Those pinky-sized cylinders you see above are how they drink beer in the German city of Cologne, enjoying a civilized 0.2 liters (about seven ounces) of delicate, floral, and crisp Kölsch beer at a time. With a lightweight cylinder of ale resting gently in your hand, you'll feel a sunny disposition after the first sip—something you can now try at two local beer gardens: H Street's Biergarten Haus and also the Standard, at the corner of 14th and S streets NW.

Still not convinced about the extra-small serving? Standard smoke-master and co-owner Tad Curtz wasn't either, at first.

"One day they gave us these little glasses, and we didn't know what to do with them," he said. "At first, I was like, 'they're so small and cute!' But then I read more about the history and learned that's how they drink it in Cologne, and I loved it."

That was at his old gig, working the line at 2 Amys. He also ran the wine program there for a stint, and much as he loved the yeoman's beer, it wasn't a popular choice at the Neapolitan-style pizzeria. So when Curtz opened his own beer garden, putting Kölsch on the menu was an easy choice and a bit of a reunion.

It helps that the beer's good, too. Kölsch is a featherweight blonde, fermented at regular ale temperature (warm) to produce the yeasty, floral aromas, then cold-conditioned, or "lagered," for two to four weeks, which cuts down the aroma with signature crispness. The result is a complex beer that's light enough to make Hofbrau Helles feel like a loaf of soda bread. It's difficult to make well, and it's a rare American version that is worth seeking out.

But being such a fussy beer, it tastes best on tap. And being a summer quaff, it's best outdoors. Find 0.2-liter glasses of Gaffel Kölsch at Biergarten House for $3, or my preference, the more rewarding Reissdorf Kölsch, at Standard for $2.73. (And no, ordering 10 glasses doesn't mean you keep the tray. I tried.)

One last note: If you saw the New York Times piece about Kölsch the other day, don't go riling up your D.C. inferiority complex just yet. When the story ran, Standard's glasses were in the mail, and Biergarten Haus has served the beer since opening day.

Photo by Orr Shtuhl

Here's a few of the best quotes that didn't make the story.

ChurchKey's beer director, Greg Engert, organizes his list of 500-plus bottles by flavor profile rather than style. This can make it more difficult for an educated drinker to find a specific IPA he might have in mind, but in the hands of a smart curator, it helps people discover new beers. So if a beer is both fruity and hoppy, how does he know in which category to list it? Says Engert:

I think about if somebody really despised a beer, I think about what they wouldn't like about it, and I make sure to put it in that category. While you're always trying to help people find what they like, you have to think about what the most dominant flavor is.

The wine-themed Proof has always kept a small stable of good beers, but it wasn't until the restaurant's tap system broke that wine director Sebastian Zutant really built out his beer cellar. He says:

When my tap system when down was when my beer by the bottle list really expanded. It was kind of a blessing and a curse—a curse in that I love craft beer, but a blessing in that I could get a lot of things in a bottle that I just couldn't get on draft. There's just so much more availability. ... It's like my wines by the glass list, in that I try to find eclectic producers doing some really neat things.

In the story, I focus on where to get good bottles of beer—although now that I think of it, "D.C.'s Worst Bars" might be a story for another day. But several beer directors told me they look to the bottle list when they're at a bar they don't trust to keep their drafts clean and fresh.

Pizzeria Paradiso's Greg Jasgur says:

I'd say most people prefer draft, but it seems counterintuitive to me. It leaves more open to the bar, whether the draft lines are clean, whether the kegs are fresh.… In a bottle, unless it's sitting outside in 95-degree heat and blazing sun, it's pretty much exactly how the brewer wants it to be.

