Beltway Beer

Early in my beer-drinking career, I discovered a brewery down in Atlanta called Sweetwater. They were one of the featured breweries in a “beer of the month” style club. That was my first exposure to a really great nut brown called “Sweet Georgia Brown” (now renamed to just “Georgia Brown”). Unfortunately they don’t distribute in these here parts; I’m told that they only go as far north as Raleigh, North Carolina, but that they have plans to expand up into Virginia soon. (Update: Sweetwater tells me that they hope to be distributing to Richmond, Charlottesville and Virginia Beach by summer.)

I found myself driving through Atlanta at Christmas time this year (long story, don’t ask) and decided to check a few convenience store freezers for some of their brews. No Georgia Brown, but I did pick up a 6-pack of their 420 Extra Pale Ale. It’s a nice, easy-drinking, well-designed beer. Very sessionable, and probably also what I’d call a “training wheel” beer — one that you could easily pull out to help someone interested in making the transition from drinking mass-produced beers to craft beers. Still craving that Georgia Brown, but kudos to Sweetwater for this light, crisp, well-done beer.

The short answer is: NO!

First, a confession. I am not a huge fan of IPAs. Stone, I can’t handle. Sierra Nevada, not my thing. Some people go nuts for those super-bitter, piney tongue-shredders like Ruination, but not I. For a while, I thought maybe it was a gender thing. Maltier is generally sweeter. Ladies like sweets. Or maybe IPAs just aren’t that into me. Then I discovered Victory’s HopDevil and fell in love.

Statistically speaking, HopDevil’s bitterness level is somewhere in the upper-middle of the pack, according to the amount of IBUs it has. (IBU = International Bitterness Unit, a unit of measurement that describes how bitter a beer is, based on the amount and quality of hops used.) Hopdevil has 68 IBUs. Compare this to Three Floyds’ Dreadnaught (100 IBUs), or your average American swill beer, which will have between 8 – 10 IBUs. I actually am a little surprised that HopDevil is this high in IBU counts considering my preferences, and I chalk that up to how incredibly well-balanced it is against its malt backbone.

At any rate, I love this beer. For years I didn’t think I’d find another IPA I could love quite as much. Then earlier this year, I discovered fresh hopped (or wet hopped) beers, which gave me some hope. These IPAs are full of super hop flavor, and yet not horribly bitter. See my post about my experience here.

Then, last night, I found a true contender for the HopDevil’s crown: Bell’s Hopslam, weighing in at 100 IBUs and 10 percent ABV. I’m actually shocked at the IBUs on this beer, considering how smoothly it went down last night. Great resiny, grapefruit hop aroma that’s echoed 100% in the taste, and yet… it wasn’t knock-your-teeth-out bitter (hence the answer to the question posed in the subject). Very clean, dangerously smooth-drinking beer that hides the bite of a 10% ABV very well.

Unfortunately what it won’t take out of your palate, it will claim from your wallet: It’s such a limited-release beer that a 6-pack will run you $25 here in the DC area. Extremely limited release. Bell’s will only distribute a set amount of cases per metro area (I heard last year St. Louis only got 6).

So far, Hopslam is expected to be carried at Whole Foods (P St & Clarendon), Rodman’s, Wine Specialist, DeVinos/D’Vines, Chevy Chase Wine and Pete’s New Haven.

HopDevil still holds my top IPA spot. But Hopslam gave it a run for its money.

(Update: Wine Specialist hasn’t gotten theirs yet, but hope to by Thursday.)

During the course of my day job, I see a lot of statistics, most of them sleep-inducing. But today I ran across a compilation of beer taxes by state put together by the Tax Foundation I thought you might find interesting.

(These statistics are given with the caveat that some states only sell certain kinds of alcohol in state-run stores, so an apples-to-apples calculation of taxes in those states is difficult.)

And the award for the highest beer tax goes to: Alaska, with a tax of $1.07 per gallon of beer. The lowest? Wyoming, with a per-gallon beer tax of just two cents.

So how do we here in the Washington, D.C. metro area stack up? Maryland and DC were close to the bottom, tied for #44 and #45 at nine cents per gallon. And Virginia held spot #19, with a tax of $.26 per gallon. (Take heart, Virginia dwellers, things could be worse: Virginia’s tax on spirits is $20.13 per gallon.) Looks like there was an attempt last year in Maryland to raise alcohol taxes: more here.

When it comes to spirits, Washington state took the #1 spot at $26.45 per gallon, with Vermont the least at $.68 per gallon. How about wine? Pennsylvania is highest at $2.50 per gallon, and Louisiana is lowest at $.11 per gallon.

Generally speaking, these kinds of vice taxes are gravy for state legislators, who use the revenue to shore up their budgets.

(The table from Tax Foundation can be found here.)

Every year at Christmastime I hop a plane and leave the DC rat race for Houston, where I grew up. Last year, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Spoetzl, a great Texas brewery, had put out a winter seasonal called Shiner Cheer. They don’t usually do Christmas beers, so of course I picked up a sixpack.

