DC Brau at ChurchKey

DC Brau, the first brewery in DC since prohibition, had a beer dinner at Birch & Barley along with special beers on tap up in ChurchKey. As I’ve said before, twice, I’m not a big fan of their beer dinners even though the place has excellent food and the best beer in town. But I did want to go try the DC Brau beers. It was Columbus Day so no work for me and the feds. After going on a bike ride during the day I met Sharon at the metro around 5:30. It was another great fall day. I’m beginning to think October is the best month of the year in DC. I wasn’t sure if the place was going to be empty or have a line out the door for this event. I figured it could have gone either way. These new local breweries have had a great outpouring of support. It turns out the place was rather empty.

I saw the DC Brau owners/brewers hanging out around the bar. We started off with three tasting size servings of The Public on cask each with a different type of hop: amarillo, citra, and summit. The Public is their pale ale. I think our preference was citra, amarillo, then summit. After that we tried their Helles Lagaer which was lagered for five weeks and hopped with US perle hops. Quite tasty. Next up was another local beer from up in Maryland the Flying Dog Wild Dog: Secret Stash ‘11. It is brewed with red wheat, sweet corn, potatoes, honey and fresh local cascade & chinook hops. It was only 5.5% which is low for a special beer but I wasn’t complaining. I thought it was a bit too carbonated though. Finally we had the DC Brau Citizen on cask and matured four months in Catoctin Creek Rye Whiskey Oak Barrels. The Citizen is the DC Brau Belgium pale ale. You could taste the whiskey from the barrels. I’m not in to whiskey beers usually.

We had one of their new flatbread pizzas with peppers and sausage and it was pretty good. Which isn’t surprising because that is what I normally get on my zzza’s. Not a bad Monday.