Pic(k) of the Week: Below Decks at Brickskeller

Considering the snow falling on the East Coast today —in my neck of the woods, at 3pm, it's at 14 inches and counting— a barleywine might be just the ticket to beat the cold.

That's Dave Alexander in the photo. He owns and operates the Brickskeller —Dining House & Down Home Saloon— which has been pouring good beer in Washington, D.C. since 1959 (which was before Dave's time!).

Here, from February 2008, Dave is pouring pitchers of cask-conditioned Below Decks, a 10% alcohol-by-volume (abv) barleywine-style ale from Clipper City Brewing of Baltimore, Maryland. The occasion was his annual Strong Beer Tasting. The pitchers had been filled via handpump from a firkin (10.8 gallon cask) of Below Decks.

I mention this because the photograph has received an honorable mention in the 4th annual Good Beer Blog Yuletide Photo Contest . Organizer Alan McLeod wrote that he awarded my photo the honor because

I want to be right there and I want to know that guy and be there with him ... even if TOM CAN"T COUNT!!!

Alan's rules stipulated five photographs as entries. Somehow (!), I had entered six.

Thank you to Alan for the time-consuming task of organizing, prodding, and judging (he called it his "Marital Patience Examination"), and, despite that, still summoning the enthusiasm to secure prizes for us ruck.

Jump here for the other winning entries. The photograph which garnered the Grand Prize is of a cask ale in all its magnificent, active, glory.

Pic(k) of the Week: entire series here.