It ended up being my favorite winter seasonal last year, by far, hands-down. It’s a dunkelweizen brewed with Texas peaches and pecans, and it was pretty much heaven in a glass. I remember a really great peach aroma, not sweet at all but the peach flavor definitely came through and really complimented the dunkelweizen style well. Creamy, full-bodied without being syrupy, yet extremely easy to drink. I don’t usually go for fruit-imbued beers (Magic Hat #9, Raison D’Etre, or anything else), and even lambics I’m a little iffy on. So that not only did I tolerate this one, but actually liked it, and in fact loved it, was surprising. The only thing I regretted was not buying more; after I demolished that sixpack, I couldn’t find any more of it anywhere. So this year I asked my nephew to set aside a case for me, which’ll be waiting when I step off the jetway on Dec. 21.

I hear that in January, Shiner Cheer will be replaced on the Spoetzl production line with yet another new winter seasonl called Shiner Frost, a Dortmunder-style beer brewed “with a hint of peppermint.” Too bad I’ll be leaving on Dec. 31!

“Frost is the first offering in Shiner’s 2010 seasonal portfolio and our first Dortmunder-style brew. It has an appealing profile with a pale golden color and notes of honey and subtle floral hops. And like our Texas winter, it’s crisp and refreshing – like a frosty morning.”

So, a few weeks ago a reader wrote to me asking where in the area he could find a good selection of craft beers to slot into his brand new Kegerator. What’s a Kegerator, you ask? Take a seat, my child, and I shall tell you.

Simple answer: It’s a way to serve draft beer at your house.

More complicated answer: Kegerators will hold and tap a mini-keg, so you can pull yourself a fresh pint of your favorite brew whenever you want. Sure, anybody can get a keg and tap it, but the key to keeping it around for longer than one manic Saturday night is to have something to keep it chilled. Most domestic kegs aren’t pasteurized, so without refrigeration, the beer inside will go stale pretty fast.

I personally don’t have one, but only because I just don’t have the room in my cramped apartment. If I had more room, you can bet I’d be adding one of these to my decor. They’re also a little pricey, running anywhere from $250 or so for a “mini kegerator” that can hold about a 5 liter mini-keg, on up to $1,500 and more for fancy setups that can hold either an entire full-sized keg, or several mini-kegs all at once.

Some folks with more of a DIY bent make their own, using a kegerator conversion kit and an old fridge. For the curious (and handy), here’s how a couple of intrepid souls made their own: here and here.

Your kegerator purchased and/or built (feel free to come build one for me later), now you’ve got to stock it with beer. After surveying the area’s eminences gris for the best spots in town to get or special order kegerator kegs, here’s the cream that floated to the top. Most or all of these do special orders:

DC proper:

D’Vines in Columbia Heights. (3103 14th NW).
Wine Specialist in near Dupont Circle (22nd/M). I personally can vouch for them, knowledgeable and friendly.

NOVA:

Norm’s Beer and Wine in Vienna. (136 Branch Rd. SE) Norm is, apparently, the man. I hear that if it’s gettable, he can get it.
Total Wine in Springfield. (6801 Bland St.)
Westover Market in Arlington. (5863 N. Washington Blvd.) Extra bonus, they keep their keg lists online here.

Southern MD:

Perfect Pour in Columbia. (6630 Marie Curie Dr.)
Gilly’s Craft Beer and Fine Wine in Rockville. (2009 Chapman Ave.)

So, for the first time I tried a couple of “fresh hop” or “wet hopped” ales. To understand what this means, you first have to understand a little bit about how beer is normally brewed, so bear with me for a little bit. Hops, the ingredient that gives beer a bitter/piney/citrusy flavor, depending on the variety, are usually harvested in early September and are quite perishable. Generally they’re dried and pressed to prevent spoilage, so the vast majority of the beer you drink has been brewed using dried hops.

When the hops are sapped of their moisture, they also lose essential oils and resins, and quite a lot of them (I read a statistic somewhere saying that fresh hops are 60 percent water). So some breweries go to great lengths to brew a special “wet hopped,” limited edition “harvest beer” right at harvest time, using hops that haven’t yet been dried. Often this means either having fresh hops shipped in overnight, or brewing on harvest day, for breweries that have their own hop fields (like Sierra Nevada). All of this can serve to drive up the price of wet hopped brews, but many aficionados will pay a price premium for freshness, like someone else might for vegetables at a farmer’s market.

I actually am not a huge fan of IPAs — a handful I love, most I can do without — but I’d been told that fresh hops often impart more hop aroma and earthy flavors, without all the bitterness, so I decided to give a couple a shot.

With that brief explainer, on to a couple of my first tastings. I started off with one of Harpoon’s 100-barrel series, the ‘09 Glacier Harvest Wet Hop Ale. It pours a clear, brassy amber with a thin tan head that fades quickly to a cap. Rather low carbonation on this one. Subtle nose, all grassy and earthy hop smells that dominate what aroma there is. This one drinks very mellow and slick, slight piney hop tingle along the sides of the tongue with a surprising little sweet malty kick at the finish, and a lingering malty crispness. Not easy to categorize. Mellow yet flavorful, overall a pleasing beer that’s pretty easy to drink.

