Here are the events, as listed today on Facebook:
Friday August 20th
DC Beer Week Kick-Off Event at the Rock and Roll Hotel
Presented by Washington City Paper & Nerd Nite DC
Including craft beers and music pairings and featuring: Beer Director Greg Engert of ChurchKey, Founder & Brewer Brian Strumke of Stillwater Artisanal Ales, Tracy Jill Doty from the NIH, Cobra Collective, New Rock Church of Fire and many more.
Sunday August 22nd
Craft Beer Cruise on the Cherry Blossom 6pm-9pm featuring over 20 different breweries, appetizers, and a whole lot more. $70/person. To purchase tickets go to www.capitolloungedc.com/beercruise. Space is limited to 150 people.
Monday - Wednesday, August 23-25
Elliot in the Morning presents DC Beer Week in studio. Elliot will be promoting the nights marquee events along with some of your favorite beer geeks and craft beer venues in studio.
Monday August 23rd
Room 11 along with Victory Brewing present two beers rarely seen outside the Victory Brewpub, Mad King Weiss and Gassy Jack Bitter.
ChurchKey presents Heavy Seas Rare Oak Cask Night & Glass Giveaway
Join us as we pour an insanely limited OAK CASK of Heavy Seas Loose Cannon (that's right the cask itself is made of OAK!). We will be featuring a regular cask of Bourbon Barrel-Aged Heavy Seas Hang Ten and Vintage Below Decks Barleywine as well!
Granville Moore's joins Susan Greene of Global Brewers Guild for an entertaining night of Belgian and Belgian style American Beers and a 5 course dinner carefully pairing and integrating the beers with the food. $70/person Call 202-399-2546 for reservations. Space is limited to 35 people.
Dino's 3 Beers 3 Courses – Chef Dean Gold carefully pairs 3 of his favorite beers with 3 mouth-watering courses. $39/person
Trusty's Burgers Beer and Bus – Have you ever dreamed of drinking craft canned beers while sitting in your old elementary school bus. Well now is your chance with the launch of the Bus Bar upstairs. Kick back with Butternut beer and figure out which lunch box you used to (or still) have.
Tuesday August 24th
Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe Brooklyn Brawl Beer and Cheese Tasting
Come and taste some of the finest beers from NY's largest Craft Brewer- Brooklyn Brewery. The beers will be artfully paired with Cheeses from International Gourmet. The beers include, Brewmasters Reserve, Black Ops, Brooklyn-Schneider Hopfen-Weisse, Local One Lager [sic], Brown Ale
H Street Country Club Butternut Pints for Putts – The shot of your life. 1 Beer. 1 Putt. 120 feet. Sink it and walk away with a regulation totally sick Pool Table!
Justins's Cafe presents Racing Dangerously. Racer 5 IPA and five different flavors of pie from Dangerously Delicious Pies on H Street N.E. Beer and pie? Yes. Gimme a slice.
Star and Shamrock Tavern with He'brew Ales “Brisket & Brews” - Join Shmaltz Brewing Company and the Irish/Jewish cuisine of the Star and Shamrock along with tasty He'Brew ales for some creative pairings.
18th Amendment Pizza Night with the 21st Amendment Brewing Company. Pizzas will be hot and beer will be cold along with reps from 21st Amendment there to keep it all together.
Belga Cafe - Chimay Trappist Ale Vintage Beer Tasting
Come to Belga and enjoy a unique Trappist experience. We will be tasting all of the Chimay Trappist Ales and will be treated to a vertical tasting of one of the world's finest beers- Chimay Grand Reserve. Chimay "Blue" will be served in three vintages in three unique packages, Chimay Grand Reserve 750 ml 2010 Vintage, Chimay 3L Jeroboam 2009 Vintage, and the extremely rare Chimay 6L Methusalah 2007 Vintage
The Liberty Tree presents Smuttynose New England Beer Dinner
4 Courses, 4 Beers $40/person
Wednesday August 25th
Troegs takeover at The Red and The Black. Glassware giveaway, Mad Elf in the Summer, Troegs Band, guaranteed fun.
SpeakeasyDC, Washington City Paper and The Big Hunt are teaming up to present Fermented: A Night of True Tales About Beer. Doors 6:30pm, Show 8-10pm. $15/Person
DC Bread and Brew presents Lagunitas Beer Dinner
Six beers and Six Plates featuring Hop Stupid, Little Sumpin, Censored Ale, IPA, Czech Pilsner and Dog Town Pale Ale. $50/person. Call 202-466-2676 for reservations
District Chop House - Meet The Brewer, Barrett Lauer, and enjoy tours of the brewery along with half price beers at one of the Nation's Capital's finest Brew Pubs.
Capitol Lounge Beer and Barbeque with Great Lakes Brewing Company. Low country barbeque and other backyard cuisine washed down with some of the finest brews from Great Lakes Brewing including Eliot Ness Amber Lager, Commodore Perry IPA, Dortmunder Gold Lager, and Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. 6:00 pm – 10:00 pm. Capitol Lounge Side Bar. $45/Person All Inclusive. http://www.capitolloungedc.com/dcbeerweek/
Thunder Burger Sierra Nevada Beer Dinner
Washington Nationals Present DC Beer Week night at the Ballpark. Join the Washington Nationals as they face the Chicago Cubs. Received special discounted tickets and a voucher for a free craft beer sample. GO NATS! [No details as to how to secure the special pricing given.]
