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This Week: Oskar Blues at Tuscarora Mill, Heavy Seas Tastings at Whole Foods in Tenleytown and Fenwick Beer and Wine in Silver Spring

Tammy Tuck and Bruce Falconer — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:31:15 +0000

It's a relatively quiet week beer-wise, but there are still a few events of interest. On Wednesday, Tuscarora Mill in Leesburg will be hosting an Oskar Blues dinner, featuring Gordon, Old Chub, and Dale's Pale Ale. The event begins at 7pm and is $75, all inclusive. You can check out the menu here and reserve tickets here.

A rep from Baltimore's Heavy Seas will be at Whole Foods in Tenleytown this Thursday, 4:30pm-7:30pm, answering your questions and pouring free samples. Can't make that? You can also sample Heavy Seas at Fenwick Beer and Wine in Silver Spring on Friday between 4pm and 7pm.

Although this week lacks the usual pizazz when it comes to organized beer fun, you should feel consoled by looking ahead to the rest of August and all the events that are shaping up for D.C. Beer Week.

Oskar Blues’ Gubna to Further Tempt Hopheads

Orr Shtuhl — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:18:02 +0000

From the seasonal fervor surrounding beers like Bell's Hopslam, Troegs Nugget Nectar, and Avery Maharaja, D.C. beer drinkers have an obsession for lip-smacking double IPAs. Now we have another addition to fawn over: Oskar Blues Gubna.

The 10% abv double IPA just hit stores and should be around through the summer — check @Beerspotter on Twitter for updates on where to find it. It's going to be in the big-boy price range, at around $15 a four-pack. Usually I'd wait until trying a beer to mention it here on Y&H. But it's made by the folks that bought you Dale's Pale Ale, and the recipe includes rye malt, which should give it a dry, spicy kick. Also it's before noon for chrisssake. A man's got to be sober once in a while.

Avery’s Plan to Can

Tammy Tuck and Bruce Falconer — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:30:45 +0000

Beer in cans? The very idea used to induce self-satisfied chuckles among beer snobs. How things have changed. The prime mover in the shift was Oskar Blues in Longmont, Colorado, which released Dale's Pale Ale in cans back in 2002, followed by four other brews...and yet another, Gubna, due out in March. Their success launched a series of breweries, including several in Colorado, to get in the canning game. Joining them later this spring will be Boulder's Avery Brewing Company.

From the Denver food blog Westword:

The company, which is still testing the new canning line, hopes to have its Ellie's Brown Ale, White Rascal, India Pale Ale and a fourth beer — a new brew that Avery will reveal later this year — in cans and on Colorado liquor store shelves by May 1. (The beers will still primarily be available in bottles.)

"I've wanted to be in cans for a few years," says Avery president Adam Avery. "I grew up drinking up canned beer. Beer was in a can. Bottles were high falutin'."

The problem was that Avery spent a lot of money on a new bottling line in 2006, so the company wanted to wait until it had enough space to invest in cans, he explains. Now that it does, Avery thinks the investment will pay off.

Canned beers have certainly earned their place (Oskar Blues' Ten Fiddy has become a frequent resident in our refrigerator), but they still make up a fraction of the overall craft beer market. Although no official figures are kept, the Brewer's Association estimates that a mere one percent of domestic micro brews are canned. But Avery's move is almost sure to cause others to consider following suit.

Goose Island’s Bourbon-Beer Bonanza

Tammy Tuck and Bruce Falconer — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:32:43 +0000

We like beer, and we like bourbon, but we love bourbon beer. It began last September, when we visited Oskar Blues in Lyons, Colorado. The bar onsite had two bourbon-barrel-aged beers on tap, Gordon and Ten Fidy. All it took was one sip, and we were done for. The beers were almost too good, and, for a time, ruined our taste for anything that hadn't spent a few months soaking in the residue of good ole Kentucky brown liquor.

Oskar Blues doesn't distribute its bourbon beers to DC (not yet anyway, though we did make a trip to Max's in Baltimore last fall when they got hold of a keg of the stuff). The closest thing we've been able to find locally is Goose Island's Bourbon County Stout. It pours like motor oil, tastes of divine revelation, and at 13% ABV, demands your respect. Take it from us, this is a sipping beer. You can find it, probably among other places, at Connecticut Wine & Liquor Deli in Dupont Circle.