And finally, while I'm more at home at a neighborhood joint than in Policy's Ed Hardy-esque club, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the 14th Street NW establishment put almost as much stock in its beer menu as in table service. (I didn't get an ice bucket on my visit, but probably because I was one of those squares who went before midnight.) Here's how manager Jordan Davidowitz describes Policy's large-format bottle list, dubbed "40 Ounces to Freedom":

We do it the same way we present wine. We bring out an ice bucket, we do the snifters, we present the bottle. ... It's great to see some people sit down, listen to some good music, and order a nice bottle. It's definitely a good look.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

For three generations, the Martinez family has farmed hard-bean coffee at Finca Vista Hermosa, in the northwestern highlands of Huehuetenango, Guatemala. A portion of the harvest the family sends to Minneapolis, where Coffee & Tea Limited roasts and sells it, shipping a fraction of the beans 10 miles down the road to Brooklyn Center, Minn., home of Surly Brewing Company. There, the coffee is cold-brewed and becomes part of Surly’s Coffee Bender, a silky glass of iced coffee posing as a brown ale. To log a few extra miles in the journey, a scant case or two of the canned beer occasionally finds its way to D.C.

You won’t find Surly’s beers at your local shop. You can scarcely find them in the Midwest—last summer the brewery pulled out of nearly all its markets to focus on the Twin Cities—but there is exactly one place in town where you can drink Coffee Bender, and there’s no secret knock required. It’s Estadio, the Spanish restaurant in Logan Circle, where beer buyer Max Kuller orders it from an online purveyor when he can. (He asked me to keep his hook-up secret, but he said he would share it with a curious customer.)

I’ve had the good fortune to eat in Barcelona, and to the best of my recollection none of the tapas bars I grazed at featured coffee-tinged brown ales. In fact, I’m fairly certain I avoided beer altogether. Spain is not a beer country. But at Estadio, ciders, sherries, and tempranillo mingle with a select list of American beers, tradition be damned. It’s one of many restaurants giving new attention to their beer bottle lists, aiming to entice and challenge diners. Kuller dedicates half his menu to Spanish beer, but he has no problem justifying Jolly Pumpkin Noel de Calabaza, a hauntingly deep Belgian-style Christmas ale from Michigan whose puckery notes come from barrel aging with the brewery’s signature wild yeast.

“I found a rationale quickly to bring in the Jolly Pumpkin beers,” Kuller says. “They all have Spanish names, or at least Spanish-sounding names…I kind of justify the sours not only for the Spanish name but because they’re somewhat related to the Basque ciders. I’ll probably put a gueuze on the menu at one point. I think you don’t need too much rationale for something that’s tasty.”

An emphasis for unlikely beer runs in the family. Max’s father, Mark Kuller, owns, in addition to Estadio, the wine-centric Proof in Penn Quarter. There, wine director and part-time beer drinker Sebastian Zutant commands an eclectic mix of large-format bottles bolstered by single-serving beers from standbys such as Victory and Oskar Blues. Even at this oenophile’s temple, where wine bottles regularly cost three digits, he has a hard time selling 750 mL beer bottles for $25. Sometimes he’ll find a hit: A case of the sought-after Allagash Interlude sold out in two weeks. But more often, customers are hesitant to spend a ton on beer.

“It does make me irate that the world is not ready to pay a lot for beer,” Zutant says. “You can spend $10,000 on some cheval blanc, and it will be some of the most amazing stuff in the world. But you would never see something like that for a beer...The perception of spending 20 bucks on a four-pack of beer is like, ‘woah!’ But that’s a significant amount of booze, and it’s going to be high-quality, expensive stuff to make.”

Think about it: For under $30, you and a few friends go to a restaurant and split a 750 mL bottle —some would say “wine bottle” —of one of the best beers in the world. For that price, a wine bar might let you sniff the cork.

Of course, pricey beer bottles have to compete against draft brews in addition to upscale wines. It’s a competition that Brasserie Beck general manager Thor Cheston doesn’t have much time for. “Draft beer is a myth,” he says. “For decades, centuries, people’s conception was that the freshest beer was the beer on draft. And that all started when the beer on draft at your local pub was the beer around the corner.…When the beer is kegged, and it’s pasteurized, it’s losing a fermentation cycle. When it’s conditioned [as is often the case with Belgian bottles], they’re adding sugar, and it sits and ferments for weeks or months, and it adds a tremendous amount of flavor to the beer. When they’re pasteurizing the beer and kegging it directly, the keg is dead. It can be very frustrating sometimes, when you get a beer you really love and it’s not nearly as good as you remember it from the bottle.”

