Olde Heurich ceases operations

It is sad news to report. Olde Heurich , Washington, D.C.'s home-town beer, will no longer be brewed.

Good beer in the DC area was rare when Gary Heurich resurrected his family's brands in the mid 1980s, employing the F.X. Matt Brewing Company of Utica, New York to brew the beers under contract.

The original brewery, Christian Heurich Brewing, had survived Prohibition only to close in 1956, standing where the Kennedy Center now sits. The Arena Stage used the closed brewery's hospitality room as a performance space from '57 until 1962, calling the room the Old Vat. (It would be 36 years before another brewery was to open in Washington, D.C. - the Capitol City Brewing Company, a brewpub, in 1992.)

Thank you Gary Heurich for your efforts. Old Heurich: 1986-2006.

The morbid roster of shuttered local breweries grows: Founders, Virginia Beverage Company, John Harvard's, Degroens/Baltimore Brewing Company, Sisson's Restaurant and Brewery (first brewpub in Maryland), Brimstone Brewing Company, Bardo Rodeo, Dock Street, Wild Goose Brewing Company, British Brewing Company (first micro in Maryland), Globe Brewing Company, Potomac Brewing Company, Blue and Gold Brewpub, and yes, even National Brewing Company (not to mention Gunther and other casualties of the big boy beer wars).

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL BREWERY!

Below is the letter from Gary Heurich in late February 2006.

It is with immeasurable sadness and disappointment that I inform you that, after 20 unprofitable years, The Olde Heurich Brewing Company has discontinued brewing operations, and will cease sales of its beers to its distributors, effective with the last of our shipments to our distributors in February.

These shipments will provide our distributors with up to one month's final inventory that will allow each of them and our retail customers time to plan transitions and arrange final purchases of what will now likely become an eBay item. Accordingly, I expect that Foggy will disappear from the market by the beginning of April.

It was with pride and a great sense of history that I chose to resurrect my family's grand local brewing tradition in the national capital area in 1986. My hope and inspiration was that it would be supported accordingly so that we would be able to build a brewery in Washington.

Though with a handful of wonderful exceptions for which I am very grateful, sadly and unlike many other craft beer markets, the Washington area's heritage beer seems to have been viewed more as a commodity, and we never came anywhere near the sales needed to build a brewery.

As our predecessor, the Chr. Heurich Brewing Co., learned by the time it had to close in 1956 for similar reasons, the Washington area is unique among major urban centers in its relative lack of a hometown spirit, and as a native Washingtonian this is something that is deeply and personally disappointing.

Certainly I could have chosen to do things differently and embraced more forceful marketing methods, but given many other craft beers' success without this, and though perhaps naively, it was important to me that my beers be embraced and appreciated because of their consistent high quality and intrinsic cultural and historical importance, and not simply because of consumers' vulnerability to mass marketing.

Another disappointment and mea culpa is that I was rarely able to focus exclusively on growing the beer business because over the years other obligations and choices, similarly to my grandfather, led me to pursue eleemosynary activities. But I cannot say that I regret this, as they served a greater good, and are things of which I am proud.

While Olde Heurich, Foggy Bottom, our other brands, and our beers will live on in a brewpub as part of an inn I am developing on the shores of Lake Champlain, for the second and final time the Washington metropolitan area will lose its heritage beer.

I want to thank you and all of our customers over the past 20 years who did embrace and support Washington's heritage beer, for which I am personally grateful. I will always take heart and reassurance from this that I did accomplish more than simply spending a helluva lot of money to make sure I had great beers to drink!

Gary F. Heurich, President
The Olde Heurich Brewing Company
Washington, DC

Recently, some area'craft beer' drinkers have complained that Foggy Bottom wasn't the 'biggest' beer around, and have abandoned the brand for other choices, but the beers were solid, and came with with a noble heritage. Many here will miss them. More here.

72 Hours of Belgium 2006

Max's continues to impress with their events. It's a taphouse located in the Fells Point district of Baltimore, Maryland.

This past weekend, GM Casey Hard, owners Gail and Ron Furman (and Jaimie, Jason, and the entire cast of ridiculously good bartenders) hosted their second annual 72 Hours of Belgium.

Accompanying the over 100 different bottled Belgian beers, there were more than 40 Belgian draughts scheduled Friday afternoon. By Sunday afternoon, there were significantly fewer still flowing - forlorn plastic hats noting the voracity of past madding crowds. But even so, Sunday's smaller array of Belgian tap handles would be a phenomenal draught display at many bars. I was told that on Friday and Saturday the bar had been breathing room only.

