After a day of beer, food and driving, it felt good to relax with the O’Brien family in the Federal Hill area of Baltimore.  Their friend Terry joined us for a sampling of Clown Shoes beer I had shuttled down from Massachusetts.

First up was Brown Angel Double Brown Ale — a little lighter than I expected, but an easy drinking beer that all three tasters enjoyed!

We chased away the Brown Sugar with a taste of Eagle Claw Fist, an Imperial Amber Ale.  Given my affinity for Amber Ales, I was excited to finally try this.  It was very good, with all three tasters approving of it.  I can’t claim that I wanted a second, but if someone served this to me, I’d instantly think that person was a “good shit”…. 

Lastly, for this brief pregame tasting was the beer everyone WANTS to love, mostly because of the cool name — Tramp Stamp, which is a Belgian India Pale Ale.  While Terry and I enjoyed it, Brendan pooh-pooh’d this choice and could not even finish his beer.

Off to the “Yard” to see the Red Sox take on “Buck” Showalter’s Orioles.

Nice Sox win, which they all are, but avoiding a sweep to the O’s was an essential thing for this early season.

In fact, it called for some celebrating with the local birds…

And who knew there were so many Oriole Birds over the years??  On a mural on our way out, I had to snap a photo of all the local birds.  Somewhere in that list, are the Orioles of old, the ones who don’t finish near the bottom of the AL East.

Well, a good night comes to an end — the last night of age 42 — I know, I know…I don’t look a day over…..(insert a low prime number here)…

In this second beer sojourn in a couple of months, I decided to take more time at places that may have only been cameos the first time around.

One such place, was Victory Brewing in Downington, PA.

Last time around, I only imbibed with one of their beers, a Golden Monkey, and moved on to other places for chow.  This time, I promised myself, try the food, relax, try a couple more of their beers to see what else they had to offer.  I was well rewarded for this plan.

I was greeted warmly from the bartender and offered a beer menu and a food menu — can you say “yes, please” and “yes, please”?

I usually try to order a beer that I haven’t had before and I followed that plan and jumped on a Hop Wallop!

Wallop my taste buds, it did, as my mouth became overjoyed at the transition from Starbucks coffee to Hop Wallop.  I was pleased with my choice off of the  craft beer menu, one that had some wonderful options.  Check out their main beer menu here – what would you have ordered?

I narrowed the food choices down to two sandwiches (The Prime and the Dietrich) and an entree (I never saw a Reuben Meatloaf on a menu before, so it made it to the final cut…..my version of American Idol).

In the end, my weakness for a Reuben overwhelmed the other choices and I went with the Dietrich.  (much of my spare time is spent searching  the countryside for the best reuben….if life was a series of lobster rolls, reuben sandwiches and chicken salad sandwiches….I could consider giving up steak…but I digress).

This reuben was top-notch!

A delicious home-made pastrami, served with fingerling potato fries, both of which made me long for having this place in my neighborhood.  The serving was more than enough!  In fact, I  couldn’t even finish the whole plate…. even if that meant, just leaving a few pickles.

Wanting to try one more beverage before I left, I tried the summer seasonal, a Whirlwind Witbier.  This beer was ok, but I think after a hop wallop, many of the lighter beers mind as well have been a bottle of poland springs water.

It was time to get back on the road, down to Baltimore, to settle in to watch the Bruins in game 7 against the Canadiens.  My Baltimore buddy Brendan O’Brien and I watched a the action from a couple of bars in Canton.

First up, was Loonies, but the small TV screen size challenged our eyesight, reminding us too much how much older we are (well, for Brendan anyways).  These old men needed large screens, damn it!!!  Luckily, a few spots up the street, we found great TV’s and good beer at an old dancing haunt of ours (I vaguely remember a dancing trance of Shakira music, which certainly convinced me that night that ~Hips Don’t Lie~), the Claddagh.  A Bruins win and a few Raging Bitches (the beer, not the locals) were a good way to end this day.

 

 

I recently convinced a six pack of friends to join me in celebrating over a dozen “delicious” brews from around the country.  By the time I had narrowed the choices for the night, we had a total of 16 craft brews “on tap” ranging from wheat beer to porter and lots of stinky, hoppy brews in between.

Some of these beers were picked up along the roadways of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware during my recent beer trip.

In devising a system that I thought would work well, I offered up the sweeter or less bitter beers first and moved up the hoppy bitterness scale before taking a step back with a delicious mellow porter.  I think this order was important with the huge hops content in the second two thirds of the samples.  Let’s face it, some of the tasters (me included) may have thought “hops” was what I exhibited playing high school back in the day.

The 16 beers that we sampled, from 8 different states, in order, were:

• Allagash White Ale (ME)
• Southampton Publick House Double White Ale (NY)
• Harpoon Catamount Maple Wheat (MA)
• Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin’ Ale (CA)
• Heavy Seas Small Craft Advisory Uber Pils (MD)
• Founders Brewing Dirty Bastard Scotch Ale (MI)
• Flying Dog Raging Bitch Belgian Style IPA (MD)
• Founders Brewing Centennial IPA (MI)
• New England Brewing Sea Hag IPA (CT)
• Victory Brewing Hop Devil Ale (PA)
• Bell’s Brewery Two Hearted Ale (MI)
• Founders Brewing Red’s Rye PA (MI)
• Troegs HopBack Amber Ale (PA)
• Bear Republic Red Rocket Ale (CA)
• Troegs Nugget Nectar Imperial Amber Ale (PA)
• Founders Brewing Porter (MI)

The tasters for the night have had their names partially changed to protect them from getting a hard time from hops lovers throughout the greater Woburn region.  The tasters were:

• Buckbites (moderator and taster)
• P Dots
• S Dots
• S Cal
• D Cal
• T Fic
• E Fic

In their most sober state, E Fic and D Cal are shown gearing up for the first tastes of the evening.