Thursday August 26th
District Pour House and Coney Island Lagers take you from NY to Boston. Jeremy from Shmaltz Brewing Company will be there talking and throwing beer around while the kitchen is batting up some lobster rolls.
Breadsoda presents Beer vs Beer – celebrating “Braugust” Beer Month at Breadsoda. Think about it, what is better then a huge deli sandwich and cool craft beer? Letting the guys at Breadsoda pair them for you.
Meridian Pint and Schlafly Brewing Company present Dan Kopman Co-Founder and Brew Master of St. Louis Brewing. Special rare tastings of Schlafly beers paired with unique offerings from the Meridian Pints wonderful kitchen.
The Reef presents Rogue Ales Oyster Fest
3,000 Oysters, 3 Shuckers, 3 Levels, 7 great beers from Rogue Ales! Dead Guy, Kells Irish Lager, Imperial IPA, Imperial YSB, Orgasmic, Somer Ale, John John's Hazlenut 5pm-10pm
Biergarten Haus – Details to come...
Friday August 27th
Big Hunt Michigan Blowout Night featuring specials on Founders, Bells, and New Holland. Get your Wolverine Gold and Blue or Spartan Green on.
Policy – Details to come...
Saturday August 28th
RFD – You know they are closing it out with a PARTY.
For more information, visit the website at dcbeerweek.net, or Faceboook, or follow on Twitter at @DCBeerWeek.
Thank you to the DC Beer Week organizers and the participating venues for all of their hard work. DC Beer Week looks to be a good nine days with several worthwhile events, however ...
I do find it distressing that a week-long celebration of local beer culture contains so few events celebrating local breweries. (There are some exceptions, such as a couple of events at Chuchkey and District Chophouse.) Granted, there is at present no production brewery within the confines of the District (that may be changing soon), but the city does have local breweries within 100 miles (and some much closer) that are NOT being celebrated, breweries that continually win national and international awards. This should be the focal point
It's 'DC' Beer Week, I'll hear in response, not 'near to DC' Beer Week. Alright, then. So what do Bells or Rogue or St. Louis Brewing have to do with Washington, D.C. other than their tasty beers are sold in the city?
I've said it before, and, risking opprobrium, I'll continue to say it: until the greater Washington D.C. area embraces, nourishes, and cherishes its local beer heritage, it will not have a true beer culture, such as do Philadelphia, Asheville, or Baltimore. Yes, let's celebrate the great diversity of beer choices available city-wide, a recent and wonderful development, but why can't or why won't we show local beer pride in Washington, D.C.? It's all the rage to support local food and farmers, to be 'locavore'. But with craft beer, it seems that, at least in D.C., a beer must come from from somewhere else to be appreciated here.
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- As of Friday 8/13, the website for the event has gone 'live' at dcbeerweek.net.
- UPDATE: Chef Teddy Folkman, a co-founder of the event, has responded to my post.
- Caveat lector: As a representative of Select Wines, Inc., a distributor in northern Virginia of wine and beer, I do sell a 'local' beer: Heavy Seas of Baltimore, Maryland.
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I could make the case that a lack of any established beer culture is tied in with the claim lots of others make, with some degree of truth: that DC itself lacks its own distinctive culture, but instead is an amalgam of the various other cultures passing through the "company town" of DC and the Federal government in a transient style. The District was set up originally to be a neutral ground that favored none of the original states, and in many ways it has continued that role, mentally, to this day.
ReplyDeleteJust now, I thought to myself as an experiment, "What's DC beer?" And I said "Well....... there's Foggy Bot--oops, no more... and the Belgian places.... Cap City........... Chophouse and that wonderful Bourbon Stout...........Brickskeller............... Rock Bottom out in Bethesda........ ChurchKey........."
Another example: I just went through a cask-ale pub crawl through DC, and aside from Chop House I have to go back to my notes to remember where we were and what I had. I didn't get that plastered; there was just nothing that distinctive or local that I couldn't get in Baltimore.
We have a similar issue in Raleigh, there is a local beer week being setup but without involving any of the breweries that actually brew in the town. It's a shame.
ReplyDeleteAs an organizer of the event I really feel your pain as far as including local breweries. It gets logistical. What is considered to far to be inclued? Is Star Hill a local brewery? Do we extend out to Frederick? What about the bars and restaurants in those areas that then want to participate in DC Beer Week? With Stars and Bars, Chocolate City and DC Brau, it is going to get more interesting next year. It is something that we debated and since we are still in our toddler stage of growing the events and participants we can't open that can of worms... yet. Next year we want a home brewing competition, and also try and incorporate those "local" breweries to do events with the various establishments in DC. I love the suggestions and want to grow this into the best it can be. Thanks for all your interest and input, we need the beer community to help guide us. Cheers, Teddy Folkman
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