There's sad news out of Baltimore, Maryland, where humans live.
Baltimore Beer Week will not be held this year. If it had been, this would have been its 11th iteration.
As the organizers state, the festival may have been a victim of its own success. The very number of breweries in Baltimore, and of all of Maryland —and more broadly noting, the numbers throughout America now— vs. the smaller numbers of even a decade ago might negate the purpose of such a gathering or at least create too much 'noise' to make it viable.
Friends of Mad Fox Brewing Company
July 9, 2019
Friends, Patrons, and Supporters,
It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I inform you of the closure of Mad Fox Brewing Company. Our last day of business will be Sunday, July 21st.
The decision to close has been an extremely difficult one to make. We have witnessed restaurant competition in the 2.2 square mile Falls Church City become fierce since our opening in 2010 with multiple businesses opening in the last year alone. As much as we tried to compete, there is an overwhelming number of choices for the local population. Sales have been on a slow decline over the last several years and, unfortunately, staying open is no longer sustainable.
On the brewing side of our business, we continue to see more breweries opening in Virginia with two new Taprooms setting up shop within a mile of Mad Fox in the last year. When we opened in 2010, there were 40 breweries in Virginia. Now there are close to 250. The Brewpub business model is a tough one to maintain compared to a Brewery Taproom with little overhead, lower rents, and outsourced food trucks. Our draw from the surrounding areas has dwindled in what has become an extremely competitive craft beer market, which has resulted in this final decision.
We attempted to work with our Bank and our Landlord for more favorable terms and while both were willing, we ultimately could not come to an agreement that would allow Mad Fox to be break even or better.
We plan a closure date of Sunday, July 21st; however, we plan to continue with our 9-year Anniversary Party on Saturday, 13 July to honor you, our investors, our staff, and the Falls Church Community. Words cannot express how proud I am of the Mad Fox legacy and the opportunity to be a member of such a wonderful community, if even for a short while. We opened the first brewpub in the City of Falls Church and have won numerous medals at the Great American Beer Festival as well as the Virginia Beer Cup. We have celebrated christenings, birthdays, weddings, retirements and many holiday gatherings. You, our guests, along with our spectacular Mad Fox team have enabled us to build tremendous notoriety over 9 years in business. I thank you for allowing Mad Fox to be a part of your lives. Thank you for your years of support and I hope to see you at the Pub in the coming weeks.
Sincerely,
Bill Madden
CEO and Executive Brewer, Mad Fox Brewing Company
a stainless-steel vessel that receives the entire mash from the mixer [or mash tun] after the suitable conversion time has passed [barley malt starch enzymatically converted into sugars]. It has a slotted false bottom with 'valleys' arranged in concentric circles. The mash bed sits on the false bottom. To enable wort runoff to the brew kettle, rakes with knives rotate slowly, cutting the mash. The bed is sparged [washed with hot water] during the runoff.— Christine P. Rhodes, Tom Bedell, et. al
The Encyclopedia of Beer, 1995.
It is with great sadness we inform you of the passing of Casey Jones, our owner and CEO. Casey’s vision, dedication, and commitment has been integral to our business from day one. He will be dearly missed.
We ask for privacy for his family and co-workers in this difficult time and will provide further information as it becomes available.
This post will be updated.
I've just received terrible news about a great guy and brewer. Chris Mallon passed away on Sunday.
Chris was the original head brewer for Caboose Brewing, in Vienna, Virginia, which he shepherded from planning, in 2013, through its opening, in 2015, and until just recently.
Prior to that, he had been the Special Projects Brewer at Heavy Seas Beer in Baltimore, Maryland. Or, as he put it: "the Cask & Barrel Kemosabe."
Since leaving Caboose, he was said to be pursuing another brewery project in the area.
Rest in peace, Brewer Mallon.
