Pic(k) of the Week: Blue Mountain Hop Trellis

Blue Mountain is not only a brewery in central Virginia, but a hop farm. In the photo, wires —which will hold hops in spring, summer, and early autumn— stand bare in winter (12 December 2010).

Now, at the end of March, weeks frost-free weather in the mid-Atlantic region herald the onset of hop growing season.

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• Blue Mountain is one of five Virginia breweries (and one cidery) that comprise the Brew Ridge Trail in Nelson and Albemarle Counties. Another of those breweries, Devils Backbone, will host the 1st Virginia Craft Beer Fest, on 18 August, in Roseland, Virginia.
• Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of personal photos, often posted on Saturdays, and often, but not always, with a good fermentable as subject. Commercial use requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.

Heavy Seas Fire Works: beer dinner(s)

It's a date; well, actually, it's two.

Fire Works —pizzeria, restaurant, and good-beer bar, in the Court House district of Arlington, Virginia— has invited Heavy Seas Brewing —of Baltimore, Maryland— to dinner on the 3rd and 4th of April. Chef Frank Mayo will do the cooking. Beer manager Mike Berry will do the hosting.

The first beer —a 'welcome' beer, not on the menu above— is Heavy Seas' Classic Lager. The brewery has modeled the beer on recipes for premium all-malt American lagers of years prior to 1950, when there yet was maltiness and hoppiness in those beers. Liquid history, if you will.

The first beer with dinner —Holy Sheet Uber Abbey Ale— Heavy Seas has retired from its fleet. This keg —one of the last available— has aged (well) over 15 months, softening the bite of its 9% alcohol-by-volume, while retaining the fruity fusel alcohols produced by its Belgian yeast strain.


The next two beers with dinner —Heavy Seas Pale Ale and Loose Cannon American Hop3 IPA— will be served from firkins: 10.8 gallon casks, within which the beers have been naturally carbonated.

Berry personally filled these two casks at the brewery with his choices of spices and hops. To the Pale Ale, he added sour cherries, chips of toasted poplar wood, vanilla beans, pomelo peel, and so-called 'wet'* Cascade hops. In the cask of Loose Cannon, it's Spanish lemon peel, dried white peaches, grated fresh ginger, and 'wet' Amarillo hops.

Not pictured, an additional course: Jerk chicken thighs, stuffed with Linguiça sausage, served over red beans and rice, with pineapple puree. Beer selection: a surprise!

With dessert —Chef Mayo's Peanut Double Chocolate Fudge— Berry has chosen to serve Siren Noire.

Approx. 8% ABV. An English style imperial stout, fermented and flavored with imported Belgian chocolate nibs. Smooth and easy drinking. Named for the Sirens who lured seafarers off course and ultimately to their demise.

As it might have be impractical to host all 30 employees of the brewery at dinner, two will be making the 45 mile trek from Baltimore to Fire Works. Tuesday evening, Stephen Marsh will guest host. He is the cellarmaster for the brewery: the manager of the brewery's burgeoning cask program. Wednesday evening, it's Hugh Sisson: the founder and managing partner of Heavy Seas Brewing.


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THE LAGNIAPPE

The dinner may also feature the official Virginia release of Plank II.

the second in a series of beers showcasing unique wood ageing treatment to add flavor and nuance. Plank II features an 8.5% ABV Dopplebock style lager matured with specially treated Eucalyptus and Yellow Poplar wood planks.

Six-foot planks of Eucalyptus and Poplar were placed in the fermenter and allowed to age with the beer for six weeks. The Eucalyptus wood lends notes of chocolate [and mint], balanced with a hint of toffee and smoky dryness from the Yellow Poplar.

As of this post (Friday morning, 30 March), the state of Virginia has not yet granted approval for the beer to be sold in the state. Failing timely approval, Mike Berry has plans to offer a different, sixth, Heavy Seas beer as a bonus.

THE SKINNY

The cost of admission is $75 (including tax and gratuity). Wednesday's session has sold out, but there are still a few seats remaining for Tuesday's dinner. For reservations, call Fire Works on 703. 527.8700 or email: courthouse@fireworkspizza.com.

• Address: 2350 Clarendon Boulevard
  (in the Court House district, at N. Adams Street)
  Arlington, Virginia.
• Facebook: LyonHall
• Web: fireworkspizza.com/Arlington/Web/

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• Photos from the beer dinner: here.
• The term 'wet' is used to describe hops that have been freshly picked and shortly thereafter, without storage or curing, used to brew beer. Most hops are gently heat-cured to remove moisture content and stabilize the flavor and aroma. Just-picked, they have more of grassy character: similar as to how fresh mint has a 'green' character in addition to its minty flavor.
  
