Hysteria the Morning After Coffee Stout, Columbia, Maryland

Date:  October 27, 2018

The Story— We would love to be able to include a brewery/B&B combo for Columbia, Md.  It’s a great beer town with several interesting — and good – breweries.  The best we can do is the Victoria Gastro Pub, which is an outlet for the nearby Manor Hill Brewery, though it carries a wide range of other good beers.  The Hilton Garden Inn is just steps away.   But once you’re there, you have a glorious range of choices for other brewery adventures.  We have several favorites; Hysteria is one of them.

When we drove up to Hysteria we would have driven away in sadness — it looked so dark it seemed to be out of business– had it not been for a friend of Ellie’s who raved about her visit days before.   So the lesson is — persevere.  Once past the dark entrance in a so-very-typical light industrial strip park, it rocks.  A big three sided bar, almost 30 feed of bookshelves, a spacious lounge area and an array of games attest to the community center appeal of this small craft brewery.   You may have to choose carefully, one of their flavored IPAs featured a tsunami of ginger and another was flooded with lactose and vanilla additions.  Still, their standard IPAs won’t disappoint, and this stout would shine for after dinner or even before breakfast.

The Beer–A desert beer — for breakfast. Tons of coffee are broadened by a full dose of sweet cream.  It’s surprisingly well balanced as it drinks. Ellie loves dark rich beers; she had trouble tearing herself away from this one to write more than “delicious.”

Value — Excellent.   This ranked among the best beers we tasted in 2018.

Tomorrow we’ll present our first Brewery of the Week with seven fine beers from Guinness– most brewed in their spanking new Baltimore location, but a couple of Irish pots of gold as well.

After Guinness we return to  HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE–  Surprisingly good beer in “bad beer cities.”  The best we’ve found in researching our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.)   We’ll shift back to great American beer finds next week.

Later in November, we return to the US to highlight some great American craft beers, some of which we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night.  Look for it in 2019.

About these posts:  We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year.  The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings.   Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

Rusty Rail Rail Spike IPA, Mifflinsburg, Pa.

Date:  October 26, 2018

The Story— This brewery/hotel alone would justify our efforts to promote “Brews and Snooze” – places you can drink and sleep without moving your car– which we hope to publish in 2019.   Germans have an association of brewery/hotels that make drinking and sleeping pretty easy to find.  Only a small handful of those places, though, even approach the experience at Rusty Rail.

Rusty Rail is one of the most expensive brewery-hotel complexes we’ve encountered on either side of the Atlantic.   It’s worth every single penny.   It’s actually not quite a hotel in the usual sense.  There is maid service, but no serious breakfast– you best bet is a pair of diners a mile or so down the road.   But the rooms are beyond spectacular, redeemed from the upper floor of a former carriage factory morphed into auto bodies manufacturing.   Huge suites have great views and an amazing amenities that range from a full size refrigerator- freezer to a washer-dryer (no coins required).   A six pack of the beer brewed downstairs greets you when you open the fridge.

>>     The kitchen manages a big menu skillfully and bars on two floors recall a Munich beer hall.   Happily the beers match the quality of the setting.   They’re very strict about the 11 AM departure — and no wonder since any reasonable person would stay all day if he could.

>>    Rusty Rail distributes a good deal of its production and has a fine reputation among craft enthusiasts in upstate Pa.  We ran into several bottled varieties at the hotel bar in Honesdale (another town where you can sleep at the hotel and walk to two good breweries).  The bar staff enthused over them, and we thought they were quite good.   They’re even better, of course, on draft at the brewery.

The Beer—  The Rail Spike features five hops and most of them show up for roll call.  Some metal, some soft fruit, some grass and a touch of spice linger over an even clean malt with light toast.    The 7.1% abv could keep this from being a beer you’d pound, but heck, you’re only driving the elevator home.

Value — Very good to excellent.  $5.50 for a beer these days is rare, even in upstate Pennsylvania.   For a beer this good, it’s even more special

This week we return to the US to highlight some great American craft beers, some of which we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night.  Look for it in 2019.

Next week we’ll present our first Brewery of the Week with seven fine beers from Guinness– most brewed in their spanking new Baltimore location, but a couple of Irish pots of gold as well.

After Guinness we return to  HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE–  Surprisingly good beer in “bad beer cities.”  The best we’ve found in researching our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.)   We’ll shift back to great American beer finds next week.

About these posts:  We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year.  The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings.   Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

Cushwa Jello New England IPA, Williamsport, Md.

Date:  October 25, 2018

The Story— We feature another beer from Cushwa today.  See yesterday’s post (click “More Beer Reviews” below and scroll down).   People who doubt the craft beer revolution is sustainable haven’t spent enough time in breweries like Cushwa. If you can get great beer down the street and drink it with your friends with locally sourced snacks, why would you buy a craft beer — even a very good one– from a brewery on the other side of the country or the Atlantic.   Not all breweries this size are going to make it, but a whole lot of them will last as long as the passionate founders want to keep them going.

The Beer— It’s spot on for the style:  softly hoppy and citrusy with a clean sweetness in the finish.  Pine, lime, and more grapefruit in the finish lead to a dusty oily hoppy aftertaste.  Surprisingly moreish for all that with a better balance than many NEIPAs.

Value —  Good.  $7 for a glass is a fair price and probably enough to keep a brewery like this going.

This week we return to the US to highlight some great American craft beers, some of which we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night.  Look for it in 2019.

Next week we’ll present our first Brewery of the Week with seven fine beers from Guinness– most brewed in their spanking new Baltimore location, but a couple of Irish pots of gold as well.