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The Session: Beer Blogging Friday is a monthly event for the beer blogging community, begun in March of 2007 by Stan Hieronymus of Appellation Beer and Jay Brooks of the Brookston Beer Bulletin. On the first Friday of every month, a pre-determined beer blogger hosts The Session, choosing a specific, beer-related topic, inviting all bloggers to write on it, and posting a roundup of all the responses received.
For The Session #134, Friday, 6 April 2018, I was that pre-determined host and my topic was ... Beer Gardens.
Dave Gott —Vice President of Legend Brewing Company, in Richmond, Virginia— kindly sent in an essay on beer gardens in general and his beer garden in particular. He stated that he is "not a writer." I disagree.
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We sing a springSing joy spring.A rare and most mysterious spring,This most occult thingIs buried deep in the soul.Its story never has been told.The joy spring, the fountain of pleasure,Is deep inside you whether you're diggin' it or not.Once you're aware of this spring,You'll know that it's the greatestTreasure you've got.And furthermore:The joy spring, the bounteous treasure,Cannot be bartered away and never can be sold.Nothing can take it from you.It's yours and yours alone to have and to hold.And something more:It never is lost to fire or theft.It's always around. When trouble is gone,The pleasure is left.I've always foundIt's burglar-proof same as the treasureMan lays up in heaven, worth aPrice no one can measure.That says a lot.So joy spring,this fountain of pleasure,That's deep inside you, let me inform you in all truth,Ponce de Leon sought thisWhen he was searchin'For the fountain of youth.I say in truth, heSought a magical thing,For he was searchin'For the joy spring.
Ray Johnson —the indefatigable "I want a keg of your beer" man of Virginia beer— has died.
Rayner M. Johnson (Age 75) of Springfield VA, passed November 5, 2017 from complications of a sudden stroke. He is survived by his loving and supportive wife of 44 years, Kathy; sons, Matthew and Charlie (Anika) and the grandchildren.—5 November 2017
Winter weather may drive us indoors but cannot dampen our spirits when hearth, home and hops meet in jubilation. Hoisted high in its golden glory, Winter Cheers lives up to its name, fueling festive times and chasing winter’s chill. Glowing and glimmering, frothy and shimmering, our celebratory wheat ale features luscious fruity and spicy notes, making it a perfect brew to brighten spirits even on the deepest of nights. Light in body, this fruity and warming holiday brew delivers a crisp finish, with spicy hints of banana, clove, and citrus.
- Malt: German wheat and barley malts, and oats
- Hops: Whole flower Tettnang and Citra hops
- ABV: 6.7%
Twenty years ago today, on 17 October 1996, in the lower level of the Manayunk Farmers' Market, on the banks of the Schuylkill River in Philadephia, Pennsylvania, the brewpub Manayunk Brewing Company first opened its doors to the public.
An Oktoberfest blast-from-the-past.
Here was Sweetness, the St. Bernard. Her name matched her temperament. Her flask, unfortunately, did not. It was empty.
On 4 October 2008, Sweetness was attending the 9th annual Capitol City Oktoberfest, hosted by the (wonderfully misspelled) Capitol City Brewing Company, in Arlington (Shirlington), Virginia. Then and there, alternate supplies of beer were, fortunately, ample.
Bars, restaurants, breweries, and other businesses throughout the greater Baltimore area and Maryland are hosting special events to assist with Ellicott City's recovery after the flood on Saturday evening that devastated the Maryland town's Main Street and took the lives of two people.
In 1880, a Hugh Sisson of Baltimore, Maryland, delivered marble to Washington, D.C., for the construction of the Washington Monument.
One hundred and nine years later, in 1989, a son of a Baltimore pub owner, a descendant of that 19th century Sisson, delivered the beer goods. He successfully lobbied the Maryland legislature to permit brewpubs to operate in the state. (Yes, there was indeed a barbaric time when brewpubs were illegal!)
Immediately thereafter, he would install an eight-barrel brewing system in his family's eponymous pub and make local 'craft' beer history. Sisson's became Maryland's first brewpub since the repeal of Prohibition.
