TOP PICKS

• Schmaltz Rare & Obscure Night at ChurchKey (from 6 to 11 p.m.) – Tonight, ChurchKey will be pouring over twenty casks, vintages, and barrel-aged rarities from New York's Schmaltz Brewing Company, known for the He'Brew and Coney Island lines of beer. The selection includes a newly released collaboration with Terrapin Beer of Georgia called Reunion Ale '11: A Beer for Hope!. Proceeds will benefit the Institute for Myeloma & Bone Cancer Research. The event will be a good chance to learn more about the Reunion series and all things Schmaltz from founder Jeremy Cowan.

• Heavy Seas Restaurant Week Pairing Menu at Thunder Burger (from 4 to 10:30 p.m.) - In celebration of the dual Restaurant/Beer Weeks, Thunder Burger and Heavy Seas have teamed up to offer a special deal. Pair chef Ryan Fichter’s $35.11 Restaurant Week menu with selections from Heavy Sea’s fleet of beers for an additional $10. Beers include Märzen, Davy Jones Imperial Cream Ale, Gold Ale, Loose Cannon India Pale Ale, and Peg Leg Imperial Stout. All are available with or without dinner and a Heavy Seas representative will be on hand to talk about the beer and give away some brewery goodies.

• German Beer Class w/ Troegs at RedRocks Pizzeria (from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.) – Head to the Columbia Heights location for a chance to discover the subtle characteristics and intricacies of German brewing and its influences on American craft beer. The class will feature four Tröegs Brewing Company beers paired with appetizers from the RedRocks kitchen like prosciutto-wrapped shrimp with aioli and cheese-stuffed dates wrapped in bacon. Pete Showvaker of Troegs will lead the hour-long tasting class. Price is $35 per person and reservations are required.

• Great Lakes Brewer Meet & Greet and Trivia at Meridian Pint (from 5 to 11 p.m.) – Beer geeks, get your technical brewing questions and awkward demeanors ready! Great Lakes Brewing Company head brewer Luke Purcell will be hanging at Meridian Pint all evening and is even slated to host a round of trivia. Featured brews include a few rare brewpub-only beers and Oktoberfest, the Ohio brewery's fall seasonal.

• Rye Beer Night at The Big Hunt (from 5 p.m. until closing) – Like spice? Head to this beloved Dupont Circle dive for a special selection of craft beers made with rye. The list includes Blue Point Rastafarye, He'Brew Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A., Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye, Founders Rye, & 3 Stars / Olivers B.W. Rye.

• DC Brau "Brau-B-Que" & Whiskey Tasting at Little Miss Whiskey's (from 7 to 10 p.m.) – Speaking of rye, join the "Brothers Brau" Jeff Hancock and Brandon Skall in the Atlas District for a whiskey tasting and "Brau-B-Que." DC Brau brews will be available on draft, Big Al Swill's sandwiches will be on the patio, and there will be a free Johnnie Walker tasting at 7:30 p.m. with Peter O'Connor, star of Bar Rescue on Spike TV.

ACROSS THE RIVER

• 12 Percent Imports Takeover at Pizzeria Paradiso Old Town (from 5 to 11 p.m.) – Sample from 15 obscure beers on draft courtesy of 12 Percent Imports of Brooklyn. All beers will be $4 from 5 to 7 p.m. and $8 from 7 p.m. until closing. The list includes offerings from Belgium's Cazeau Tournay and Hof Ten Dormaal breweries, Emelisse from the Netherlands, and a few other hard-to-find European craft beer outfits. There will also be a few specialties from Baltimore-based Stillwater Artisanal Ales, which is affiliated with 12 Percent.

STEALS OF THE DAY

• Pinch those pennies! Lou's City Bar in Columbia Heights is charging half price on all their drafts all day long today, and The Big Hunt in Dupont Circle is selling their 20-ounce bombers of beer for half off all week.

For more information on D.C. Beer Week events, check out my D.C. Beer Events Calendar below, as well as the Washington City Paper event page and the official DC Beer Week site hosted by DCBeer.com.

Send submissions for the D.C. Beer Events calendar to thelagerheads@gmail.com.

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Slice's anonymous Pizzablogger is obviously a knowledgeable sort about pies. Whoever he/she/giant-amorphous-blob-of-dough is, Pizzablogger is certainly in love with his/her/its words. He/she/it spills a ton of them on a pair of visits to RedRocks Firebrick Pizzeria and Pete's New Haven Style Apizza in Columbia Heights.

Y&H typically has misgivings about experts from better pizza cultures (and I presume Pizzablogger does most of his/her/its slice gobbling in NYC) passing judgment on lesser pie towns. It strikes me as grandstanding, the sophisticate telling us rubes what good pizza really is. Then again, I get touchy about cereal.

