Stop the Presses — Visit Guinness!  Guinness Open Gate Milk Stout

Date:  October 12 , 2018

The Story— We’ll do a main (Hopping Around) Post soon on this gift from Ireland to Maryland.   The Halethorpe brewery — about a ten minute shuttle/Uber/drive from many of the BWI hotels (usually cheap and available) is a gift to  the Mid Atlantic beer drinkers.

Several stories of a former whiskey warehouse are lovingly restored and re-purposed into a Guinness shrine of sorts – but one that brews with an abandon that even the increasingly daring St. James Gate brewers don’t get to touch.

Ground level is an enormous modern US beer garden – lots of tables of various sorts, but also lots of green space.  It’s a bit reminiscent of the former Green Flash space in Virginia Beach.   Live music plays from a corner with enough volume to reach the distant edges.    A bar that sometimes has the shortest lines in the complex serves several brewed-on-premise beers in acrylic vessels that look like glass and (don’t) break like plastic.

A half flight downstairs leads to a self guided tour — or a more comprehensive one with an advance reservation–that  shows both brewing and the distilling history of the building.  A flight up takes you to the main indoor pub with a huge array of beers from St. James Gate (Ireland) and the Open Gate (on premise).   Samplers allow you to run the gamut, but we’ve chosen full pours and several returns.  Also on this floor is an extensive gift shop — few bargains but lots of brewstuff that’s very enticing.   They sell half cases of a beer or two and growlers of a wider variety.

A flight up takes you to an upscale restaurant with prices that assume you’re eating in an upscale restaurant.   Even when it’s crowded you can often find a table here.   Steak for $47 and a $10 shrimp cocktail that has two shrimps (OK they’re big “shrimp” but they’re still <shrimp>.)  gives you an idea of where you are.

The Beer–Guinness has played around with lots of historical recipes and diversions from its standard in recent years, but Guinness Open Gate Milk Stout is one of the best they’ve done on either side of the Atlantic.

Value — Good.  They know what they have and don’t sell at a discount.  $7.00 is a fair price for a great beer: 14 ounce “pint” for most, and an Irish 19 ounce pint for the Irish-brewed nitro Guinness loveliness.

All this week we return to the US to highlight some great beers 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.

Later, we’ll return to HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE 2018–  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.

Rock Bottom Short Pump Give Into the Dark Stout

Date:  October 11 , 2018

The Story—  Rock Bottom has always left their brewers room to play and it’s meant that we’ve found distinctive beers from La Jolla, California to Boston, Mass.  Their Short Pump brewery — just outside Richmond, Va.  has turned out some of their best for years.

Stouts are easy to brew well but hard to brew really well.  Guinness, which every beer drinker knows well, started as porter, then a “stout porter” and now, of course. almost defines “stout.” The beer is so creamy and smooth that few people drink it carefully enough to realize the secret to Guinness is a bit of tart and edgy finish.    But you don’t have to go to Guinness’s Open Gate brewery outside of Baltimore to learn there is so much more to stout than the standard Guinness at you local Irish pub.

And because we’re tying this week’s beers to our Brews and Snooze:  Hyatt House is an easy walk.  Dozens of others are an easy Uber.

The Beer— Creamy and very dry stout with a moreish edge.  Milky and creamier than Guinness and therefore not as clean with a with 1.5% more booze.  Still, it has more substance and almost the same darkness.  Guinness lovers should love it more than most pub stouts.

Value — Very good.   About six bucks for an English (19 ounce) pint.  If you haven’t joined their mug club, do.  Sporadically as if by magic they take ten bucks off your check.

All this week we return to the US to highlight some great beers 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.

Later, we’ll return to HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE 2018–  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.

The Friendly Fermenter New Beers Resolution NEIPA, Harrisonburg, Va.

Date:  October 10 , 2018

The Story— The Friendly Fermenter is a tiny brewery tucked away in a basement level off-the main drag (albeit a small drag) in the exceptionally good beer city of Harrisonburg, Virginia.  We entered it with some trepidation– we’ve been to plenty of basement breweries that were indeed bottom dwellers– but this little gem served us a range of good beers and some that were well above “good.”  We’re highlighting our (OK, Bob’s) favorite here, but the FF is a nano brewing 60 beers or so a year.  You probably won’t find this one, but we’re pretty confident you’ll find beers you like.

Harrisonburg is too small a town to deserve the wealth of brewing treasures– except for the fact that the people of Harrisonburg clearnly know and treasure what they have.  Depending on how far you want to draw the circle, a half a dozen or more breweries can fill a weekend, and the city boasts at least two absolutely first class B&Bs that are walking distance from the brew crawl.

We visited the city years ago when a single brew pub struggled to convince locals that good beer didn’t always taste like B-B_ Bud, but today the plethora of brewing cites augments one of the outposts of Capital Ale house multi-taps that occupies the site of the city’s original brew pub.

The Beer–It’s my birthday and I get to make the call by myself today — It’s really dank.  Ellie tolerates dank and likes it when it’s a part of something more complex, but I like dank almost as dank as a brewery can do it without running afoul of the law outside Colorado or the Netherlands.  This one is rich and very dank.  Herbal and leafy hops join with a dry chalk into an inviting bitter.  Chewy and rich as it drinks.  Ellie thought the oily herbal bitter stomps the smooth gold malt .  I say “bigger boots!!”