But hold on, it appears that the original Bourbon County will now be joined by at least three limited-edition seasonal variations. Goose Island's 2010 schedule includes the debut of Bourbon County Coffee Stout (due in March), Bourbon County Vanilla Stout (due in October), and Rare Bourbon County Stout (due in November). It all adds up to a great year for bourbon beer devotees, and (we hope) could indicate an industry-wide effort to come up with yet more barrel-aged concoctions to keep things interesting.

Photo courtesy of Goose Island Beer Company

Recap: Good Beer Tasting at Red Derby

Orr Shtuhl — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:26:52 +0000

As Twitter pros know, I hosted a beer tasting last night at the Columbia Heights neighborhood bar Red Derby. A warm crowd of strangers huddled together around a dimly lit pool table in the back room, clutched beer cups in each hand, and made friends over some serious side-by-side tasting.

Why side by side? Well, because double-fisting is fun in a frowned-upon way, like eating pancakes for dinner. But also because the point of the tasting, which spanned four different styles of beer, was for people to discover something new. Some people learned that beer can be sweet and chocolaty; others discovered the wonders of a hoppy pale ale. With side-by-side tastings, every beer has a point of reference, so in the end you remember more of what you tasted, which all leads to the ultimate goal: drink what you like.

Anyway, thanks all the great people who came out, and send me your suggestions for the next tasting on the big blue website. Full beer list after the jump:

Schlitz & National Bohemian – In the name of science, it had to be done. Derby has two $2 beers, and you know you're gonna be drinking one of them at some point. Side by side, Natty was a lot sweeter than I remembered, with a creamed-corn thing going on much like Miller High Life. The crowd agreed that Schlitz was distinctly more "beer-y" — and surprisingly hoppy for a can of fizzy water. The punch line? Both beers are made by Pabst.
Belhaven & Oskar Blues Old Chub – Here we had the traditional Belhaven, a Scotch ale that gets sweet caramel flavors from boiling the barley extra-long in the brew kettle, caramelizing the sugars. It was fine. Then we had Old Chub, a very American "extreme" take on the style, with real burnt-sugar flavors, some sticky maple, and a touch of smoke. This beer won over some converts; quoth one, "I didn't know beer could be sweet!"
Goose Island Matilda – Surprise beer! Eight beers just didn't seem like enough, so I picked this up on the way home from work before the tasting. It's a near-perfect Belgian-style strong ale, as I've written in Beerspotter, and was several people's favorite with its holiday clove and allspice and tickly Belgian yeast.
Butternuts Porkslap & Oskar Blues Dale's Pale Ale – Dale's is a dependably delicious can of citrusy hop nectar, and last night was no exception. Porkslap, though also a pale ale, is only 4.3% abv compared to Dale's at 6.5%, so of course there'll be less flavor. Porkslap is made with fresh ginger, which was a little too present in such a light beer and came off tinny. Still though, a nice beer considering it's about the strength of Corona.
Butternuts Moo Thunder & Oskar Blues Ten Fidy – AKA dessert. Like the Scotch ales, this wasn't a head-to-head matchup but more of a pairing; Moo Thunder is a milk stout, which means it's actually brewed with lactose for a creamy texture. Brewing yeast can't digest lactose the way it does other sugars, so it stays in the beer unfermented. Meanwhile, Ten Fidy weighs in at an eponymous 10.5% abv and looks like something you'd either put in your engine or remove from your septic tank. It had mounds of chocolate and some raisin sweetness, and a noticeable alcoholic burn. The perfect way to the end the tasting — before we all went to the bar for seconds of our favorite beers of the night.

Follow The Lagerheads’ Colorado Beer Odyssey

Tammy Tuck and Bruce Falconer — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:17:03 +0000

The Lagerheads are about to depart DC and Y&H for two weeks in Colorado with family and friends. We'll be leaving behind our laptops but definitely not putting down our beer mugs. How could we when our trip just so happens to coincide with Denver's Great American Beer Festival? Put on by the Brewers Association, the same great folks that organize Savor, GABF is a beer extravaganza that will draw as many as 50,000 people to the Mile High City from September 24th to 26th to sample from 2,000 beers made by 450 different American breweries.