Cheston allows that not all kegs are pasteurized—and not all bottles are “conditioned,” or given an extra dose of live yeast so they’ll keep fermenting until the moment you pop the cap. Some brews really ought to be poured from kegs, especially perishable varieties like pilsners, American pale ales, and English bitters. But others, like the Belgian and German beers where conditioning is common, are made for the bottle. If you know a few rules of thumb, you can make a bar’s bottle list work for you.

Greg Jasgur, who manages the beer for Pizzeria Paradiso, points to a favorite example: Bruery Hottenroth, a Berliner weisse that sells at the chain’s Georgetown establishment for $18 for 750 mL. It’s a sprightly wheat beer that employs wild yeast for a sourdough tartness, echoing the bright tomato and basil notes of a margherita pizza. But it’s an obscure style of beer, and only 3.1 percent alcohol by volume (ABV) to boot, which means it lingers on the menu. All the while, the yeast in the bottle continues to churn away.

“That’s the kind of beer that’s not going to go bad,” Jasgur says. “It’ll get better and better, or funkier and funkier, I should say.”

Around D.C., there are two types of bottle lists: small and curated, per Estadio and Proof, or huge and empowering, like the bound and chaptered volumes at emporiums such as ChurchKey and Bier Baron, successor to the now-closed Brickskeller. Having a few hundred beers at your disposal is empowering indeed: You’re allowed to pinpoint the precise beer you need, whether it’s to pair with dinner or to mark a special occasion.

Sometimes a turn in the weather will send me flipping through the menu. On a recent night, I stare out the windows at ChurchKey, watching sheets of near-freezing rain slap the other side of the glass over 14th Street NW. The 55-strong draft section lists IPAs from both American coasts and rare collaborative brews from Scandinavia and the British Isles. There’s a raft of Quebecois beers that I’m told are the Next Big Thing, and my sense of professional duty is nagging me to try one.

But with a storm outside, my bones want a cozy, warming armchair of a beer. I heft ChurchKey’s tome and thumb to the “Fruit & Toffee” section, where I locate Anchor Old Foghorn, an English-style barleywine. Within minutes, I’m cradling a snifter of sweet figs and plums, letting the beer’s deep tobacco tones wash over me. It’s a luxurious feeling, to have hundreds of beers at your fingertips, like a feasting Bourbon king. It’s an even better feeling to find the one among the hundreds that is exactly what you’re looking for.

Follow Orr Shtuhl’s beer drinking adventures around town at twitter.com/beerspotter.

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

The beer and food festival, which returns to its original two-day format for its fourth year, will take place June 3 and 4 at the National Building Museum. Tickets cost $110, plus $30 for the optional educational salons, and go on sale March 3. (Pre-sale tickets are available to American Homebrewers Association and the Brewers Association members on March 1.) But enough minutiae: What will we be drinking?

The D.C. area is ably represented by Flying Dog, Mad Fox, Brewer's Art, DOG Brewing, Ruddy Duck, and Flying Dog, who is sponsoring this year after its absence last year. (For more detail, read this excellent piece by The Lagerheads on how Savor selects its breweries.) Fellow nerds will be excited to see some cult breweries added to the mix for the first time, including California's AleSmith, Florida's Cigar City, New York's Captain Lawrence, Michigan's Short's, and Illinois' Two Brothers. I think I just sold 50 tickets there. Check out the entire list on the Savor website.

Back in October, a  blog post appeared on the Adams Morgan beer bar's website just as the Chandra Levy murder trial was in the news. The post's subject: Illegal immigrants, a population that includes the man who murdered the former intern. Emma Lazarus, it wasn't. The post begins by criticizing Stephen Colbert for making light of the issue, then delves into stronger words about illegal immigrants. The incendiary bits:

The next time Stephen Colbert slips into his alter ego and skewers the illegal-alien issue to laughs, he might want to consider the family of Chandra Levy, the 24-year-old intern who went jogging in Rock Creek Park on May 1, 2001 and was brutally murdered. [...]

