Two exciting beer events are coming to D.C. this month — both on the same day. Both parties involved assured me that neither knew the about other, which seems unlikely in a small town with so much tweeting, but I made them all cross their hearts. Brasserie Beck will host Brooklyn Brewmaster Garrett Oliver, who [...]

Brewery collaborations are much in vogue these days. Dogfish Head recently teamed up with Three Floyds. Three Floyds with Mikkeller. Avery has mixed things up with Russian River. And most recently, Bell's got together with De Proef. There are probably numerous other examples of brewers cross-pollinating. (If you know of more, please let us know [...]

Summer is upon us, and in a few short weeks we'll be in the midst of one of the best eating and drinking opportunities of the year, Independence Day. The Fourth of July is one of those freebies that comes along every so often–Thanksgiving, Christmas, your birthday, etc.–when calories simply do not matter. So take [...]

At its worst, attending a food or drink “tasting” means borrowing a nice jacket, thinking about my pinky placement, using adjectives normally reserved for literary journals, and that heinous crime of waste: the swish-and-spit. It begs a level of restraint I have a hard time keeping in front of exciting beer. I’m getting better – I now slow my drinking when my notes devolve into emoticons – but it’s still easiest to stop and smell the roses with the help of an instructor.

There are few better instructors than Garrett Oliver, Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster and cultural ambassador to a nation of enthusiastic guzzlers. He led a tasting, “The Art of Barrel-Aging Beer,” at the National Geographic Society on May 6, with eight beers that have enjoyed woody hibernation.

History lesson about barrels and the bugs in your beer, and the all-important drool list, after the jump.