My New Year's resolution for 2011 is to be an omnivorous drinker: to appreciate beer in both quality and quantity. I had long been beguiled by promises of sexier beer—aged in bourbon, wine, brandy, and raw oak barrels; inoculated with yeast strains from far-off lands; infused with enough hops to endanger the species—but for every [...]
There is plenty of festive beer fun to be had in the District this week. A little bit about the week below, but for more details on any event, click on it in our D.C. Beer Events Calendar above. It's Hanukkah, so why not head to ChurchKey or Fireworks Pizza for He'brew Jewbilation and other Schmalz [...]
WaPo's Greg Kitsock and I are both beer writers in D.C., and we frequent many of the same bars, shops, and overly geeky listservs, but rarely do we actually cross paths. So it's significant that we both happened to choose the emerging "black IPA" style for our columns this week. Well, at least that's what [...]
Where Spotted: Cork & Fork, 7333 Atlas Walk Way, Gainesville, Va. Price: $9.99 per 6-pack Art of Darkness: Black IPAs are a fresh take on that distinctly American style of beer, pairing the citrus-peel and herbaceous bitterness of hops with the French-roast-coffee notes of dark malts. The result, particularly in the balanced Back in Black, [...]
I caught a pleasant surprise while scanning the beer menu at Birch & Barley one recent Sunday. It was a recovery brunch, and between my hangover, my caffeine deficiency, and the 14th Street traffic and blazing heat pounding our streetside table, I wasn't looking to order a beer so much as brush up on new [...]
Not long after the U Street corridor spot opened a year ago, we popped into Policy for the first time and quickly filed it away as a place to go in the unlikely event we were in the mood for velvet ropes, fancy cocktails, and house music. We never thought beer would bring us back, but [...]
Dry off those snowboots and get ready to head back out there. Although the Brickskeller has postponed their second night of strong ales, there is still plenty to do beerwise in DC this week. Tonight 21st Amendment founder Nico Freccia will be taking a winter holiday from his San Francisco can brewery to hang out at [...]
2009 was an exciting beer for year in D.C., and not just because of the opening of Churchkey/Birch & Barley and the mega-improvement of Pizzeria Paradiso Dupont Circle — you already know all about that. No, what marked 2009 was the enormous influx of breweries expanding their distribution to D.C. If the lack of local [...]
On Dec. 5, 1933, just 10 months after Congress proposed it, enough states had finally ratified the 21st Amendment so that America could, once and for all, repeal Prohibition and end the country's long Noble Nightmare Experiment. I'm not sure if it's residual relief, or just another excuse to party, that continues to fuel our [...]
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, [...]
