Day 50 (9/12/2011): Churchkey (Washington, DC)

Last Monday I had a chance to get over to ChurchKey while I was in DC. The restaurant downstairs, Birch and Barley, was closed, but that's not what I was there for anyways. I was there to check out a lambic event at the best beer bar in the city.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictured of the beer or interior since the lighting was low. I was able to try sample of a ton of good beers including Gueuze Tilquin, Oude Gueuze Tilquin L'Ancienne, and Abbaye 

De Saint Bon-Chien.

The first was a clean, crisp blend of new, one year and two year old lambics which are then all fermented and aged in oak barrels. The outcome has a very complex "barnyard" smell, most of which doesn't translate into the taste well. While the puckering lemon and green apple taste is refreshing, not much of the nose factors into it. It is tasting now, but here's to hoping that the flavor will more with age. At 4.8%, you could drink this all day, as long as your palette and stomach can handle the sour.

The Oude Gueuze is essentially the first beer's big brother. At 6%, it has a little more oomph to it, but most of the qualities stay the same. Both have the very funky and complex nose and the simple, straight forward lemony-tart flavors. The Oude Gueuze may be a bit more dry, but that is the big difference.

If the first two were eerily similar, Abbaye De Saint Bon-Chien was a huge departure. Where they were straw yellow, Bon-Chien is an almost copper color with no visible carbonation. No head whatsoever. The smell is cherries, vinegar, oak. It almost reminds me of a wine. The taste is tart cherries, oak, and the vinegar up front and fading into a nice malt sweetness. The carbonation is about just as slight as it looked. If you told me there was no carbonation, I would believe you, but I feel like I got just a couple bubbles in there. As still as you can get while still being carbonated. The wine comparison definitely was there. It actually didn't remind me much of beer between the stillness and hugely complex flavor. Interesting, but I don't think I would pay for it again.

I also got to try some of their food while I was there. I got a tasty muffuletta panini and an order of crispy, hot tater tots. They obviously weren't the highlight while I was there, but they were more than just sustenance. While I came here to have a meal with my beer, you wouldn't be in the wrong to flip that on its head and have a beer with your meal either.

I haven't been to a ton of bars in DC while traveling, but out of the ones I have visited, ChurchKey tops the bill. The number of taps and bottles they have is amazing and the food surpasses mere pub grub. If you like beer, this is your place when visiting the Capitol. They have a ton of great brewery events, so check out their event calendar if you're going to be in the area. I know I'll be back the next time I'm in the city.

(P.S.- I am way behind on reviews because of traveling and house work recently, so the upcoming reviews are going to be very short. I'll try to get back up to date in the next couple of days. Cheers!)

Day 49 (9/11/2011): Pizzeria Paradiso (Washington, D.C.)

I had been meaning to visit Pizzeria Paradiso since the first time I stayed in Dupont Circle for work last year. Good beer and good pizza? Very little can beat that. They have a great tap and bottle list and have a good happy hour on drafts during the week.

I ordered a 2007 Cantillon Iris, a wonderful unblended lambic that uses only pale malts and utilizes a 50/50 mix of dry and wet hops (More info here). This beer has a bit darker of a body due to the malt bill; almost amber rather than the typical straw color. Iris is definitely sour just like any other unblended lambic, but it has a slight caramel flavor that helps to counter a tiny bit of the tartness. A great beer for sure. Not my favorite sour, but it's definitely up there. I'll give it an A-.

They also had Founders Breakfast Stout on tap, so I got to try my first of these this season. If you like coffee stouts, this is your beer. The coffee flavor was a bit overwhelming for me, but it is what it is. There's definitely a ton of roast in the taste and then the rest is almost like a beer iced coffee. It seemed like the carbonation was high for an imperial stout, as well. I'm going to have to get some bottles of this to re-review, because I remember finding this a lot more outstanding than I did here. B+ for Breakfast Stout.