The Levys are hardly the only U.S. family to discover that not all illegal aliens come here to work and eventually enter the mainstream. Too many come here to ply their illicit trades, take up with gangs and live in the shadow of polite society.

They are a menace who eat up tax dollars and terrorize neighborhoods. That is a reality different from the one often peddled on Capitol Hill in bi-partisan fashion, which is: They do the menial work that Americans no longer are inclined to do. The latter is an insult to millions of blue-collar Americans.

The post lay there, sans controversy, for months. And then, this week, the post suddenly provoked a flurry of comments on Twitter and on Wonkette, which highlighted the piece. Commenters cast Black Squirrel, heretofore known as the home of a broad array of beers, as the home of a narrow-minded variety of politics.

There's no date or author listed, but I spoke with Black Squirrel co-owner Tom Knott, who told me he wrote the piece. "It wasn't intended to be political," he says. Notwithstanding this week's online critics, Knott says it was Colbert who was the offending party. "Cracking jokes about something like that can be taken in poor taste. … Sometimes satirists get a wide berth when they're talking about stuff like that."

Knott updates the site infrequently (his last post is a few weeks old), and the content mostly leans toward posts about sports, like a recent one poking fun at Allen Iverson. He writes all the stories; co-owners Gene Sohn (who's also the chef) and Amy Bowman (who manages beer and runs the bar's Twitter feed) aren't involved. When Knott and I spoke this afternoon, he hadn't heard the recent clamor about the Levy post. At the advice of his web designer, he said, he had added an Associated Press news feed and occasionally posts about current events to help draw traffic.

"The idea [for the website] was to do topical things that people are Googling or Twittering about or whatever," he says. "The thinking was if that drives more traffic to the website, that would lead to more customers. It's to do something a little bit different than a regular website, that just lists the menu and the specials."

He certainly got the traffic. Alas, feedback has been overwhelmingly negative, with people calling the establishment "crass and racist" and espousing "rank bigotry."

Knott, for the record, says he likes the legal kind of immigrants:

"Plenty of restaurants have Latinos that work for them. We do. I don’t have problem with that. Talking about illegal immigration, that's a problem. We do have a problem. … I don't have a problem with immigration, but if someone's suffered, that's not good. I think we have good pathways to citizenship, and I have no problem with that."

Though I won't deny that alcohol has a fun side, at a point it becomes a barrier to enjoying another beer. Sometimes I want to taste a good beer without the side effects (if Fuller's made a nonalcoholic version, their buttery London Pride would replace my morning oatmeal). In 2010, while creative upstarts flourished and boutique breweries mugged for the cameras, America's most celebrated beer makers returned to their roots with quietly seductive "session" beers, the wonderfully English term for beers tame enough to accompany you through the night.

So here are my top five beers of the year. Two are brand new; three are new to D.C. Hopheads, you'll note there's not a single IPA on the list. Feel free to retaliate and tell me everything I missed, such as, say, Oskar Blues Gubna. But at least I can enjoy all of my favorites in one sitting.

5. Victory Mad King's Weiss: New ideas are churning at Victory, which sent a number of small-batch kegs to D.C. in 2010, such as their Pursuit Pale Ale series, which tested various configurations of Simcoe and Citra hops. The year's standout was Mad King's Weiss, a brewpub standby that appeared briefly in August at Room 11 and ChurchKey. It's an all-around hefeweizen, squarely within the German tradition but hitting every note—from wheat to honey to clove—with a little more oom-pah.

4. Saison du BUFF: I'm loathe to admit liking any beer with its own cinematic trailer, but there's no ignoring this collaboration between Dogfish Head, Victory, and Stone. It's brewed with parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, but what sounds like a nauseating gimmick actually makes for a zesty, herbaceous saison. Balanced with citrus-heavy hops, it really is a new American riff on the classic European farmhouse ale.

3. Hopfenstark Saison Station 16: Rough and spicy, rye is becoming a popular ingredient in brewing, and it's most at home in a bone-dry saison. In Hopfenstark's hands, the rough-hewn malts meet lemon notes and lactic, sourdough tang for a memorable take on the style from one of the bright spots in the burgeoning Québécoise brewing scene.

