The Brickskeller had their annual winter beer tasting on Wednesday. It's usually a popular event. Teri came along for her first beer tasting. We got a couple seats at a table up front and ended up sitting with a bunch of local beer people. The Lagerheads are a young couple that blog for the City Paper and tweet, Thomas Cizauskas works in the beer industry and also blogs and tweets, Gregg Wiggins is a beer writer, and Bob Tupper and his wife have tasting notes on over 18,000 beers. As usual Bob was the host for the evening. The line-up for this tasting was:
Capital City Shirlington - Organic Belgian Triple
Capital City DC - Black Forest Stout
White Marsh / Red Brick Station - Organic Winter Solstice
Pratt Street - Merry Old Ale
District Chop House - Double Bock
Vintage 50 - Wee Heavy 2008
Devils Backbone - Wood Aged Wee Heavy
He'Brew - Jewbelation 13th Anniversary
Anchor Brewing - Christmas Ale 1997
I don't have a whole lot of notes for this tasting. Next time I need to remember that I don't remember any specifics. The Belgian Triple came in at 10% and was quite earthy. I'm not sure if it was this organic beer or the Winter Solstice that was not a certified organic beer but used all organic ingredients.
The Black Forest Stout was made with bourbon vaniella beans. It was not aged in oak barrels but rather had oak spirals dipped in the beer for six weeks. It had a milk chocolate stout taste and was 5.2%.
The Winter Solstice was made with coco nibs and was 5.6%.
The Merry Old Ale from Pratt Street was an English spiced Ale at 6.2%. It was good and not too spicy. The Pratt Street Ale House is a favorite brewpub in downtown Baltimore.
The Dobble Bock from District Chop House was a nice dry beer at 10.9%. Barrett Lauer said he has been perfecting this for awhile. He has been brewing it for eight years and brewing it for the Chop House for five years. The beer had a nice chocolate, roasted, smoked malt flavor.
The Wee Heavy was brought by Bill Madden and brewed in December of 2007 for Vintage 50. He is now building his own brewpub called Mad Fox. He has won a lot of awards and his Malakoff Hoptail is a legendary brew around DC. Teri remembered him from Vintage 50. This Wee Heavy weighed in around 9%.
Jason Oliver of Devils Backbone also brought a Wee Heavy. Apparently this was called "Kilt Flasher" at one time.
He'Brew Jewbelation 13th Anniversary is made by contract brewer Jeremy Cowan. He started in 1996 with seven barrels. I think he said he has 45,000 cases and 49 kegs of this beer. He also makes Coney Island beer. This 13th Anniversary is 13%.
The last beer was from Dave's special stash in the basement of the Brickskeller. He pulled out a keg of Anchor Christmas Ale from 1997. No one was exactly sure how it would taste. I don't think it was all that.
It was a fun alcohol filled night. It was nice putting names to faces to some of the local beer bloggers and tweeters. Looking forward to the strong ale tastings in February.
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