The meal was absolutely amazing. I started off with a caprese salad, with mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, and basil, all covered in good, tasty olive oil. I was starving and scarfed it down before taking a picture.

For my pizza, I got an 8" Atomica, which featured salami, black olives, hot pepper flakes, and mozzarella. And not the crappy, shredded stuff that has become standard fare on pizzas today, but creamy, slightly browned real  mozzarella. I also added sausage to it, which ended up being a great choice. The chunks of flavorful, spiced meat added a lot to the pizza. Overall, a great pizza. Probably one of the better ones I've ever eaten before.

I definitely will be back to Pizzeria Paradiso again (most likely the next time I'm in town). Like I said before good beer and good pizza. Can't beat it with a stick!

Founders Breakfast Stout
Style: American double/imperial stout
ABV: 8.3%
IBU: ?
Beer Advocate: A/A+
Ratebeer: 100/98

Cantillon Iris
Style: Unblended lambic
ABV: 5%
IBU: ?
Beer Advocate: A-
Ratebeer: 99/96

Day 39 (9/1/2011): Arnold's Ziffel by Listermann (Super secret special tasting!)

A little detour today. Check out my post over on CincyVoices for what beer I had the pleasure of drinking last night. I was definitely honored to have the opportunity to take part in such a cool event! See you back here tonight or tomorrow with our regularly scheduled content.

Day 35 (8/28/2011): Wild Undressed by Picobrouwerij Alvinne (at Brasserie Beck)

So, I'll be in DC for work until Tuesday and decided to head to Brasserie Beck for dinner and a beer or two. Brasserie Beck, as the name implies, focuses on Belgian food and beers. They had a great tap list and an even better bottle menu. I was going to get the Stillwater/Mikkeler collaboration, but that had apparently recently kicked, so I grabbed a glass of what took its place, Wild Undressed, a dark sour ale from a Belgian brewery that I had never heard of before. While I was at it, I ordered the Colorado Lamb Sandwich, which is lamb, goat cheese, and roasted red peppers.

The beer was great. I was a little concerned when it came out with no head whatsoever (see above), but on closer inspection small bubbles could be seem rising from the bottom of the glass to the surface of the dark brown beer. The nose was very funky, with a strong hint of the sour to come, with a strong earthiness and a slight vinous fruit/barrel smell.

The taste is sour, but there is a balancing malt backbone which tempers it a bit. Despite that, it does have a puckering funky tart flavor which puckers your mouth a bit and makes you salivate. The malts at the back end are of the caramel/toffee type, which makes sense considering the darkness of the beer. It's not terribly complex, but it is tasty.

The mouthfeel is about medium, though the tartness of it makes it seem far thinner. The carbonation is low-moderate, again unsurprising considering the lack of head.  This is a very refreshing beer, despite what you might think when it's set down on the table in front of you. Overall, quite tasty and a great choice. I'm glad I went with this instead of something else on the menu. Lord knows there was enough to choose from. I give Wild Undressed by Picobrouwerij Alvinne an A-.

The food, while decent enough, wasn't as large a hit as the beer. The frites were superb; hot and crispy, they came with a few different mayos. The curry was probably my favorite of the bunch. The sandwich was where things went wrong, though. I know lamb is a fatty meat, but I'm not sure how much more meat than fat was on the sandwich. The bread was great, as was the chewy, crusty bread, but having to pick out half of the meat in the sandwich was irritating. It certainly made the sandwich a sloppy mess.

I think the moral of the story is that next time I definitely will be getting mussels with my beer(s) when I head to Brasserie Beck. I almost did and I'm kicking myself for not doing so. Maybe I just got the bad end of a piece of meat, but I wouldn't order that sandwich again. I would, however, have no problem going back and trying something else.

Style: Sour/wild ale
ABV: 5.2%
IBU: ?
Beer Advocate: A-
Ratebeer: 71/19

Bought on draft at Brasserie Beck (Washington, DC) for $14. I've never seen this before and have no idea as to its distribution.