We didn't make it to the cask ale handles, where the crew was pulling from firkins of Brewers Art's Petroleuse and Ozzie but my companions and I did try these:

Our bottle of Fantome seemed a bit off, with a somewhat harsh and meaty yeast bite.

The draught Brouwerij de Regenboog's Wostyntje was delightful: just a hint of mustard bitterness that I might be hard pressed to identify as such if i didn't know it were there. Like a spritzy Belgian golden with good malt and spice presence in a surprisingly low alcohol package - 5% or so. Showed better than any bottle of this I've tried.

Urthel Vlamese Bock
Philadlephia's Monk's Cafe website states that it is the only bar outside of Belgium to have this Urthel on "draft". Well, no ... Vlamese Bock is here in Bawlmer!

The Valmese is alarmingly smooth for a beer of 9% abv. At this point, I couldn't quite tell if this were a bock or a Dutch bok or a Belgian derivation thereof ... but complex nonetheless with a bittersweet chocolate-like finish.

Troubadour Obscura
Muskatiers began as a contract brewery; I'm not certain of its current status. The Obscura is listed as a Mild Stout. Nothing mild about and not a British or American stout .. but nothing wrong with that. Dark, with a strong alcohol bite (I believe 9% or so), and flavors of burnt malt, low-toned fruit, and sweet cooking spices.

Next, I showed the flag and passed about a bottle of Heavy Seas Below Decks Barleywine from Clipper City. It was downright lovely and smooth after the Troubadour, especially considering Below Decks' 11% abv!

Two of us being rabid fans of the lambic, we had to try the Cantillon Gueuze on draught. That's an interesting conundrum: how does a beer which derives some of its blended complexity aging in a bottle do so in a keg? The answer was: not as well. Tasty and thirst-quenching, draught Cantillon might serve as gateway for those afraid of the intense sourness of lambics and gueuze-lambics. But I would have been hard-pressed to identify this as Cantillon without seeing Casey pour it for us.

We finished with a charming draught tripel: Genste. This was new one to me. Deep golden, refreshing, crisp, aromatic, and well-attenuated for a tripel. I might compare it to an Unibroue Fin du Monde.

Last year, when Max's closed its ballpark location, they brought their chef, Christine, over to Fells Point. And it showed.

We were served a cheese plate with an array of Belgian cheeses. We tried the salmon over leeks and carrots, and even that vegetable bed was tasty, not an afterthought. The frites were double-fried and finished with spicy aioli; the asparagus grilled and accompanied with smoked salmon. Considering the choices, the prices were reasonable.

Wow!

On our escape out, we stopped in to pay a quick visit to Wayne at his eponymous bar/restaurant - Mahaffeys. It's good news for good beer lovers. After 3 years, he's doubling his space to include an upstairs with its own bar. Mahaffey's has had cask ale on a daily basis for over 2 years now. Go to mahaffeyspub.com for more information.

Brave the Storm Upon the Heavy Seas

Clipper City's Hugh Sisson (l), Larry Robinson (c),
beer manager of Chevy Chase Wine & Spirits of Washington, D.C.,
and I (r), enjoying pints from the firkin.

It was a cask ale dinner, last Tuesday evening, with Clipper City Brewing Company at the Royal Mile Pub in Wheaton, Maryland! All the beers were Heavy Seas beers from Clipper City, paired with food by Ian Morrison, the restaurant's chef/owner. This was indeed the first ever dinner/tasting of the entire Heavy Seas line!

Co-hosts were brewery owner Hugh Sisson and Kristin Orr, the Pub's General Manager, who had outfitted her staff in marine clothes and added lots of clever nautical touches.

I was there to provide commentary about the firkin of Loose Cannon ... and to tap it (and to drink some pints from it)! Also in attendance were some local members of the Washington DC area's largest homebrew club - B.U.R.P. - as well 2 members of the beer press - Martin Morse Wooster and Steve Frank (half of the Brews Brothers) from the Mid-Atlantic Brewing News.

Royal Mile Pub &
Clipper City Brewing

'Brave The Storm on the Heavy Seas'

BEER DINNER

^{Light Air}

Shrimp Salad Crostini, Grilled Fruit Shots, Herb Foccacia with Beer Butter
Small Craft Warning Uber Pils

Light Breeze

Boar Sausage
House made boar sausage over wild rice with cherry Gastric
Winter Storm Category 5 Ale

Gentle Breeze

Mole Chicken Salad
Chicken breast simmered in red mole over
mesclun greens, cactus petals and toasted pepita seeds
Peg Leg Stout

Fresh Breeze

Lobster Poached in Butter
over lobster mashed potatoes with vanilla bean butter sauce
Red Sky at Night Saison Ale

Near Gale

Mango topped with marscapone cheese and wrapped in prosciutto
Below Decks Barley Wine

Violent Storm

Thai Basil Lemon Sorbet
Loose Cannon Hop3 Cask Conditioned IPA

Calm

Caramel Popcorn
Coffee, Water and Aspirin

More photos here.