Value — Good to very good at five bucks for a standard glass.  Of course, I’d say that’s a bargain –and much better than going to jail for smoking weed.

All this week we return to the US to highlight some great beers 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.

Later, we’ll return to HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE 2018–  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.

Ono Pau Hana IPA, Ono Brewery, Chantilly, Va.

Date:  October 9 , 2018

The Story— So many of us who love beer fantasize about how “our brewery” would stand out among the nearly 7,000 breweries trying to attract a growing but still relatively small army of craft beer drinkers.   Owners Scott and Cindi have built their dream around Hawaiian themes and a no longer unique, but still distinctive, draft beer system.

The brewery favors fruits and flavors — the Hawaiian influence– but offers a wide enough range of beers to make a pleasant evening for almost everyone.  While we thought the pumpkin spices and passion fruit flavors were over the top in some of their beers, others would find them welcome palate challenges.   They hooked us with their very nice full flavored Hana IPA, though.

The distinct tap system is a self-serve brilliant device that allows customers to pour exactly as much of any beer as they want.  You get a card, activate the tap with it and pour what you want.  For us, the ability to taste carefully and write up notes for just enough for two was rare and wonderful.  For someone else, the chance to taste one ounce portions before committing could be as thrilling.  I always feel a bit of compassion for brewpubs that (usually cheerfully) pass out small “tasters” before a customer settles into buying a half pint at a fraction of the price of the beers he’s just chugged.   Here it’s no problem.  Want a sip?   Buy a sip.  Pennies out of your pocket, but not out of the narrow margins of the brewery.  The system is catching world-wide attention.  Charlottesville, Va., has an enormous multi-tap that operates on a similar system and we’ve seen it in places as unlikely as Avignon, France.

The system would be pointless if the beer were not worth pouring, however.   Most of the beers at Ono are good and depending on your taste, very good.   They do an American Wheat nicely, for example, but we were glad to be able to do small pours of several of their beers to save money– and more importantly liver– for their IPA.

This is one of the few breweries that will make it into Brews and Snooze with a chain hotel, but the Holiday Inn is an easy walk and has a bit  of a sense of the old Virginia plantation that Chantilly used to be.   It’s an easy walk to Ono and a somewhat farther walk to Mustang Sally’s.  If you choose to walk to the latter, be sure not to follow GPS directions onto major highways – there’s an easy route through neighborhoods that will allow you to drink and walk.

The Beer–Firm bodied, malty with more barley than wheat and yeast, but a bright fruit from wheat and yeast.  There’s just a hint of autolysis in the aftertaste with but tropical fruit flavors ensure a fine drinkability.

Value —  Good to very good.  We paid $3.50 for about a third of a liter, but could easily have had more or less at the same reasonable price.

All this week we return to the US to highlight some great beers 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.

Later, we’ll return to HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE 2018–  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.

Mount Gretna Porter of Philosophy

Date:  October 8 , 2018

The Story— Mount Gretna brewery isn’t quite in Mount Gretna, it’s in Smyrna, but if you step into the parking lot the wrong way, you’ll be in Annville.  GPS’s have been known to whir out of control and explode in the area.

But by any name, it’s a good area for beer.  You’re not far from headliners like Tröegs and the Harrisburg treasures, but there are some fine beers to be had in the cornfields as well.   Snitz Creek has a tap room nearby, there’s a better-than-average beer store down the road, but the gem of the crown is the unheralded Mount Gretna brewery.  Beers run from good to very good and the warm welcoming lodge of a brewpub is a great place to spend the evening.   (If you’re earlier, coffee roasts in a separate part of the building.)

Less than a mile away the Londonderry Inn, which may or may not long continue as a B&B, is a delightful night’s stay that includes some rooms that are decidedly not so “Londonderry-ish” like the Wild West Room where we stayed.  A bordello theme?  Ah, why not?  the beer was great.   We’d return in a heartbeat to any of their themed rooms.   A basement room has markings from escaping slaves that made their marks in the bricks as they rode the underground railroad.

We have an an abbreviation: IHTBABS that we shorten to HTB:  “It’s Hard To Brew A Bad Stout.”  And it is, really.   Hitting the “OK” level with a dark beer that covers up almost all minor flaws is almost child’s play (OK high school home brewer’s play) easy.   But stepping much above that “OK” level isn’t any easier for a dark chewy beer than it is for a good pale ale.  Too much richness can make it gooey, too little can leave it unpleasantly dry.   Guinness, of course, has had centuries to perfect its art — and some of the brewer’s reserve series it’s produced lately show how tricky the path has been.  We’re always impressed by brewers than can come even close to that sophistication and delicate balance in only a few years.

The Beer–Even and steady roast with some bakers chocolate and a touch of coffee.  Echoes of fruit late.  Straightforward, chewy, and moreish porter.   Good for them!

Value –Very good to Excellent.  Not only are you buying wisely, you’re supporting a brewery that has richly earned its right to play in this very crowded beer market.

All this week we return to the US to highlight some great beers 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.

Later, we’ll return to HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE 2018–  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.