Short's Tap Takeover at Churchkey, part 2

Well guys, I totally forgot to follow up on my first part... until now.

Short's Bloody Beer. If you’re not a fan of a Bloody Mary, avoid. Roma tomatoes, dill, peppercorn both on the aroma and taste. This was fantastic. I never thought I would enjoy a beer as savory as this one, as odd as this one, one with ingredients that are strange. Who knew?

The Magician arrived with a cloudy red body and a small white head. Aroma was pretty unremarkable, caramel notes, grain. Flavor was about the same. Grain, nuts, malts.

Mama’s Strawberry Milk poured a dark brown color, darker than I had expected for a beer which includes the words "strawberry" and "milk." Aroma was mellow strawberries, sugar, cream. Flavor was more mellow than I had hoped for, sugar notes, creamy strawberries.

Shorts Anniversary Ale was another highlight of the night. It poured a ruby orange color with a small white head. Aroma was a touch citrus, with mellow spice notes, and something familiar that I still can’t quite put my finger on while writing this - probably the blood oranges. Beer was certainly not as hot as I would have imagined based on the ABV - 10%.

I took a gamble on the next one with, The Gambler, a tobacco "inspired" brew. The aromas I got off this one were tea and "tobacco" notes. The flavor was a touch citrus, dominated by herbal teas, tobacco-like notes and other various spices.

Samaritan Ale poured a golden color with a small white head. Aroma was cider, sweet, touch of tartness. Flavor was tart apples, touch of spice - clove maybe? Certainly a change of pace.

The Black Licorice Lager poured a dark brown color, tan head. Aroma was mostly mint, though some licorice shown through. The beer was, as my friends described, like mint chocolate chip ice cream. A very unique brew to be sure and certainly one I'm looking forward to try again.

I finished that night with a few more, less remarkable beers from them, and then rounded it off with the Belgian IPA, which was awesome. Slightly hazy golden color with a perfect small foamy head was only bettered by the wonderful mild, Belgian yeast strain in an IPA, mild citrus and pine note aroma.

The night finished with the fantastic, non-Short's, Sierra Nevada Barrel Aged Life & Limb. OH MY... Brown sugar notes, caramel, chocolate notes and bourbon. Near perfection.

SAVOR was up next. And it blew my mind.

Short's Tap Takeover at Churchkey

Well, I got the weekend started off right. On a Thursday, as it should be. Last week was SAVOR week, the premiere beer event in the DC area, so all week bars and pubs all across the DC area were celebrating.

On Thursday, Short's Brewing Company came to Churchkey, their first time in the DC marketplace in an event dubbed "Short's Brewing Monster Tap Takeover." As reported, no beers from Short's had ever been in DC before and so debuting 30 beers all at once was pretty phenomenal. While I didn't get a chance to meet them or even confirm if they had arrived from their flight into the city, the brewery's Founder Joe Short along with CFO Scott Newman-Bale, Tony Hansen (Head of Brewing Productions) and Jon Wojtowicz (Beer Liberator & Field Representative) were all set to be at the bar that night.

I got there promptly at 2:40, worried that there would be a long line like when I went to 2010's Stone Total Tap Takeover. Meeting my friend Chris, we entered the bar at 3:00 and grabbed seats at the bar. The list was overwhelming.

The Bier Baron: A Vast Improvement Over The Brick

Guys and gals, when The Brickskeller closed I had mixed emotions. The place was one of my first big eye-opening experiences with Beer. It also was a dump that rarely had the beers I was hoping to order from its menu.

Yesterday was the first time I had been to this establishment since just before "The Brick" closed its doors in December. The place was falling apart for years. The beer list was *willfully* neglected, and it was a well known "joke" that a patron would need 3-4 backup choices in case their first, second or third choices were unavailable. Once even a 5th choice had to be offered before I simply told them to get me *anything* they could find.

Well, I finally returned and I to my surprise, I was greeted with taps downstairs! Finally! No "smart alec" responses from the staff that you'll have to go upstairs to get a draft beer. They can pour it right in front of you.

Their beer menu is about as honest as any beer establishment can get. The specials were a bit out of date, but the rest of the offerings were available upon my ordering. Far better to only list 400 instead of saying "GUINNESS RECORD!!!" and having +500-600 beers "permanently unavailable." I’ve been spoiled by places like Rustico and Churchkey that both have very unique offerings, served the way that most of the beers presumably should be served.

I have to say that the changes from the Brick to the Baron have only improved the place. New men’s bathroom! Honest beer list! Food is a vast improvement over the previous owner’s food! I can now say that I want to return, and will tell all the people I know to do so.

So join me, won't you?

The Brickskeller: Closed

The Brickseller was a DC institution for beer lovers. I say was for two reasons. One, it's closed now. Two, it hasn't been an “institution” for DC beer lovers for what I'd wager is nearly 5 years. Like many, The Brick was my first “real” introduction to a bar that catered to craft beer, at least until I thought about all my fond memories in Norfolk Virginia going to the Taphouse at Ghent and Cogan’s Instant Art Bar, two places with much smaller beer menus, but much better experiences in terms of service and food. I had never seen as many beers at one time in a bar as when I first entered the basement of The Brickskeller. When the sale was first announced a few months ago, I wasn’t sure if a purchase by anyone would be a good idea. My first thoughts were that the name made the place, and without it there would be absolutely no point if the name didn’t come with the purchase.