I then moved to Sierra Nevada’s Southern Hemisphere Harvest Fresh Hop Ale. This is really intended to be a springtime fresh hop ale, because they import fresh hops up from New Zealand. So I probably didn’t consume it at its freshest, and my review should be read in that light. Pours a hazy light tea-colored brew with a thick, frothy head. Wow, this one delivers a nose full of piney, grassy hop aromas. Aggressive nose on this one. On the drink, the Sierra delivers an initial hop blast that’s really pronounced, and yet not bitter or unpleasant. The hop blast fades on the tongue to be replaced with a warming malt flavor that would make for a really nice finish if it wasn’t immediately socked by a sourish resiny aftertaste. Medium bodied. Pretty easy to drink, and I love the start and midpoint of the quaff, but the finish is pretty offputting. Of the two I enjoyed Harpoon’s take more.

According to an email sent a bit ago, Brickskeller tonight will be selling 22oz. bottles of Port Brewing’s “Hot Rocks Lager,” which was brewed by using hot rocks as a heating element as opposed to a burner.

This follows on another recent rare beer Brickskeller put out for sale, Lost Abbey’s Red Barn, which I wrote about in an entry here. The email from Dave seems to imply that they’ll be making rare beers available as a semi-regular event. Sounds like a good idea — my only knock is that DC law won’t let you buy bottles and take them home, so you have to drink it at the bar.

It was with an enormous amount of anticipation that I went down to Churchkey last night for their official open. And let me just say at the outset that I was not disappointed.

The bar was originally supposed to open at 5, I showed up around 5:20 and they hadn’t started letting people in yet. So I got in the (already-forming) line and waited. There must have been 50 people queued just to get in the door by the time they opened up at 5:40 or so. People were walking past rubbernecking the line trying to figure out what the big deal was. Most people went straight up to the bar area, though by the time I left there were maybe 4-5 tables occupied at the restaurant downstairs, but it was clear that the bar was the star.

The bar area, for a DC bar in particular, was absolutely enormous, with a long, J-shaped bar that can probably seat 30 – 50 people by itself if I had to guess. Four-top booths behind the barstools with plenty of standing room in between. There were LOTS of people there last night, and it still never felt unmanageable — although the bar staff definitely had their hands full. They had all 50 taps and 5 casks up and running with a supremely impressive tap list (which can be found here. I started off with a Gaffel Kolsch, then moved to the Ola Dubh 40 (on cask!!), to BrewDog’s Paradox (also on cask), to the Ommegang Obamagang.

The start was a little rough, it took way too long for someone to take my order. However, it was made right without my even asking — a manager noticed another gentleman and myself without any sort of liquid refreshment and pulled us a couple for free. Through the evening I saw several bumps smoothed like this — wrong orders, waiting for a drink, whatever. To me it wasn’t that they made mistakes, it was that they cheerfully fixed it and then went a step beyond to make people happy. If Churchkey can keep up this kind of selection, and this kind of customer service-oriented attitude, they’ll do great.

I’ll probably even be back tonight.

I am told that Churchkey, the upstairs beer bar part of the Logan Circle duo, is set to open tonight at 5 p.m. Birch & Barley, the downstairs restaurant, will open an hour later.

According to the CityPaper, all five casks will be tapped tonight, including Harviestoun Ola Dubh 40, an English ale aged in 40-year whiskey barrels; BrewDog Paradox Isle of Arran, a whiskey-barrel-aged imperial stout; Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale; and two others as yet a mystery.

More from CityPaper:

Of the 50 taps, about half will rotate every week or so, while the other half will be good standbys. The dependable session beers include: Victory Prima Pils, Allagash White, Brooklyn Lager, Stone Pale Ale, Smuttynose IPA, Green Flash Hop Head Red, and Climax Nut Brown Ale. $5 for about a 12 oz. glass.

Now THIS is a beer. It’s brewed by Weltenburger Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Bavaria, Germany. Classed as a dunkel, the German word for dark, these are known to be smooth, malty brews.

Pours a dark amber with ruby red hightlights and ample, tannish bubbly head. Nose is all big, biscuity malts — hard to detect much else. It really goes down smooth, with a slick, soft mouthfeel that makes it very drinkable. For all its aggressive aroma, though, it’s actually quite tame in the best way. Malts up front with a very slight hop taste on the finish. For its deep amber color, it’s actually very light and refreshing, extremely sessionable. Not as in-your-face malty as something like Spaten Optimator (which, by the way, is one of my favorite beers at the moment). This has a very delicate sweetness that is extremely satisfying. I’d say this is an excellent “training wheel” beer, to introduce people who are curious about craft brews to some more robust and complex flavors without scaring them off.

While I’m on the topic, here’s an interesting article about how aging monks at monasteries that sell well-known beers (like Westmalle) are increasingly taking a back seat as they grow long in the tooth. Link here.