2. 21st Amendment Bitter American: With Bitter American, brewmaster Shaun O'Sullivan propels the growing West-coast trend of low-alcohol, high-hop ales. Notably, Stone takes a crack at one with Leviation Ale, but the complexity O'Sullivan achieves with his rich specialty malt makes the others pale in comparison (ahem). The 21st Amendment brewpub in San Francisco has poured the summer seasonal since 2007, and after making its D.C. debut last year, it will see full release in cans come summer 2011.

1. Sierra Nevada Tumbler: The last two years have been huge for Sierra Nevada, which has put out 10 new beers—a stunning number considering the size and ubiquity of craft beer's friendly green giant. Its 30th Anniversary series and collaboration with Dogfish Head have drawn the most publicity, but while they were tinkering with imperial stouts and barleywines, Sierra Nevada quietly perfected the world's least assuming beer style: the brown ale.

In the 1990s and the first half of the last decade, brown ales were staples of brewpubs and start-up breweries; they were crowd-pleasing, mostly identical, and usually not terrible. A few breweries still produce good versions, notably Smuttynose, Avery, and Bell's, but the style has been falling out of favor—just this year Goose Island discontinued theirs. Meanwhile, the traditionalists at Sierra Nevada took a crack at the style and created the best brown around. Tumbler opens and closes with dry autumnal roast, bookending a rich, lingering body of chocolate and maple. (A touch of smoked malt helps set the mood.) A year ago, I'd have laughed in your face if you'd told me my new favorite drink would be a plain-Jane brown ale, the neglected fogey of beers. But between traditional hefeweizens, hoppy session ales, and comforting shades of brown, it seems plain is making a comeback.

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2011/01/03/beerspotters-top-5-beers-of-2010/feed/ 7 http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/27/bier-baron-brickskeller-replacement-opens-wednesday/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/27/bier-baron-brickskeller-replacement-opens-wednesday/#comments Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:06:06 +0000 Orr Shtuhl http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/?p=31916 The Tavern Formerly Known as Brickskeller has both a name and opening date: Bier Baron, the successor to Washington's most storied beer bar, will open for service Wednesday, Dec. 29 at 6 p.m. On that night, the walls will be decked with the same antique cans, and the kitchen will pump out the same pretzels and pierogies, but one thing is gone for good: the bait-and-switch beer menu.

"On opening, we will have 500 different beers, and every one of them, without question, will be available," says new owner Megan Merrifield.

Previous owners Dave and Diane Alexander bequeathed to Merrifield and her husband 350 different beers to get them started, and the new owners have been working with purveyors to shore up the offerings. Some of the rare inherited bottles will not be restocked, but Merrifield says the staff will monitor the menus diligently, "crossing off line by line" beers as they disappear.

As for the name, after their first choice, "Rock Creek," turned out to be taken, Merrifield turned to the public for help—a strategy that didn't quite work.

"So much of the Internet feedback, I would say 85 or 90 percent, incorporated something with the word 'brick' or with the word 'skeller,'" Merrifield says.

That's not quite the image they were after, besides whatever legal problems it could bring about. (Most of our commenters' suggestions, such as "Lurch and Burley" and "John Boehner's Tears," might have fallen to the same fate.) A family friend came up with "Bier Baron," which will also lend its brand to the building's upstairs lodging—Hotel Baron, which they estimate will open in six to eight weeks.

The new owners tried to keep as many people in their jobs as possible. Beer operations are in the hands of two Brickskeller floor managers, and although bar manager Rachel Murray is off to Bourbon, she might offer consultation and pick up the occasional shift.

Merrifield is also bringing in some culinary firepower, working with Zak Miller, pastry chef at PS7, to revamp the menu with items such as housemade pretzels.