Individuals were provided some information that was culled from the Internet, paired with scoring sheets I prepared.   Individual packets included:

• The Art of Tasting
• Descriptions of the Varieties of Beer to be Tasted
• Scoring sheets, which provided names of beer and free form text areas (no numerical ratings were used for this group).

Some, like S Cal, took time out of the excitement to study up on the pre-tasting information.

Beer types to be tasted were:

• Witbier (Wheat Beer)
• American Pale Ale
• American Double / Imperial Pilsner
• Scotch Ale
• Belgian Style IPA
• American IPA
• Rye Beer
• American Amber / Red Ale
• American Porter

Information on the types of beer was researched through Beer Advocate.

The chef for the night (S Dots), doubling as beer taster #3 (but chef #1), provided lots of tasty delights, with highlights being buffalo chicken dip with celery and nacho chips, roasted red potatoes with a delicious horseradish chive sour cream sauce, crab cakes with lemon dill sauce and these wonderful beef crostini with sage whipped cream.  All of these were top notch and I am not word-worthy enough to describe how delish they were!  Bravo chef!

Below are the tasting note summaries.  I have also included a subjective ranking of 1 through 5 beers – 5 being the best rating and 1 being the worst rating.

Beer #1 – Allagash White Ale -

Spicy
Lemon
Could use lemon
Not a fan of aftertaste
Fizzy
Unsure
Modest aroma
Spicy
Light & Refreshing
Dark Yellow Color
Cloudy
Summery

Beer #2 – Southampton Double White

Fruity
Not liking aftertaste
Bad smell
Light
Very clear
Light head
Slightly more bitter than Allagash
Lots of bubbles
Stinky
Fizzy

Beer #3 – Harpoon Catamount Maple Wheat

Pleasing scent
Lightish
Sweet smell
Bananas
Caramel
Alcohol-y
Light, but nice body
Good color
Don’t like it
Bitter
Dig this!
Could drink a whole one

Beer #4 – Lagunitas Little Sumpin’ Sumpin Ale

Lemony
Citrus
Berry
Tart
Lousy
Berryish
Fruity
Bitter
Dry
Cherry
Hops
Didn’t like finish

Beer #5 – Heavy Seas Small Craft Advisory – Uber Pils

Fizzy
Bitter
Clovey
Smells like beer
Good, bitter though
Don’t like after taste

Beer #6 – Founders Dirty Bastard Scotch Ale

Thick
Syrup-y
Can’t drink a whole one
G-nasty
Coffee
Strong
Malty
Peppery
Smoky

Beer #7 – Flying Dog Raging Bitch Belgian Style IPA

Fruity Aroma
I comb my tongue with my teeth
Tastes like detergent
Like an IPA with a white ale finish
Hoppy
Fruity
Like It!

Beer #8 – Founders Brewing Centennial IPA

Smells fruity
Strong
Spicy
Alcohol taste
IPA Hoppy
Lemon/citrus
Fruity

Beer #9 – New England Brewing Sea Hag IPA

I Like the Lady!
Ouch!
Fruity
Less hoppy IPA
No smell
Unlike other IPA’s

Beer #10 – Victory Brewing Hop Devil Ale

Yummy
Hops
Nice label
Like it, actually
Heavy flavor
Very good
Good
Fruity
Bisquit-like

Beer #11 – Bell’s Brewery Two Hearted Ale

Lemon
Very good
Didn’t like that one
Like a meadow
Flowery
Fruity

Beer #12 – Founders Brewing Red’s Rye PA

Hops
Grapefruit
Citrusy
No different than an IPA
Hoppy

Beer #13 – Tröegs HopBack Amber Ale

Very Good ***
Yummy
Good Color
Tasty
My favorite

Beer #14 – Bear Republic Red Rocket Ale

Not crazy about finish
I like this one a lot
Tasty
I like
More Hops
Complex

Beer #15 – Tröegs Nugget Nectar

Powerful aroma
Nasty
Like Feet
Lighter than the sister
Fizzy
Hops a lot
Smells Nasty!

And just a note, I had trouble with ‘da hops a couple months back, but I am now endorsing the stinky feet of the Nugget Nectar!!

Beer #16 – Founders Brewing Porter

Coffee
Chocolate Smell
Smokey
Syrup Appearance, but not as heavy tasting
Complex
Thinner than expected
Would try again

The crowd had their ups and downs, favorites and ones for which they were not wanting a second sip.

In general, the favorites of the night in no particular order were:

• Troegs HopBack Amber Ale
• Founders Porter
• Harpoon Catamount Maple Wheat
• Heavy Seas Small Craft Advisory Uber Pils
• Bear Republic Red Rocket
• Victory Beer Hop Devil

Honorable mentions:  Which usually meant infatuation with the name and or label:

• Founders Dirty Bastard Scotch Ale
• Raging Bitch Belgian Style IPA

Pleasant surprise:

• New England Brewery Sea Hag IPA — surprise at decent flavored IPA in a can.  This was the only beer that came in a can.

The food was great — the beer was interesting and the company was long overdue —

Until the next time — Cheers!