Nut Browned Ale for Christmas 2005 - a review

Peter Scholey, ex lead brewer of Brakspear and soon-to-be brewer for the resuscitated same, has a line of Christmas beers he contract brews under the name Ridgeway. I believe he uses the Brakspear yeast strain which he rescued from oblivian. Anyway, the line includes Bad Elf, Very Bad Elf, Lump of Coal, and more. My favorite of the bunch is new this year - Warm Welcome Nut Browned Ale.

The label has a picture of Santa descending down the chimney, his lower extremeties about to be scorched on a roaring fire - hence the name of the beer. What a wonderful brown ale - nutty, light caramel, hints of low-toned fruit. Except for its higher alcohol - 6% - I could believe this to be what Newcastle Brown may have once been.

Banned in Connecticut due to the drawing of Santa Claus on the label!

From the importer's website:

It’s a sad tale, the closing of the venerable Brakspear brewery in Henley-on-Thames, where the most famous and surely the best Bitter in England has been made for centuries. The brewery, in operation since 1779, was sold off in 2002 in parts to make room for an upscale hotel, and everyone who worked there was let go, without so much as a by-your-leave. But for beer lovers, the closing was not a complete disaster. Thankfully, the master brewer at Brakspear, Peter Scholey, determined to strike out on his own. Peter has set up shop as Ridgeway Brewing, not so far from Henley, and already he’s putting out beers so good they could almost make you forget Brakspear altogether.

The Ridgeway Brewery is named for the ancient road – passable now only on foot – that meanders along a low escarpment across the high, rolling pastoral plain that is the southwest of England. The now patchy stone surface of the Ridgeway was laid by Britain’s oldest inhabitants – Druids and the like – thousands of years before the Romans turned up to build their own roadways. It is the oldest road in the British Isles and Europe, running nearly 100 miles, past that other ancient landmark, Stonehenge, as well as Peter Scholey’s relatively modern home, along the way.

Tomato Harvest & Beer

The beer dinner at Washington D.C.'s Cafe Saint-Ex on Monday 27 September 2005 was a celebration of the harvest season and of the initial release of Clipper City Brewing's newest Heavy Seas beer - Loose Cannon Hop3 Ale. Chef Barton Seaver created a 5 course menu, each meal using organic heirloom tomatoes, each paired with a different Clipper City beer.

Cafe Saint-Ex and Clipper City Brewery present A Tomato Harvest Beer Dinner Five beers, including two casks, from Clipper City's Heavy Seas line paired with Five Tomato based dishes created by Executive Chef Barton Seaver (All the tomatoes used are local organic) Balto Marzhon Puree of tomato soup garnished with woodgrilled onions Small Craft Warning Uber Pils Sliced tomatoes and portobellos drizzled with minted herb oil Red Sky at Night Saison Grilled fresh shrimp with endive and tomato compote Peg Leg Imperial Stout (served from a firkin) Grilled lamb finished with tomato leaf & hazelnut pesto; served on a bed of carmelized tomato risotto Loose Cannon Hop3 Ale (served from a firkin) House-made Tomato Basil Ice Cream

For the lamb dish, Chef Seaver emphasized the minty/herbal aroma of the stems of a tomato plant. Seaver was intrigued by the herbal character of the Loose Cannon, and proposed pairing a fresh cask of it with a tomato-based dessert. He reduced the fresh tomatoes for an extended period over low heat, resulting in a delicious demi-sweet flavor. (Despite what the US Supreme Court may say, tomatoes are a fruit after all.) When I appeared momentarily skeptical, he laughed. "That's why I'm the chef and you're the beer guy." And, indeed, infused with basil and drizzled with tomato syrup, his ice cream was an inspired pairing for the herbal/fruity character of the cask-conditioned Loose Cannon, and a delicious conclusion to what one beer-dinner veteran told me was the best he had ever attended. More photos here. In defense of the quality of the photos, they were taken using a disposable camera. In a nine month period before the dinner, I had misplaced one digital camera, and I had driven out from under another (after placing it on the roof of my car). For discipline, I had placed myself on a 'digital' diet.