  Think of 'wet' hops as beer's answer to 'farm to table.' Most hopyards in the U.S. are found in the Pacific Northwest. Breweries not nearby arrange for freshly-picked hops to be air-shipped overnight after fall harvest. 'Wet' hops in April will have been vacuumed-packed. As well, many areas in the U.S., such as here in Virginia and Maryland, are seeing a resurgence of local hop-farms.
  
  
• Caveat lector: As a representative for Select Wines, Inc. —a wine and beer wholesaler in northern Virgina— I sell the beers of Heavy Seas Brewing.

Drinking, Again: 21 year old alchemy from Bruichladdich

Bruichladdich 1989 "Black Art" 21.

An Islay single malt whisky (that's 'Scotch,' here in the U.S), un-peated, and matured —in a wonderful, yet not uncommon cross-seas pollination— in Buffalo Trace bourbon casks. Bottled at 21 years old, at an undiluted 'cask strength' of 49.7% alcohol-by-volume (99.4 proof).

Tasted 14 March 2012, at a portfolio show for Winebow, an importer and wine (and spirits) distributor, in Washington, D.C.

This venerable Bruichladdich was the color of sherry, tasting of toffee, burnt sugar, dark berries, and an abundance of sea-weedy iodine. (Maybe oloroso sherry, or is that a visual cue?) And, even as this was at cask strength, it showed little of an expected alcoholic burn. I told an aquaintance afterward: "a life-changing dram." Estimated retail value: $200 +.

"Please, sir, I want some more."

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• Drinking , Again: An occasional series of reviews of beer (and wine and spirits). No scores; only descriptions. Graphic created by Mike Licht at NotionsCapital.
• Pronounce Bruichladdich somewhat like: brook LADdy
• Buffalo Trace is a bourbon distillery in Kentucky. Photos from a tour: here.
• Thank you to David Ferguson —Bruichladdich's Business Development Manager in the U.S.— who did indeed give a wee bit more of a taste.

Pic(k) of the Week: Cobwebs on the Tank

1989 was a special year for craft beer in Maryland.

An 8-barrel brewhouse was installed in a small Baltimore, Maryland, restaurant, and with that act, Sisson's Restaurant & Brewery became the very first brewpub to operate in Maryland, since the repeal of Prohibition. (That year, in fact, the total number of brewpubs open in adjoining Delaware, the District of Columbia, and Virginia, was zero.)

Eleven years later, in 2000, Sisson's would be sold, and the brewing equipment would stand fallow for several months (which is when this photo was taken).

In 2002, the pub would be sold again, and remodeled as Ryleigh's Oyster. In 2005, the brewing equipment was removed and sold to Mountaineer Brewing of West Virginia (which itself closed in 2011).

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• If the name Sisson sounds familiar, it's because Hugh Sisson —once brewer and general manager at his family's eponymous restaurant— is the the founder of Heavy Seas Brewing, a production brewery located just south of Baltimore in Halethorpe, Maryland.
• Caveat lector: As a representative for Select Wines, Inc. —a wine and beer wholesaler in northern Virgina— I sell the beers of Heavy Seas.
• Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of personal photos, often posted on Saturdays, and often, but not always, with a good fermentable as subject. Commercial use requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.

Opening Day for Bluejacket? ... 2013

The Neighborhood Restaurant Group —parent organization to beer bar ChurchKey and restaurant Rustico— recently announced that Megan Parisi —past lead brewer for Cambridge Brewing of Massachusetts— will be the head brewer for Bluejacket, an upcoming production brewery (and restaurant) to open near the Washington Nationals baseball stadium, in southeast Washington, D.C.

In late February, I met Ms. Parisi at Mad Fox Brewing —a brewpub in Falls Church, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C.— where she had just finished brewing with Mad Fox's brewer/owner, Bill Madden. Among other things, we discussed a possible date for Bluejacket's opening day.

The Craft Brewers Conference —a confab organized by the Brewers Association, an advocacy group for U.S. breweries producing fewer than six million barrels of beer per year— moves among different U.S. cities every year. This year, that's San Diego. Next year, May 2013, it's here, in Washington, D.C. And, that's Parisi's wished-for deadline.



Since Bluejacket will be located within view of Nationals Park, here's a thought. Maybe, just maybe, might there be an opening day on Opening Day? 2013!

UPDATE: Bluejacket opened on 29 October 2103. More: here.

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