Tag Archives: Halftime Pint

The Halftime Pint: Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout

20121130-124029.jpg

A Perfect Pint for Breakfast Time

One of the greater things about watching football in America is that most matches, especially those of the EPL, are early in the morning American time, giving people an excuse to daydrink. This is part of our series discussing exactly what to drink when you’re at the pub, presented by our resident homebrewer, Keith.

The Beer: Oatmeal Stout, Samuel Smith’s Brewery, Tadcaster, England

The Pub: The Queen Vic, in Northeast DC

What you Need to Know: Samuel Smith’s Brewery was founded in 1758. The brewery, well-known as one of the most bare-bones breweries in the world, is also famous for its fermentation vessels, which are large open square slate tanks (as opposed to most breweries’ closed cylindrical/conical stainless steel or copper fermentation tanks). The “Yorkshire Squares” impart a snappy, mineral flavor to the beers. Samuel Smith’s was also one of the first and most well-known to proudly tout its organic grains, as its lager has been labeled as “Organic” for as long as it’s been made. Continue reading →

The Halftime Pint: Lump Of Coal Stout

One of the greater things about watching football in America is that most matches, especially those of the EPL, are early in the morning American time, giving people an excuse to daydrink. This is part of our series discussing exactly what to drink when you’re at the pub, presented by our resident homebrewer, Keith.

The Beer: Lump Of Coal Stout, Ridgeway Brewing, South Stoke, England, United Kingdom

The Pub: The Queen Vic, in Northeast DC

What you need to know: Ridgeway Brewing is a “gypsy brewery,” meaning that brewer Peter Scholey travels around to different breweries, uses their equipment, and then affixes the Ridgeway name and label on it.  There are quite a few breweries that operate this way, and put out consistently good product.  Stillwater Artisanal Ales, out of the Baltimore region, operates this way (though they just got a “permanent” space at the newly opened Of Love and Regret), as does Mikkeller out of Copenhagen.

The style, a Foreign Export Stout, is a “traveling” version of the classic stout.  It’s typically bolder, roastier and more alcoholic, so to better survive long trips on cargo ships.  It’s not as strong as the Imperial, but then again, it never had to satisfy Catherine the Great. Continue reading →

The Halftime Pint: Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald

20120925-072446.jpgOne of the greater things about watching football in America is that most matches, especially those of the EPL, are early in the morning American time, giving people an excuse to daydrink. This is part of our series discussing exactly what to drink when you’re at the pub, presented by our resident homebrewer, Keith.

The Beer: Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, Great Lakes Brewing Company, Cleveland, Ohio

The Pub: The Blaguard, in Northwest DC

What you need to know: Yep, it’s another porter, of the American Robust variety.  So roast should factor heavy, but, as Great Lakes stays a fairly style traditional (even their Commodore Perry IPA is fairly restrained), hops should be mellow and grassy. Continue reading →

The Halftime Pint: Belhaven Twisted Thistle IPA

One of the greater things about watching football in America is that most matches, especially those of the EPL, areearly in the morning American time, giving people an excuse to daydrink. This is part of our series discussing exactly what to drink when you’re at the pub, presented by our resident homebrewer, Keith.

The Beer: Twisted Thistle IPA, Belhaven Brewery- Dunbar, Scotland, United Kingdom

The Pub: The Queen Vic, in Northeast DC

What You Need to Know: I’ve covered the history of the Belhaven Brewery in a previous post. In that post, I also mentioned that the Scottish climate is also typically unkind to hops. Brewers of old in Scotland would then use whatever was handy to spice or preserve their beers- so Scottish brewers would often use thistle or heather. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case with this beer; it’s just a clever name. But there are breweries in Scotland that still use heather for their beers. We’ll get to them at some point.

Continue reading →

The Halftime Pint: Marston’s Oyster Stout

20120820-083717.jpgOne of the greater things about watching football in America is that most matches, especially those of the EPL, are early in the morning American time, giving people an excuse to day drink. This is part of our series discussing exactly what to drink when you’re at the pub, presented by our resident homebrewer, Keith

The Beer: Marston’s Oyster Stout, Marston’s Brewery, Burton-Upon-Trent, England

The Pub: The Queen Vic, in northeast DC

What You Need to Know: We’ve covered the basics of the stout style here before; one of the more fun additions that a brewer can make to a stout, however, is oyster shell.  Depending on the brewer, either whole shells or crushed shells are joined with the beer during a secondary round of fermentation.  In some cases, this can lead to an overpowering oyster flavor, whereas other stouts will only get a mild hint of mineral flavor (likely salts, which are perfectly common in English ales). Continue reading →

The Halftime Pint: DC Brau Your Favorite Foreign Movie

20120807-111123.jpgOne of the greater things about watching football in America is that most matches, especially those of the EPL, are early in the morning American time, giving people an excuse to daydrink. This is part of our series discussing exactly what to drink when you’re at the pub, presented by our resident homebrewer, Keith