We'll be at this annual beer mecca, and, if you choose to follow our progress on Facebook and Twitter, you can be there, too (virtually). iPhone in hand, we'll be sending photos and updates about what we're drinking, eating, seeing, and learning–as much as we can each day until the combination of heightened elevation and alcohol take hold. If you have any tips to help us keep our wits about us or suggestions for places we should go–let us know in the comments section. Details on our trip after the jump.

Much like DC put on an unofficial beer week for Savor, Denver builds its own beer week around GABF so all the beer fanatics like us in town have plenty to do. Events on our beertinerary include a progressive Great Divide beer dinner and brewery tour, a rare beer tasting at Wynkoop, and the Boulder County Brews Cruise, an all-day trip with tours and tastings at Avery, Oskar Blues, Left Hand and Boulder Beer. We are planning a day trip to Fort Collins to tour New Belgium Brewery, and we hope to drop by Falling Rock and Cheeky Monk, two great beer bars in Denver, if our livers hold out.

So, if you're looking for a beer staycation, bookmark us now and then check in later for updates. Cheers!

Photo by Herkie used under a Creative Commons license.

My Top 5 Desert Island Beers. What Are Yours?

Orr Shtuhl — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:28:48 +0000

A sixer of Dale's to go — on your desert island

I've had, and still do have, a proclivity toward lists and the ranking of favorites. High Fidelity inspires desert island-record discussions. Fantasy football drafts are a drug. And as tykes, my brother and I would sit cross-legged in the living room, surrounded by sorted mounds of Halloween candy or Pogs (depending on the season) and conduct elaborate trades and negotiations based on our arbitrarily prized possessions. (Should I be confessing this in print? If I ever run for public office, let's pretend this didn't happen.)

The point being: I'm no different today. So when I see the Alström brothers of Beer Advocate fame enumerating their top five desert island beers alongside a profile in The Boston Globe, I start getting ideas. Building a desert island list is a delicate task. With records, you need to take into account all the different styles, eras, and at least one sentimental favorite. You probably want some reggae in there, being on an island. So while ranking Pogs may be less nuanced, picking just five beers to drink for all of sand-locked eternity seems unfair, if not impossible. Or in other words, fun.

Like records, my favorite beers change frequently — probably every time I walk into a beer store. But here's my outline, the prototypical desert island beer list. And despite the urge to apply a beach theme, I have one rule: nothing with a lime in it. Ever.

The go-to quaff. You need one lighter beer, a refreshing lager you can drink by the case while watching the game (better believe my desert island gets NFL Sunday Ticket). This beer is also necessary for pairing with the fresh seafood your monkey butlers bring in off the trawler every morning. My go-to here is Victory Prima Pils, or in fantasy land, I'd take Pilsner Urquell, unfiltered and fresh from Plzeň. But no, if I really have to pick just one, it's Terrapin Rye Pale Ale from Athens, Ga. It's as light as Tahitian sand and bristling with dry rye flavor. Terrapin doesn't ship to D.C. yet, but I'm on their case about it.
IPA, at least one. What's a man without hops? Sad and alone on a desert island, that's what. But if there's a Bells Two-Hearted Ale or a Dale's Pale Ale in my coconut shell, I'm doing all right.
Sentimental favorite #1: big and hoppy. As with Jason Alström, I have to have some Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye. It's a dark, spicy beast with enough hops to put your average IPA to shame.
Something for the palate.You're going to want to invite guests over to the desert island, and you'll need something classy to pair with a fine cheese plate. Something in the Belgian style seems in order; I'd go with a trappist like Rochefort 8, St. Bernardus Abt 12, or a saison like Dupont.
Sentimental favorite #2: mellow and complex.I'm still lacking in slow-sipping beers, so I'm leaning toward a double IPA or barleywine. My choice here at the moment is Head Knocker from the Vintage 50 restaurant and brewpub in Leesburg. It's a lighter, golden take on an English barleywine, with a honey aroma and a sweetly smooth finish. The beer is now retired, but brewer Bill Madden will open brewpub Mad Fox in the fall. On my fantasy island, it's delivered in fresh casks via helicopter.
The cheating sixth beer. Come on, you knew it was coming. Who can pick just five beers? My cheating sixth: Fullers London Pride, the ultimate English bitter, in all its quaffable, buttery glory.

So fellow Beerspotters, let's hear it. What are your top five (okay six) desert island beers?