Regardless, Pizzablogger has nice things to say about RedRocks, if not so much about Pete's. Take a look:

Pizzablogger on RedRocks:

While this is somewhat of a moot point and I ultimately like the pizza and space at RedRocks, I need to take RedRocks to task for some of the information on their website, as I am somewhat frustrated by these types of potentially confusing statements continually displayed on various pizzeria websites and in print advertising. Keep in mind I am no expert, but my own pizza-making experiments in my humble standard kitchen oven and ongoing research has shown me that some of the information on the RedRocks website is questionable.

I know this to be a fact because I ate with a fellow pizza-lover a few months ago at another pizzeria and he complained the Margherita did not use mozzarella di bufala and was therefore not "authentic." I asked why he thought this and he mentioned RedRocks pizzeria. This person took RedRocks website statement, "Our Margherita pizza features mozzarella di bufala, made from buffalo milk, a Neapolitan tradition" to mean that it is a Neapolitan tradition to use mozzarella di bufala on Margherita pizza. This is clearly not the case, as fior-di-latte is the most commonly found mozzarella employed in Napoli, even though the making of bufala itself is indeed a Neapolitan tradition (and to be fair might be what RedRocks is alluding to).

To continue my quibbles, the statement, "High heat creates flavors through caramelization of sugars that are difficult, if not impossible, to create when pizza is cooked in conventional pizza ovens", if taken literally by a person, is bordering on flat out bullcrap. Caramelization of sugars is most certainly possible in a standard home oven that reaches the typical 500°F to 550°F, as caramelization occurs at temperatures as low as 320°F to 340°F. Just putting any dough in a wood fired oven does not ensure great caramelization. The sugars in question being "caramelized" are largely made available through a proper fermentation process, not as a sole end result of using a high temperature oven. Again, my primary concern is more correct dissemination of information to the pizza peep masses and less convoluted advertising nonsense. Okay, got that offa my chest. Now, back to the pizza, eh?

The pizzas at RedRocks were not quite as good as my initial stop-and-pop here in October of 2009. However, it could be argued that the best judge of a pizzeria is what the pie is like on a slightly "off" day. Based on our visit, the pies at Redrocks are still pretty damned good. We ordered a Margherita, a Napoli (sauce, fresh mozzarella, anchovies, capers, basil), and an Eggplant (roasted eggplant, goat cheese, parmesan, sea salt, black pepper). The late afternoon sunlight pleasantly spilled across our table hinting at the promise of Spring, albeit making for poor picture taking conditions.

Pizzablogger on Pete's:

But first, I think it is important that I digress (again?!) and mention I have not been to New Haven (yet). My only experience with New Haven–style pizza is eating at Frank Pepe's Mohegan Sun location on two consecutive days. Long story short....it was definitely the most disappointing pizza-eating experience I have had so far. The pizza was just OK, at best. So, you can tell I am not a qualified person to say how true to form a pizza joint offering "ah-BEETZ" is, but I can give my opinion on whether I thought the pizza was any good or not.

Sinking my teeth into the Pete's Original, the crust was immediately noticeable for its texture. This crust is a little crisp on the outside with a slightly toothsome, rustic breadiness to the crumb that is chewier and denser than the lighter, airy crusts of a Neapolitan-style pie. It was a nice contrast from what we had just eaten at RedRocks. The crust had some decent flavor to it and a nice char, which would not hit "burned" on the mythical char-o-meter.

The sauce and the cheese on top of the Pete's Original were nothing to really write home about but definitely not bad either. The sauce may be a tad too much toward the sweet side, but it does the trick. The cheese to me was more of a textural note and had only a little flavor to it. Interestingly, and to display just how individual pizza can be to people, the comments from our group on the Pete's Original ranged from "good" to "I wouldn't walk across the street for a slice of it." Personally, I like the contrast of something different so close to RedRocks in the neighborhood. The Pete's Original, with its good, somewhat rustic and definitely crisp, chewy crust and more familiar toppings and flavor notes is a solid, straightforward everyday pie (keep in mind I ate only whole pizzas and did not try the individual slices available for sale).

While the Pete's Original was a good, workmanlike pie, the Arugula Apizza missed the mark on this day. Again, the crust in my opinion was very well done, with excellent browning and some breadlike flavor to it. While I have only been to Pete's Apizza once and need to go again to get a better gauge on consistency, it's always nice to receive a pie like this out of a gas-fired deck oven without having to ask for your pizza (apizza) to be "well done." Good stuff.