The Beer: Your Favorite Foreign Movie, DC Brau, Washington, DC

The Pub: Smith Commons, in Northeast DC

What You Need to Know: I’ve gone into the history of DC Brau before in this column- it was the first of a handful of new breweries in DC to publicly release beer brewed on its own premises. The story of YFFM is pretty unique, though. In establishing itself in the District, DC Brau took care to cultivate relationships with the major “beer geek” bars in DC. One such bar, Meridian Pint, in an effort to tie itself closer to DC’s beer culture, held (roughly) quarterly homebrew competitions, which would culminate in a Tournament of Champions where the winners would re-brew their winning beers and face off for a limited audience. The premise was simple: have about 20 brewers sign up, fill up the downstairs bar on a weeknight, and promote homebrewing in DC. DC Brau latched onto this competition, and decided to offer the ultimate prize: the ToC winner’s beer would be brewed at DC Brau, and released to the public. (Full disclosure: I entered the last of these before the ToC, but my vanilla coffee stout did not get the votes to carry on)

DC Homebrewers Club member (full disclosure: I am also a member) Brian Barrows won, with a Belgian Patersbier, though the votes were close enough that runner-up Mike Reinitz will also get to brew his robust porter with DC Brau’s equipment and expertise. During the brew session, DC Brau played some Steely Dan on the stereo, and so the name was taken from the closing line from the song “Peg.” Continue reading →

The Halftime Pint: Arcobräu Zwickelbier

20120724-085944.jpgOne of the greater things about watching football in America is that most matches, especially those of the EPL, are early in the morning American time, giving people an excuse to daydrink. This is part of our series discussing exactly what to drink when you’re at the pub, presented by our resident homebrewer, Keith

The Beer: Arcobrau Zwickelbier, Arcobräu Gräfliches Brauhaus, Moos, Germany

The Pub: Bridgewater’s Pub, 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, PA

What You Need to Know: Arcobrau in its current incarnation was founded in 1789, from the foundations of the von Preysing castle brewery in Moos, which burned down (with the rest of the castle) in 1619. The von Preysing family finally consolidated their beers under the Arcobrau name in 1960.

Continue reading →

The Halftime Pint: Wells Banana Bread

One of the greater things about watching football in America is that most matches, especially those of the EPL, are early in the morning American time, giving people an excuse to daydrink. This is part of our series discussing exactly what to drink when you’re at the pub, presented by our resident homebrewer, Keith.

The Beer: Wells Banana Bread Beer, Wells and Young’s Brewing Company, Bedford, United Kingdom

The Pub: The Queen Vic, in Northeast DC

What You Need to know: I covered a great deal of both the style and the brewery’s history when I reviewed Wells Bombardier back in April. The main variation here is that, on top of the normal signifiers of an Extra Special Bitter, Wells adds bananas and spice to the beer to create a unique spin on the pub standard.

Continue reading →

The Halftime Pint: Widmer Rotator Spiced IPA

credit: Thebrewsite.com

One of the greater things about watching football in America is that most matches, especially those of the EPL, areearly in the morning American time, giving people an excuse to daydrink. This is part of our series discussing exactly what to drink when you’re at the pub, presented by our resident homebrewer, Keith.

The Beer: Rotator Series Spiced IPA, Widmer Brothers Brewing, Portland, Oregon.

The Pub: Stoney’s, in Northwest DC

What You Need to Know: Widmer Brothers planted the flag for craft brewers in Portland in 1984.  Brothers Kurt and Rob Widmer followed their passions into cobbling together a brewery in what would become the very hipster heart of Portland, the Pearl District, offering an altbier (a malty German ale that I’ll be sure to review sometime soon) and a weizenbier as their first offerings.  The brewery has consistently expanded, and moved to a new location in North Portland in 1990, while maintaining their craft beer roots.

Believe it or not, this is only the second IPA we’ve featured here on the Halftime Pint.  And like the Imperial IPA before it, this is something beyond your basic IPA.  Widmer’s Rotator series is where they take the basic sea-worthy and hophead-friendly IPA and jam on it, either highlighting a specific hop, a new technique, or, in this case, some additional flavors.  Widmer boasts a spice bill of Assam black tea, ginger, cinnamon, clove, star anise, black pepper and cardamom to go alongside the incredibly PNW hop combo of Galaxy, Falconer’s Flight, Alchemy, Zeus, Millenium and Teamaker.

Continue reading →

The Halftime Pint: Williams Bros. Scottish Session

Credit: greatbrewers.com

One of the greater things about watching football in America is that most matches, especially those of the EPL, areearly in the morning American time, giving people an excuse to daydrink. This is part of our series discussing exactly what to drink when you’re at the pub, presented by our resident homebrewer, Keith.

The Beer:  Scottish Session, Williams Bros. Brewing Company, Alloa, Scotland

The Pub:  The Queen Vic, in Northeast DC

What you need to know: Williams Bros. is a relatively young brewer in the UK.  The brewery began out of a homebrew supply shop in 1988, with a translated version of an old Gaelic recipe for Fraoch, a beer that uses heather in place of hops (slightly different from a gruit, as the grain bill is closer to a wee heavy than a pale ale).  The titular brothers began by contract brewing Fraoch and three other historical recipes as Heather Ale Ltd., before moving into their  own digs in Craigmill in 1998.  In 2004, in need of larger spaces, the Williams Bros. took over the Forth brewery in Alloa, where they put their own name on the bottle and began to brew more modern styles of beer.

Golden Ale is a close cousin of the English Pale Ale covered in past editions; the lone differences are in the color, which is slightly less amber than a true pale ale. But we’re talking by a matter of degrees here.  In reality, golden ale is somewhere between pale ale and best bitter.

Continue reading →