If you're trying to find the new bar at 1523 22nd St. NW, look for the barren, not the Baron. The Brickskeller sign is gone, of course, and Merrifield says their new canopy won't be up until Friday. (Turns out, it's tough to get custom-made art, done fast, in the snow, the week after Christmas.) But even though Bier Baron has a long list of improvements ahead of it—menu, beer taps, renovations, tastings—one week is an awfully quick turnaround time for opening D.C.'s newest beer bar.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/27/bier-baron-brickskeller-replacement-opens-wednesday/feed/ 3 http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/27/whats-next-for-brickskellers-rachel-murray/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/27/whats-next-for-brickskellers-rachel-murray/#comments Mon, 27 Dec 2010 11:33:14 +0000 Orr Shtuhl http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/?p=31840 When the Brickskeller closed this month, it left most of its beer stash and walls of memorabilia to the new owners. But what will happen to the Brick's beer brain trust? For the last four years, bar manager Rachel Murray brought some of the world's best beers to the subterranean saloon, and now she'll take her talents to Bourbon's Glover Park location. Murray sat down with Y&H to discuss the Brick's last days, her plans for Bourbon, and "junior-high level" beer drinkers.

Young & Hungry: How have these past few weeks been, closing down Brickskeller?

Rachel Murray: I guess it seemed kind of unreal most of the time. I think many people didn't believe it was going to happen until they saw it with their own eyes. But for the most part, it was partly sad, understandable, and exciting at the same time.

Y&H: What did you do on the last day?

RM: I was bartending at the upstairs bar. My bar was mainly filled with people I knew who I either used to work with or who used to come in. Most of the night I was just ready for it to be over. I was exhausted from the whole week. Luckily it wasn't insanely busy the last night, but the entire week leading up to it was.

Y&H: Were you seeing familiar faces all week? It was packed the night I stopped by, but I felt like a lot of people were coming for the first time.

RM: It was a mix. From working there for over five years, most people knew to come find me at the bar so I personally saw many familiar faces. But many people I think came because of the hype.

Y&H: What are you up now that Brickskeller's closed?

RM: First of all. I'm taking some days off to relax after the craziness all month. But I'll also be working at Bourbon in Glover Park. I'm going to help pump some life into their beer promotions and use it as a base for my beer education program. But I'll also be creating more options for beer school. I have plenty of ideas for programs I can offer to other bars/restaurants or to anyone who is interested in having someone help them plan a beer event. It's all going to be part of my D.C. Beer Goddess work.

Y&H: Right, you did a handful of beer classes out of the Brickskeller.

RM: I had three different intro classes I ran out of the Brick. I'm planning some smaller sessions based more on styles. And I'm also working on a class for bar staff serving beer.

Y&H: How long have you been at Bourbon?

RM: I've been working brunch there since August.

Y&H: What is their beer program like right now?

RM: I've always been impressed by it. Since Bourbon opened its door, they've focused on carrying good American craft beer. The market in Glover Park is only recently getting interested like the rest of D.C., so we can start putting more interesting stuff on draft hopefully. The Bourbon in Adams Morgan receives more demand for the beer, but Glover Park is catching up.

Y&H: You've also got Blue Ridge and Breadsoda in that neighborhood. What do you think makes a neighborhood gain interest in beer?

RM: I think as more bars in the area start devoting a part of their menu to craft beer, people are exposed to it more. Bourbon has always had good beer in the bottle, but it was BreadSoda that put in many great domestic and imported craft brews which I think piqued some more interest in the neighborhood. Glover Park is an interesting neighborhood. I think the national interest in craft beer we are more exposed to today, whether it's actually good or not, gets more of the average customer looking for something different, even if they think Blue Moon or Magic Hat No. 9 is exotic at the time. At least it's a stepping stone.

Y&H: Sure, kind of a "rising tide" idea. How do you approach diners at Bourbon? What have you had success with, in terms of getting people into beer?

RM: I've only been serving brunch but it's actually a good time of the day to sell beer because it's more of a brunch drink. But if someone is interested in beer, they usually go for draft, I talk about the different flavors we have on draft and try to get someone out of their comfort zone. Even if I'm just selling a Schlafly Kolsch instead of a Miller Lite.

Y&H: And now that you'll be spending more time there, will we start seeing some of the more adventurous beers you were serving at Brickskeller?

