The Alewife

So, admittedly, this post will be more about a bar than about beer. But really, when it's a craft beer bar that's just opened up in Baltimore, I hope you'll forgive me.

Alewife is a new place, just opened near the Hippodrome. With 40 beers on tap, I had to check this place out. The building is great - high ceilings and big windows take advantage of what was once a bank. The beer list is impressive, as hoped, with a good mix of styles and breweries, both local and foreign.

The food is a little expensive, with main dishes running in thwe $20-$30 range, but they have a fantastic selection of sides, small plates, and appatizers, which are less expensive but equally delicious. For the record, I reccomend the duck fat fries with sundried tomato ketchup.

I went there, in fact, this very evening, and availed myself of their delicious beers. My first beer was Victory's FestBier, a marzen/oktoberfest style beer from Victory. The beer had a really solid malty flavor, accented by bready notes, and some nutty flavors too. I wasn't wild about the aftertaste, which reminded me of fake sugar and bitter hops, but the beer was refreshing, with a very clean taste.

I then moved on to Stone's Smoke Porter, which I've reviewed before, but will reiterate: Damn. That is one tasty beer. For all you Baltimore natives out there, Stone breweries is taking over Alewife on October 1st for a special Stone-centeric evening with over 40 of stone's beers on tap. I for one, am pumped.

I should also mention, in the course of things, that I finally got to try my once favorite beer again. That's right, on two separate vists to Max's recently, they had Del Ducato Verdi's Imperial Stout. It's a stout made with chilipeppers, the mention of which makes me drool a little. In fact, I was extremely pleased to find that time had not exagerated the genius of this beer, which was every bit as chocolately, spicy, and delicious as I remebered. Still my favorite beer, hands down.

I also got to try, at Max's, Mikkeller's Beer Geek Breakfast, a smoked oatmeal stout. My compatriots all complained of it tasting like charcoal, but I thought it was a bold use of smokiness and roasted flavors, along with a nice hit of coffee, in an oatmeal stout, with a delicious result. It's certaintly a unique beer, and won't please all, but I loved it.

Also on tap was Heavy Sea's Smoke on the Water, a smoked porter. Sadly, we all agreed that this was hopefully a bad batch, as it tasted sour, as if it had gone bad, and was just not a very good beer, despite coming from an excellent brewer.

So, as you may notice, my posts have been less frequent. Well, sadly, I have moved far from my favorite beer store, and being busy with school and all, this blog may receive less love. How sad. I know how much you all loved it :-P. Still, I'll try and update when I can. Cheers!

Pub Dog

First of all, damned be to Baltimore. Everything here seems to close by like 8:30pm. Why is there no delicious quick food open late at night?

More importantly, beer. And not just any beer, Pub Dog beer. For those who don't know, Pub Dog is a Baltimore restaurant which makes both pizza and beer in house. For my money, it's one of the better local breweries. Not exceedingly complex or adventurous, but damned tasty.

I was at my local liquor store, checking out the bombers, when I spied a bottle of Pub Dog, Dog Fest. Dog Fest is their fall seasonal, an oktoberfest style beer, which I'd never tried. Further, I'd never seen their beer in the bottle, so needless to say I was excited.

The beer was a little rough at first, somewhat bitter, though that might have been the food. Either way, I poured a second glass and let it sit, as well as having finished my dinner, and was left with an excellent beer. Very drinkable, with a nicely spiced aftertaste. It's not quite as crisp as some beers I've tried, but the color is wonderful, a beautiful golden-amber. I see this more as a beer you'd sip in the evening, rather than a beer you'd have with friends, or with dinner; though I'm still working on why.

Either way, quite tasty, and highly recommended.

-The Unabashed Ungourmet

More DuClaw goodness

So, as any of you residents know, Baltimore has just been a hellhole this past week. Overcast, with a constant frigid drizzle. It's just been a gross place to live.

To improve on this condition, I decided to have a beer at DuClaw, brighten my spirits a bit.

I started out with a pint of their seasonal Scotch Ale, Twisted Kilt. Now, Sam Adams Scotch Ale is far and away one of the better beers I've had, so I had pretty high expectations. Overall though, I found the taste of alcohol tended to override the other tastes. There were hints of a smoky flavor, and maybe some sort of woody or nutty flavor as well, but they weren't terribly well defined. There was also a sweetness to the beer that was somewhat unsettling. It wasn't a bad beer, but it definitely didn't live up to expectations.

I also tried their nut brown ale, Consecration. That was actually quite tasty, with a powerful flavor of chestnut, or something similar. Nicely enough, it was still refreshing without being heavy, but was richly flavored.

I should side note, I had a sampler of their Oktoberfest seasonal, Mad Bishop. Now, those tiny samplers are hardly enough to really judge a beer, but my impression was favorable. Like many other Oktoberfest beers, there was a rich taste of spices, along with a fairly crisp taste. I've always felt that a good Oktoberfest should remind me of a fall day, and this one certainly seemed to pass the test. I'm going to try it again next weekend, so more on it then, for sure.

Playing catch up...

So, the freaking title of my blog mentions burgers, and yet thus far nary a sentence about what may well be my favorite food. Well, that's all about to change. I realize I wrote a lot of these reviews, then promptly forgot to post them. I've got a good bit of catch up to do, hopefully in somewhat reasonable installments. So, we'll start with the best.

Oh Five Guys. How do I even begin?

The first time I tried Five Guys, I was in Washington DC, visiting a friend. I’d heard of this place before, but had never been convenient to try it. Needless to say, I consider that among the top five mistakes I’ve made in my entire life.
The first thing that strikes you is that this place isn’t run by greedy jerks. There are free peanuts, cups for water are free, and they have a list of burger toppers to shame most anywhere, everything from mushrooms to hot sauce.

Being the simple man I am, I order the regular cheeseburger, just lettuce and mayo. Wow. From the first bite you get juicy meat without it tasting greasy or cold. The burger is smashed together with a bun that is spongy (in a good way), and doesn’t fall apart. The cheese is delightfully melted, and the toppings surround the whole thing. The regular cheeseburger is two patties, and more than filling enough, even for a hungry guy like me.

Simply put: this is the best fast food burger I have ever had. And I continue to be impressed. Every time I go to Five Guys, I come away extremely satisfied. They rock. Go there, now. In fact, just writing about them makes me hungry.

P.S. – The Fries. Good god. They deserve their own article. Coming in either regular or Cajun, they take a cup, put it in a bag, and proceed to fill the bag up past the level of the cup, with fries. A regular is good enough for two people; a large can feed as many as four. Or, if you’re a fat kid like me, you can eat them all yourself.

And, since I'm never done talking, I'll even through in a beer review of a variety I got to try recently. I was at my local snobby liquor store, and saw that Dominion had released an Oktoberfest beer. Que Interresante!

Yikes. This was a dark beer. Dominion’s stout, which I worship, doesn’t hold a candle to this inky bastard. It’s a seasonal Marzen, and it lives up to the name with all the flavors of a crisp fall centered around a good balance of hops. A little bitter at points, the overall flavor is very smooth for such a dark beer. I really enjoyed it, but many of my friends find it loathsome, so drink at your own peril. This is definitely more of a sipping beer that needs your full attention.