Beltway Beer

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.)

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.)

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.

According to the Washington City Paper, sometime this winter DC will get a proper biergarten: Biergarten Haus. It’ll open on H St., occupying a 5,000 square foot storefront adjacent to Rock N’ Roll Hotel. Twelve taps, traditional German food and an outdoor beer garden. Link here.

Went to RFD for lunch today and brought back the current tap list. Unfortunately nothing on cask, the bartender tells me it’s been difficult for them to get a variety of cask beers lately, probably because of how easily it spoils in the summer months.

On tap:
Anchor Steam
Atwater Blocktoberfest
Avery The Kaiser Imperial Oktoberfest
Bell’s Java Stout (which will be replaced with Founder’s Breakfast Stout soon)
Boulder Cold Hop English Style IPA
Bulmer’s Strongbow Cider
Cape Ann Fisherman’s Pumpkin Stout
Czechvar
Dogfish Head Punkin Ale (which will be replaced with New Holland Ichabod soon)
Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA
Duvel Green Belgian Blonde Ale
Erdinger Oktoberfest Weizen
Flying Dog Doggie Style Classic Pale Ale
Grimbergen Dubbel
Guinness
Hoegaarden
Hofbrau Oktoberfest
Lucifer Belgian Golden Ale
Magic Hat #9
Magic Hat Roxy Rolles
Schneider Aventinus Weizenbock
Sierra Nevada Yakima Harvest
Southern Tier Pumking Imperial Pumpkin Ale
St. Louis Framboise lambic
Stone Levitation
Stone Vertical Epic ‘09 (which will be repaced with New Holland Existential soon)
Weihenstephan Hefeweiss
Weyerbacher Harvest Ale

Probably among the last chances to get Oktoberfests on tap; the winter seasonals will be here soon. In fact, I’ve already spotted the first one on the shelves: Troegs Brewing’s “Mad Elf.”

Looks like the crew at Churchkey/Birch & Barley may be hoping to open on Monday. This would fit with what a bartender at Rustico told me last week — he said the latest target opening date he’d heard mentioned was the 19th.

Good thing I’m off on Monday!

Read more at DCBeer here.

Tonight, $10 gets you tastings of five organic brews at the Shirlington Busboys and Poets, followed by another organic tasting to benefit the Takoma Foundation in Takoma Park on Saturday.

Details here.

Just confirmed that The Reef will be starting to tap casks again around or just after Thanksgiving.

No word yet what will be first up, but Bryan, the owner of The Reef, always puts out great casks.

What’s the fuss about cask-conditioned beer (sometimes called “real ale”), anyway? The fundamental difference between cask beer and beer in a keg is that cask beer is served without any added nitrogen or carbon dioxide. It’s also unpasteurized and unfiltered. Beer from a keg is “pushed” out by added carbonation, whereas cask beer has to be hand-pumped. Cask beer also contains active yeast, which means the beer continues to mature once it’s placed into the cask. Of course, this usually means that cask beer is less carbonated than most people expect. It’s also a lot fresher and more complex, which is one of the main draws.

Find out more here at the Campaign for Real Ale. Also, Beerology has a nice podcast on the topic here.