At Pub 27 in Pompeii
Dulles Airport Take-Off Tasting Tour: Sterling, Ashburn and more: Quattro Goomba’s Goombafest, Aldie, Va.
Date: April 16, 2019
The Story— We’ve featured Quatro Goomba’s before. An improbable name in an unlikely location, you’d have given them si months when they opened. But they’ve brewed good beer and provided beer fans a reason to come with their winos to visit this rural wonderland.
They brewed well for years, but more recently somehow managed to attract one of the East Coast’s finest brewers to their oh-so-not-central location. Chris Jacques (pronounced “Jakes” if — and we hope you do — meet him) has brewed from New England to central Virginia and has surpassed expectations in every stop along the way.
Fest beers are at one time not so hard since every town in Germany defines its own style and a blind brew of above average strength lager probably isn’t that far from Feathersdorf’s Festmaerzen. On the other hadnd the FF isn’t really all that good. To top it takes some skill.
Chris has that skill. The brewery, we think, knows how lucky they are. You’ll be lucky too if you can find a designated driver to let you frolic in Virginia and include a trip to this versatile brewery.
The Beer— Malt and lots of it. Clean and just short of bready. Sweet but with late and effective balancing hops that make this drink-it-in-a-beertent brutally moreish. It was one of our best beers of 2018. Go and taste what he has on tap; trust him, it’s good.
Value —very good. Much cheaper than a flight to Germany — and you won’t find many fest beers there that are better.
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.
For the next several weeks we’ll feature fun places to explore beer — and much more–a different destination each week. Our beers of the day will feature beers from this wonderfully wet destinations. This week we’re featuring beers in the Dulles-Sterling are of Northern Virginia. A caveat as always: the vast majorities of craft breweries may have a few beers that are usually available, but their most interesting beers are usual season or one-off brews that we may rave about, but you can’t find. Our specific beer descriptions can tell you what sorts of beers the brewery does well; if you don’t find the exact beer on tap, you’ll probably find something similar.
Leave a Reply