However, what's on top of the Arugula Apizza was not singing joyous notes to our palates. All four of us agreed that the marinated onions completely overwhelmed the entire pizza. Don't think marinated, think pickled. I don't mind strong flavors, but there has to be something else to provide balance and on our visit, there simply was none. There was not enough pepperiness to the arugula to foil the pickled onion flavor and this is an instance where a saltier pecorino romano might be better suited than the parmigiano-reggiano used on this pie.

Some of you may be thinking something along the lines of, "Does this place offer a clam pie and, if so, why didn't you order it you moron?!" Yes, Pete's offers a white clam pizza, dubbed the New Haven (white clams, garlic, evoo, pecorino romano, oregano $23.95). Alas, I have a severe allergy to clams and cannot eat them. In addition, I would like to come back and try the Margarita at Pete's (tomato sauce, mozzarella di bufala, basil, pecorino romano, evoo $25.95).

All in all, I personally think it is a stretch to suggest that Pete's Apizza is serving the "best pizza in DC." Our group all agreed that we didn't feel Pete's is a destination pizza worth going out of the way for. However, there is nothing quite like it in DC either. It's also important to remember that there is a need for a solid, everyday slice of pizza, and Pete's fills in this need quite well. Pete's also provides for a nice contrast of styles in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. If I lived in Columbia Heights or took the Metro past the Columbia Heights station on a regular basis, you can bet I would hop off occasionally to pick up a pie or a few slices of Pete's Apizza on the way home.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Early this summer when the weather was ripe for it, several of you joined in our plea for a local outdoor space to grab steins of German beer and enjoy brats in the open air. Temperatures are now cooling off, but it seems that our prayers will be answered soon.

Russia House co-owner Aaron McGovern is heading up a project on H Street that could help fill DC's beer garden void. According to last month's Capital Community News, Biergarten Haus, a 5,000-square-foot German restaurant, will occupy the two store fronts adjacent to Rock N' Roll Hotel (where NorthEast Salon and DC Sanctuary used to be).

McGovern is planning a menu full of traditional German fare for his new restaurant, and an outdoor beer garden that we hope will satisfy the nostalgia of all those lucky enough to have been to a real Bavarian biergarten in Germany. As you can see from the Weltenburger Kloster photo above, that means long wooden tables under the shade of trees, space for plenty of people longing for some gemutlichkeit, an occasional oom-pah band, and most importantly, lots of great German beer. We're not sure how well the location will allow McGovern to deliver on all these stipulations, but there will be twelve taps, and that's a good start. We'll see about the polka. More details and our outdoor drinking spot picks below.

If all goes well, Biergarten Haus is will open its doors sometime this winter. The grand opening will surely be too cold to enjoy the outdoor space, but the Lagerheads are certainly looking forward to singing a few rounds of Ein Prosit there come spring. Although last week's weather was dreary, this week promises to be unseasonbly warm in DC, so if you are looking to take advantage of your final chances to enjoy beer outdoors, below are our picks out of what is available. What are yours?

• 1. Wonderland Ballroom – The long wooden picnic tables and spacious, tree-laden space at this Columbia Heights neighborhood bar bring us back despite their lackluster beer selection. There's usually at least one German beer on tap and always a handful of craft brews (usually Sierra Nevada, Anchor Steam, Lagunitas, or Lancaster), plus a few Belgian imports. They have much better things on the menu but we love those chili dogs (be sure to ask for cheese and onions).

• 2. RedRocks Firebrick Pizzeria – Just down the street, these guys have a similar but more cramped feel to Wonderland, with small wooden picnic tables and cover from trees and umbrellas. RedRocks has a much more robust craft beer selection, comprised mainly of regional craft breweries (Victory, Troegs, Dogfish Head, Brooklyn, Allagash, Ommegang) and some well-chosen imports. While you're there, take advantage of the great pizza, of course!

• 3. Cafe Berlin – This Capitol Hill restaurant offers a truly German experience with regard to beer and food (and often clientèle), but is not so great on prices. If you want the real thing and demand an outdoor space, this is it. If you just want the German part and don't mind being indoors, we recommend Cafe Mozart (on a Tuesday when Sylvia is on accordion) or if you're up for a bit of a roadtrip, Blob's Park.

• 4. Galaxy Hut - While the outdoor space isn't as open as the other bars on this list, the muraled walls and gaint tin can table in the back (our favorite) make this Clarendon spot unique. The tater tots are cheap, plentiful, and delicious. Most important, the beer list is outstanding and changes frequently. Among their 20 taps and around the same number of bottles, we always find something we haven't had and are rarely disappointed. Draft beers come in goblets, pints, or pitchers, which can get a little dangerous because of the many high-ABV beers available (if you bring friends and are willing to share, you should be okay). Plus there's rock on Sunday and Monday nights. A perfect combination.