YFGF gets it wrong at the Brewers Ball

In an earlier post, I had lamented that we wouldn't be seeing Bob and Ellie Tupper at the Brewers Ball this year.

Three (!) readers of this blog were in attendance last evening, and stopped by the Clipper City table to chat.

And all three directed my attention to the upper mezzanine. Sitting there were Bob and Ellie, last-minute additions to the roster of breweries: a welcome sight indeed. As before, however, they had no definitive word yet on a new contract brewery for their Tuppers Hop Pocket beers.

Clipper City Brewing has participated four times at the Brewers Ball—to raise funds for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation—since the gala's inception in 2005. This year's attendance was the largest yet.

I had no bad beers last night, but of the few I had time to sample, standouts were Jackass Rye from Sweetwater Tavern, an oak-aged Scotch Ale from Shenandoah Brewing, and Vintage 50's Auld Abominable —Bill Madden's old ale that has aged quite gracefully since I first tasted it at the Brickskeller in January. And, a DC-area go-to favorite of mine: the Märzen, from Gordon-Biersch.

I'm also very grateful to several friends-in-beer who stopped by my table before midnight to toast my father's birthday, with a Guinness. Note that we drank from a bottle of Extra Stout. Dean Lake of Sweetwater Brewing remarked: "I had forgotten how good this recipe for Guinness actually is!"

left to right: Chris Mallon of Clipper City Brewing; Dean Lake of Sweetwater Tavern, Merrifield; Tom Cizauskas; Bill Madden of Vintage 50.

• More here on the Brewers Ball.
• More here on the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
  
• More photos here.