The Return of the Brew Pub: Beer and Food together again

Welcome to another effervescent episode of The DC Beer Show! In this installment, hosts Brandy Holder, Michael Stein, and Jacob Berg dive into the ever-fascinating world of brew pubs, craft beers, and the culinary delights that pair with them.

Brandy kicks off the episode under the warm DC evening, lamenting her current drink of choice (wine, due to allergies) while reminiscing about a recent exceptional Allagash rum barrel-aged brew she wishes she was enjoying instead. The conversation then swirls around seasonal and special brews enjoyed during past visits to local breweries like Bluejacket and Saison Day celebrations.

Jacob shares his current sip, a straightforward yet intriguing Ocelot Stratocaster pale ale, impressing with its blend of old school grain and new school hops. As the beer talk bubbles over, Michael chimes in with his own current pour, the Allagash Once Upon An Orchard—a wild Saison ale that dazzled during their recent Saison Day outing.

The episode takes a lively turn as Brandy teases upcoming beer-centric events, including a Women's Brew Culture Club gathering, a spring beer fest at Solace Outpost, and an exclusive beer share at Other Half—all while planning for their live recording. Michael and Jacob mull over the blissful pairing of great beer and even greater food, contrasting preferences between stellar brews with mediocre food, versus mediocre brews with excellent cuisine.

In the absence of a guest, which breaks their 98-episode streak, the hosts take advantage of discussing the evolving local beer scene, including new food ventures at brewpubs, emphasizing how these establishments enhance community ties and local economies.
This episode, loaded with plans, tastings, and debates, encapsulates the ongoing love affair between craft beer and fine food, encouraging listeners to explore, engage, and enjoy the community's brewing genius. Don't miss this fizzy, flavorful discourse on The DC Beer Show, where beer and companionship flow abundantly!

Remember, through sips and dishes, every glass tells a story. Catch all the nuances of this bubbly banter and more by tuning into this latest episode, and don't forget to let your tastes wander over to our Patreon for exclusive perks: dcbeer.com/patreon.

The beers discussed in this episode of The DC Beer Show include Allagash's rum barrel-aged saison, Snow Report Saison, and Once Upon An Orchard, Ocelot's Stratocaster Pale Ale, and offerings from Sapwood and Elder Pine.

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Creators & Guests

Host

Brandy Holder

This southern girl got a late start in the beer world, but with such a bold and intoxicating personality behind the name, booze was destined to be a part of her endeavors.

Host

Jacob Berg

Jake’s beer education began when his dad brought home a 6-pack of Brooklyn Lager in the mid-90s. It was love at first sip.

Host

Mike Stein

Michael Stein is President of Lost Lagers, Washington, DC’s premier beverage research firm. His historic beers have been served at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the Polish Ambassador’s residence.

Producer

Richard Fawal

President of DC Beer Media LLC and Publisher of DCBeer.com and The DC Beer Show

What is The DC Beer Show?

The official podcast of DCBeer.com! Everything you need to know about the people, places, and brews that make the DMV America’s best beer scene, including the best local places for eats, brews, trivia, live music, and more! Learn about the latest trends in craft beer – from the beers, to the breweries, to the business – from the editors of DC Beer.

Jacob Berg [00:00:06]:
Welcome to The DC Beer Show! We are at DC Beer across social media. Brandy, what are you drinking this too warm evening?

Brandy Holder [00:00:14]:
Hey, Jake. You know, that's an excellent question. What I wish that I was drinking right now is the delicious Allagash rum barrel-aged; I forgot what it was called. You and I had it this past Saturday when we went to Allagash, and I don't remember what it was called, but it was so good, I bought a bottle of that, brought it home, and drank it when I got home. So I wish I was drinking that, but right now, because my allergies are so disastrous and I can't breathe through my nose, I'm drinking my least favorite beverage, which is wine. So but shout out to Allagash because that was so fun in Bluejacket. But, yes, I will be drinking so many so many things this weekend. So many beers.

Brandy Holder [00:01:02]:
Jake, what are you drinking?

Jacob Berg [00:01:04]:
So to the listeners, and these still may be on tap throughout the Neighborhood Restaurant Group empire, so be on the lookout. It was Saison Day last Saturday. And so we've got Snow Report, which is a Saison with wildflower honey. It was aged in rum barrels. They did another Saison that was aged in gin barrels. And, like, I think both those were pretty pretty cool.

Brandy Holder [00:01:29]:
Oh, yeah. I bought that one too. Oh my god. It was so good. Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Berg [00:01:35]:
But I'm keeping it a little some a little more simple over here. I've got Ocelot Stratocaster. It is a pale ale, not a hazy pale ale. It's just pearl and carapills. There's no oats. There's no wheat. But you're like, oh, wow. Jake, that's kinda weird.

Jacob Berg [00:01:49]:
That's pretty basic. Like, it's not hazy. What's the catch? The catch is the hops, which are strata, cashmere, and mosaic. And so it's like, yeah, it seems like it's in like a such a like, it's an old school grain bill. It's like this American pale ale, and then the hops are new school. And so it just, like, it's blowing up with, like, berries, the cashmere gives it this little, like, herbal citric note. It's only 5.5 percent. It's not hazy, so it doesn't it doesn't have the super filling taste to it.

Jacob Berg [00:02:21]:
Really well done at, like, 5 a half percent. It carries one of my one of my highest parallel recommendations just, like, really well done by Jack and the Ocelot crew.

Brandy Holder [00:02:30]:
How do I not have this? Oh, wait. Oh, is was this this past weekend, the haul that I I missed out on? Ugh, darn it.