After Guinness we return to  HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE–  Surprisingly good beer in “bad beer cities.”  The best we’ve found in researching our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.)   We’ll shift back to great American beer finds next week.

About these posts:  We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year.  The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings.   Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

Cushwa Middle America Imperial IPA, Williamsport, Md.

Date:  October 24, 2018

The Story—  The best feature of the craft revolution on both sides of the Atlantic is the bumper crop of tiny but amazingly good breweries in tiny towns, back streets and otherwise-desolate industrial parks.

Hagerstown, Maryland, is a small town trying hard to reinvent itself in the post industrial western part of the state.  It clings to its A level baseball team in beautifully historic but aging ball park that floods when the weather gets cloudy.  Its Antietam brewery has been one of its brightest stars, but today we’ll slide a few miles even further into Maryland’s back roads to the tinier town of Williamsport.   You won’t find a little world series here, but you will find one of those tiny breweries that is starting to get some recognition well beyond its neighborhood.

>>   Cushwa is not only in a tiny town, but it’s hidden in an end unit of a business park you’d never find without a GPS.  It is so worth the effort to find.   A squeakingly tap room seems to reflect the clean flavors of the beers poured there.   It’s small — a conditioning tank is actually in the tap room, but there’s room enough for an afternoon of table games and great beer and local popcorn, meats and cheesses.   Crowlers flew from the bar during the time we were there.  Indeed, a couple of those flying crowlers landed in our home in Bethesda and our Beer of the Day was one of them.

>>   Cushwa is an IPA lovers dream with lots of versions to taste side-by-side.  It wasn’t easy to choose which to feature, but these days a full IPA that isn’t either densely cloudy or brewed with a wild or Belgian yeast isn’t all that easy to find.   21st century hops infuse clean flavorful and fruity flavors.  We’ll feature another of their fine IPAs tomorrow.

The Beer–The Middle America Imperial IPA is just over the range for a standard IPA with tons of flavors that make it a fine sipper.   It’s big and flavorful with ripe fruit, pineapple and some metal.  Berries show as it drinks – blueberries mostly and ultimately a berry – fruity- dry- bitter.  All of the fruit mingles with the malt to achieve a nice complexity.  Very skillful.

Value — Good.  $13 for a quart is a fair price for an 8% abv hop bomb.

This week we return to the US to highlight some great American craft beers, some of which we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night.  Look for it in 2019.

Next week we stay in the US with a full week of Guinness beers — a few from Dublin, but most from “Guinness Open Gate Brewery” in Halethorp, near Baltimore, Maryland.  We’ll talk more about the venue in our main post and highlight seven exceptional beers– most from the Baltimore Brewery, but a couple of can’t miss beers from Ireland you can only get here.

In November, we return to  HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE–  Surprisingly good beer in “bad beer cities.”  The best we’ve found in researching our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.)   We’ll shift back to great American beer finds next week.

About these posts:  We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year.  The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings.   Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

Avery Go Play IPA, Session Ale from Boulder, Colorado

Date:  October 23, 2018

The Story—  Last week I was talking to one of the brewers who played a key role in making Washington, DC, a first rate beer city for the first time in its history.   We were reminiscing  about the days when we both not only knew every brewer within 100 miles of DC, but knew nearly all of the great brewers in the US.  The craft explosion has been dynamic and exhilarating, but it has cost those of us who were here in the early days the club-like feel and camaraderie of those of us who were swimming upstream through yellow waters of tasteless faux pilsners.

>>   Adam Avery wasn’t the first on the street, but he was one of the pioneers that shaped the American Craft scene from his 1993 start.   We got a chance to swap beer stories with him several times at Brickskeller tastings in the 1990s.  He made great beer then, but the wonder is that he still makes great beer now.   He isn’t afraid to spend ridiculous amounts of time and money to brew outrageously distinctive (and outrageously expensive) beers.   When it was time to splurge for my birthday this year a couple of the Avery barrel aged wallet breakers got the call.  Avery is a major player today in US craft beer — it’s 30% owned by Spain’s largest brewer– but 30% is a far cry from 51% or the 100% of many of the recent “partnerships.”  We suspect the Spanish brewer is more likely to be influenced by Avery than the other way around.

>>    Our choice for Beer of the Day today is neither a wallet-breaker nor an outrageous barrel aged walk on the wild side, but Avery’s entry into the crowded Session IPA field.  As we’ve written before in these posts, trying to retain the big hop accent of an IPA without the supporting malt that makes it moreish is a challenge most breweries can’t handle.

>>   Alas, there’s no B&B nearby.  It’s a pretty easy day trip from Frederick and Hagerstown hotels aren’t close enough to walk unless you’re a pro, but they’re not all that far away.

The Beer—  The core of the beer is a complex blend of dank hops with some grapefruit over a softly toasted malt foundation.  It picks up some some juice as it drinks, but the hops shine without overwhelming.  Full bodied for the style and engaging, with dank and fruity hops playing starring rather than jarring roles.

Value —  Very good.   About the standard price for a craft six-pack with a well-above-standard beer.

This week we return to the US to highlight some great American craft beers, some of which we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night.  Look for it in 2019.

Next week we stay in the US with a full week of Guinness beers — a few from Dublin, but most from “Guinness Open Gate Brewery” in Halethorp, near Baltimore, Maryland.  We’ll talk more about the venue in our main post and highlight seven exceptional beers– most from the Baltimore Brewery, but a couple of can’t miss beers from Ireland you can only get here.

In November, we return to  HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE–  Surprisingly good beer in “bad beer cities.”  The best we’ve found in researching our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.)   We’ll shift back to great American beer finds next week.

About these posts:  We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year.  The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings.   Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.