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!