Well, after making such a statement, I weighed my thoughts about this place. Should we only remember the good times? Should we just put aside the bad times or even the truth?

The Brick has “history,” but like most things they have their time and at some point, it is past. This most certainly needed to be acknowledged with The Brick. Whatever The Brickskeller was even just 15 years ago was long gone by the time I started to frequent it by 2007. The bathrooms were nauseous. The service was pitiful almost every night. The food wasn’t that great, but if you knew what to choose off the menu, you could usually scrape by. Now, before I get too nostalgic, the beer list was not just a joke, it was an outright sham. The cellar was always touted as having over a thousand beers, but can you really make that claim if they're always out of hundreds of beers? Their beer menu was at best a list of items they had at one point and hadn't carried for 6 to 8 months (or a few years prior), at worst, beers they may never had carried. A friend of mine joked they may have just picked up one six pack of a particular beer at some point. While The Brick painfully clung to their Guinness World Record, other people in town were innovating.

While people may think back now and remember that The Brickskeller introduced them to craft beer, I'd wager that the name "Brickskeller" means very little in today's DC beer culture beyond the simple nostalgia factor. The sad part is that The Brickskeller could have easily kept up with the times. Rustico and Pizzeria Paradiso opened years ago, Churchkey not long after that – I actually feel like those places care about the beer they’re serving as well as the food and overall service they provide each customer. The Alexanders (or whoever was running the show the last decade) should have been taking notes. The once unique establishment became a dinosaur, frequented mostly by loyal patrons who were likely blissfully unaware of these better establishments or decided to remain ignorant and by those who went there once simply to say they did. The latter would include my parents, who I went with on my birthday the week before it closed.

That last experience wasn't awful - I sat at the same exact table two nights in a row. The beers, as you'd expect were few and far between. We had partial menus Saturday night, but were greeted on Sunday with beer stained menus, but menus that were intact. We are after all, talking about The Brickskeller, where if are ordering a beer and get the first one you order you're doing something wrong. You might as well not order from the menu at all! "Surprise me with something special" sometimes worked if you had a competent waiter. After a few frustrating attempts, you just ask for whatever they had of a particular brand. That last night I was there I saw they had a bottle of Stone Lucky Bastard on another person's table, but apparently that was the last bottle. Bummer. That would have been a way to go out.

After spending over a year away from the place and entering it right before it closed, part of me is sad to see it go but after a nice short chat with one of the new owners, I’m hopeful that these people can breath life into this fading establishment as soon as possible. Clean bathrooms (one of their top priorities) and an up-to-date beer menu is really all it would need to surpass the existing Brickskeller’s current conditions. You know you're probably in for a good experience when the new owners say "What's on the menu will be here. If we run out, we'll grab every menu and cross it out." Here's hoping.

Quick Fire Review: The Bat (1959)

The Bat is a horror film that is more horrible than it is horror.

I suspect that this film is largely forgotten except for that it starred Agnes Moorehead and Vincent Price. The Bat concerns itself with a writer by the name of Cornelia van Gorder (Moorehead) who purchases a house of a recently deceased bank president who had committed a serious case of embezzlement.

The Bat plays a lot more like a strung out television anthology episode than it does an actual film and would have probably best been suited as a 25 or 50 minute story. The themes are a mish-mash of horror, thriller and mystery and none really meld too well together. There's just not a lot of vision here. The film is bland and boring to the point that not even Vincent Price could save it.

Bilbo Baggins

What I'm Watching

This post is about what I'm currently watching, primarily on Hulu.

The new TV season has begun. I'm about all caught up with each episode of the new series, and I've finally been able to watch Lone Star, so I can join in with the crowds of people annoyed with it's early departure from the Fall television schedule. It has joined Happy Town, which I did enjoy, and was killed early too. I suspect the Magic Man did them both in.

I'm still working through Highlander: The Series, the syndicated 1990s show about Duncan MacLeod. The show's setting is now Paris, though most everyone speaks pretty good English. Gotta love Canada.

I've finished the first season and am about 30 episodes into the second season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the anthology series hosted by none other than the master, Alfred Hitchcock himself. The only show I can really compare it to is The Twilight Zone, and there are some episodes that I've recently watched that rival that show's great ones. Hitchcock's dry wit remains hilarious and his remarks add a decent sense of snark and wit. I'm about 63 episodes into the 363 episodes, so I still have quite a ways to go until I'm done with this one.

The bizarre, Lexx, remains a staple on my plate, which I'm going to start watching this odd, strange, bizarre show again.

They're replacing 'CSI Miami' with 'Hawaii Five-0'?

Maybe the audience has just been... *puts sunglasses on* ...taken for a ride.

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Star Trek 2009 Red Letter Media review (review on a review)

The review was pretty good – though it is not as enjoyable when he doesn’t hate the movie in question, but there's good criticism there. “So much for your peaceful vision of the future, idiot”

I wouldn’t say he likes it, at least not with some qualifiers. He states that he realizes what it is a film made to make money – basically dumbed down for the “popcorn eating dimwitted masses.” He takes some serious cracks at the characterizations (everyone’s “HYPERCHARGED”).

Machete was worth seeing

Jessica Alba's character's cooking forced me to do some cooking of my own.