sippers, and a beer that begs for another glass. It is balanced yet flavorful, hoppy yet not without strong malt, and drinkable but still complex.

Limb & Life came out in October, and Pizzeria Paradiso Dupont Circle was lucky enough to get one of only 75 kegs released. According to bar manager Greg Jasgur, they are all out but will be getting Life & Limb as soon as it is available. Pizzeria Paradiso Dupont Circle is having a Dogfish Head/Sierra Nevada brunch on Sunday, December 6. The Lagerheads have a sneaking suspicion not only that Life & Limb will find its way onto the menu, but judging by the popularity of the event without much promotion, “brewery personalities in attendance” could have people thinking the beer legend and rock star brewer will be there themselves.

We have heard that Whole Foods, Chevy Chase Liquors, The Brickskeller, RFD, and Birch & Barley will also be good places to look for Life & Limb on draft or in 24oz. bottles starting next week. With only about 11,000 gallons out there we suggest snatching some up, especially since the beer is supposed to be great for aging.

Our experience reflects a national trend. It’s been legal to brew your own beer since 1978, and that change in U.S. law has been responsible for the “Craft Beer Revolution” we’ve seen in this country over the last 30 years. These first homebrewers in the late 70’s moved from their garages to starting the first wave of microbreweries in the early 80’s, and then many like Sierra Nevada founder Ken Grossman developed their operations into today’s craft beer giants.

This general mania is what we think gets more people into homebrewing each year, but we are sure that the AHA’s annual event has helped things along a bit as well. Just last year, the group claims, 2,100 homebrewers taught 610 people how to brew, producing 2,800 gallons of beer in the process. So give it a try. After all, it’s not all that difficult and requires a relatively tiny upfront investment in equipment, most of which you can find at your local homebrew store or here on the web. If you are not ambitious enough to go out and buy your own carboy and ale pail yet, perhaps one of the local homebrewers’ clubs (DC Homebrewers or BURP) has something going on Saturday.

Meanwhile, there are two stores in the DC area that provide everything you need. We go to the Maryland Homebrew in Columbia and get plenty of advice from Chris and the other helpful folks there. If that’s too far, consider myLocal-Home-Brew-Shop off Route 7 in Falls Church. Happy brewing!