Cask ale and giving thanks

The evening before Thanksgiving is one of the busier bar nights of the year. The folks who are leaving town have left. The folks who have stayed, tired of cooking, go out to play.

The night found me at the Majestic Lounge of the Evening Star Cafe in the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria. I was there to tap a firkin of Clipper City's Loose Cannon Hop3 Ale.

To my left and right were military men about to return to the Iraq theater.

One was a fan of Clipper City's seasonal spring beer Red Sky at Night Saison. He told me that before he knew I was from the brewery. The other was astonished by the character of freshness from the Loose Cannon cask. He had never experienced that before.

They were thanking me, when it was they who were soon to return to a war zone.

If I might quote Edgar Allan Poe:

Proud Evening Star,

In thy glory afar,

And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.

Sometimes it's the non-beer-geeky moments that can make a beer guy's day.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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• P.S. This was the first cask ever served at the Evening Star. Sometimes the geeky moments can make a beer guy's day.
• More photos: here.
• Caveat lector: I am a Territory Manager for Clipper City Brewing, of Baltimore, Maryland.