Congratulations, Hugh! What a long, strange, rewarding, tasty, struggling, successful, fulfilling, satisfying, and one-for-the-craft-beer-history-books trip it's been. And it continues!
For more than half of a century, I have lived here in northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland (with some time elsewhere).
One morning, about a decade ago, in October 2006, I was driving to work just outside of Baltimore, and I passed by a sad scene of destruction. A demolition crew was ripping the once mighty kettle of the former Carling/National Brewing Company out of its housing; the building itself was next to be razed.
I had been engaged in the 'craft' brewing industry for over fifteen years, but I had been far from diligent in photographing it. My blogging of it, and before that, my pen-and-paper chronicling of it, likewise had been insignificant. Why, I thought, why had I never taken photos of that impressive brewhouse, whose whirlpool I had once seen in operation, ten years earlier, awed by its volume and force? Why, when I had had numerous opportunities, why had I never taken pictures of the brewery's monumental outdoor fermenters, by that day long ago sold for scrap?
Things changed for me that day.
I opened a Flickr account, at which I have now stored nearly thirty-thousand images, most of which are of beer, and its people, places, and things. This blog, which I had begun in 2002, had been only a dalliance. Since then, however, I have written more than two-thousand times of beer (and, yes, occasionally of other things).
I became, shall I say, an honest 'song and dance man' for good beer. I observed —and contributed in small measure to— the exponential growth in the production, availability, and acceptance of good beer here in the mid-Atlantic area. And beer has been good to me. I have been enriched, emotionally and monetarily, even though for me and for many of us in the beer business, the latter has not been "the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice" but of providing sufficient scratch to pay the bills and to save a bit.
I began brewing at home well before that day, in the late 1980s —dared to do so by my younger brother ("Put up or shut up," he challenged me.), taught by Charlie Papazian's Joy of Homebrewing, and patiently assisted by a good friend ("Clean up that mess in the kitchen when you're finished!").
In 1992, I entered a batch of porter in the Spirit of Free Beer, a contest organized by the whimsically named B.U.R.P. (Brewers United for Real Potables), a Washington, D.C.-area home brew club. The recipe was not complex —especially as contrasted with today's so-called 'extreme' beers of high alcoholic strength and exotic ingredients— but, at 5.5% alcohol by volume, the porter was flavorful enough to garner a silver medal.
I went on to study at the Siebel Institute of Technology and then brew professionally for a decade. Later, as a beer salesmen, I would never refer to myself as an 'ex-brewer.' The yearning to brew remained too intimate and too strong. Rather, I regarded myself as 'brewer without portfolio.' Good brewing insinuates itself into one's soul.
Beer may be my vocation, but cask-conditioned 'real ale' —beer served at its glorious freshest— has been my calling and advocacy. Ah, for a pint of properly-cared-for bitter! I can only hope that American cask-ale producers' recent dalliance with their corn-hole toss of silly ingredients and murky beer will be only a passing whimsy.
Although I am a beer judge, only upon occasion have I posted reviews of beers at the blog. After all, anyone can write a review, and so many do. Rather than that, I have attempted to write the story of my search for the 'best' beer, my favorite beer. In the process, I have tasted many contenders, but not yet the one sine qua non. (And if I were to discover that, why continue?)
More than that, much more, I have tried to sculpt this blog into a historical snapshot of good local beer, to make for posterity a small record of our brewers, breweries, and beer folk and things.
I can only hope that that my time here with 'craft' beer provided others with entertainment and refreshment (after all, that is what beer should be), and helped to provide those bringing us beer with the recognition and livelihood they were due.
Or, it may have been all a self-indulgence. No matter.
Thirty-two years ago, in 1983, there were only two breweries in this area: Anheuser-Busch in Williamsbrug, Virginia, and that Carling-National plant in Halethorpe, Maryland. Then this happened ...
Since 1997, Cask Marque has been ensuring that the cask ale you drink in pubs in the U.K. has been in perfect condition. Qualified ass...
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