RM: I don't know how soon I'll be able to get to that point. I feel like I'm dealing with a junior-high level of clientele, beerwise, that hopefully I can push into a high school level of beer drinking. But it's gonna be a while before I can get to the Ph.D. level the Brick helped me provide. However, people and places can surprise you. Maybe because I'm there now, we'll get a case of the crazy beer in town.

Y&H: That raises an interesting question to me: What's preferable, dealing great beer but sort of preaching to the choir, or introducing new people to beer but working with less exciting product?

RM: There are pros and cons to both of course. But seeing someone realize what they have in front of them when you give them a lineup of great beers, it's a satisfying feeling to know that you just converted someone.

Y&H: OK, quick last question: It's cold as hell outside. What are you drinking these days?

RM: I switch between a nice nutty Bell's Best Brown or a rich, chocolaty Founder's Porter.

Y&H: Awesome, I love seeing respect for the session beers.

RM: Of course.

Y&H: Cool. Well Rachel, thanks for taking some time to talk, and good luck at your newly expanded job.

RM: Thanks for everything.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/27/whats-next-for-brickskellers-rachel-murray/feed/ 0 http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/22/in-the-brickskellers-embers-a-flicker-of-hope/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/22/in-the-brickskellers-embers-a-flicker-of-hope/#comments Wed, 22 Dec 2010 17:19:33 +0000 Orr Shtuhl http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/?p=31757 Like a shell-shocked trauma victim, I've been devouring every memorial piece I can find about the Brickskeller. I've instructed Google News to alert me whenever a new one appears, like this blip from the Associated Press that made its way to L.A. I've even read the comments.

In the flurry over "Brickskeller Finally Pulls the Plug," a chilly sendoff by my grease-loving colleague Scott Reitz, the first cut was the deepest. DCBeer.com blogger Bill DeBaun writes:

Scott is apparently unacquainted with the concept of the eulogy. Perhaps he's used to reading eulogies that say, "Boy, Uncle Dan died. He had a great sense of humor. But what an awful drunk, and he was ugly to boot." Doesn't usually work that way.

From exceptional beers and long nights to concrete pierogies and cold service, my memories of the Brickskeller are mixed, but the experience I had during my last visit was the most poignant. My party and I had just shared a third-choice bottle, and as our waitress approached with a look of apology, it seemed we were about to strike out once again.

"We don't have any gueuze right now," she said. "But would you like to try this? It's also sour."

I've been here before, I thought. She was going to thrust some saccharine bottle of Lindemans Framboise that I'd sooner use as cheesecake topping than pour into a glass. But instead what materialized was a 750ml bottle of Odell Saboteur, a strong brown ale aged in oak and inoculated with the wild yeast strain Brettanomyces. I'd never tasted this rarity from Fort Collins, Colo., but I'd heard stories.

We obliged our server and tore through the bottle, inhaling the beer's vanilla and pineapple sugars, coated in wild tartness. It was the first time in ages that the Brickskeller had actually aided my attempts to discover new beer.

As we left later that night (after learning that they were out of Saison Dupont), I thought of my conversation with new owner Megan Merrifield, who had told me recently that she would be interviewing the staff and offering them positions at the bar's next iteration. As we've all seen, a daunting beer list such as the Brickskeller's is wasted without a proper courier. But as the Brickseller closes its doors, there are signs that some of the people keeping the lights on might be up to the task.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/22/in-the-brickskellers-embers-a-flicker-of-hope/feed/ 2 http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/22/first-look-at-dc-brau-labels/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2010/12/22/first-look-at-dc-brau-labels/#comments Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:08:03 +0000 Orr Shtuhl http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/?p=31774
Local start-up DC Brau, looking to be the first of several new breweries coming to the District, has released approved labels for all three of their flagship beers: The Public Pale, The Corruption India Pale, and The Citizen Belgian-Style Pale. The fine print reveals that the canned beers will be between 6% and 7% abv and come with D.C.-related factoids, Snapple-style.

More labels after the jump (via beernews.org). Peek inside the DC Brau brewery here.

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