Jacob Berg [00:02:39]:
But were you not?

Brandy Holder [00:02:40]:
Darn it.

Jacob Berg [00:02:41]:
I've got more. And so Yay. There can certainly

Jacob Berg [00:02:45]:
Yeah. The the beer fairy could come through and deliver.

Brandy Holder [00:02:49]:
Good looking out.

Jacob Berg [00:02:50]:
And Mike Stein, what is in your Stein this evening?

Michael Stein [00:02:54]:
Well, Jake, I have Once Upon An Orchard, wild Saison ale with peaches from Allagash Brewing Company. We were just at Bluejacket for Saison Day, hashtag Saison Day 2024. And I tried, not 1, not 2, not 3, but 7, all of Allagash's beers. Obviously, I didn't drink all of them because, you know, I had to function and drive a couple of hours later, but I was most impressed with the gin barrel-aged wild saison and the Once Upon An Orchard. So that's what's in my wine glass

Jacob Berg [00:03:32]:
Savvy podcast listeners will note that this is now the 2nd podcast in a row, the 2nd DC Beer Show in a row where someone's cracked open Allagash Once Upon An Orchard. This is, I believe, the 2023 version, fresher. I would assume little less acidic, much more fruit forward than the 2021 version. Yeah. Alright. I wanna jump right into a couple events coming up in particular this weekend.

Jacob Berg [00:04:06]:
Brandy, you wanna go ahead and bat lead off because one of them is yours.

Brandy Holder [00:04:09]:
Dude, this weekend is crazy. So it not only do I have the Women's Brew Culture Club event, so monthly event, which I love doing, and I'm so happy and proud of where the Women's Brew Culture Club has come after a whole year. We are gonna be headed to Commonwealth in Fairfax, not all the way to Virginia Beach or other places, but we're we're in Fairfax. That is such a great cute location. That's starting at 2, but before that, I'm gonna swing in to Solace Outpost in Falls Church because they have this Spring Beer Fest, which you guys may not even have seen it advertised because I had to do some sleuthing to find it personally. But it's there's throwing, like, a beer fest outside, and there's caboose, Audacious, Quattro Goombas, Port City, Lost Boy Cider, Sapwood, Lost Rhino, Settle Down Easy, Old Busthead, and Silver Branch, Mieza, and says more to come. So I'm curious who else is coming. So I'll be swinging a nail with my girlfriend, Lauren, and then so that's Saturday out in Virginia, but then Sunday is our beer share, our monthly beer share, which I'm so excited about.

Brandy Holder [00:05:21]:
And, that's half. It's what's taken us so long to have an Other Half, beer shared is because of the license changing, with them. So now they have, like, they can serve liquor and wine. So now we can have our beer share there, which is so exciting. And, and then freaking Tuesday is our live recording. I'm so excited.

Jacob Berg [00:05:45]:
Hey, Brandy. I hear that beer share is members only. It is. What does it mean to be a member, though?

Brandy Holder [00:05:51]:
Sorry, guys. Sorry. Sorry. Not sorry. So our beer our beer shares aren't always member only, but they sometimes are, especially for the space and such. So it's super duper easy. I'm I don't know if a caveman can do it, but according to the GEICO commercials, I'm sure he could. It's $5 a month minimum, really, and you get a beer share at least once a month for 3 hours of drinking pretty much free beer.

Brandy Holder [00:06:23]:
But if you do, like, a higher perk membership, you get discounts at local breweries, like at Port City, and DC Brau, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, and, you get to hang out with us and do all kinds of cool stuff. That's what it means, Jake.

Jacob Berg [00:06:37]:
It's dcbeer.com/patreon. We also wanna mention this weekend since Brandy mentioned that it was loaded. We've got Hellbender's record fair this weekend. They don't do this very often, but when they do, they do it big. So if you're a vinyl junkie, you should make it out there. And Aslan's gonna do some sort of bourbony thing over on 14th Street because not only is Cinco de Mayo Sunday, but the Kentucky Derby is Saturday. Who knew horses? How about that?

Brandy Holder [00:07:09]:
Oh, wait. Really? Is is the Kentucky Derby is on set? Alright. No. It didn't.

Jacob Berg [00:07:15]:
Really?

Brandy Holder [00:07:15]:
Oh, okay. Alright. That makes sense, I guess.

Jacob Berg [00:07:17]:
Quick. Make up make up a horse name that also sounds like could be a beer.

Brandy Holder [00:07:21]:
Well, I wanna drink out of a chalice. Call him Mosaic, my favorite hop man. Hoppy horse. Y'all come to the events this weekend, seriously, and we have a lot of stuff going on. And our 1 hundredth episode is gonna be pretty massive. So I know I'm jazzed about it. It's for members only too, but also some a bunch of industry friends. Fabio said he was coming out.

Brandy Holder [00:07:44]:
He better come out. I'll be very disappointed in Fabio if he doesn't come out. So is Pete coming? I saw Pete's RSVP. Lost Lagers.

Michael Stein [00:07:52]:
Your favorite brewer's favorite brewer, Favio. The historical beer nerds Pete Jones and Michael Stein that like to feed Favio recipes and won't take a no when Favio says, Nah, I don't know if we should make, smoke porter. I don't know if we should brew an export ale. Yes. Come on out. You know, any night I have a Lost Generation beer or an Andy's pizza pizza slice, I'm like, yes. Let's go. But the fact that we're having them in celebration of our 100th episode makes me so giddy.

Michael Stein [00:08:24]:
Join us on Patreon and then join us live in the flesh IRL at Lost Generation.

Brandy Holder [00:08:29]:
Mike, you're really good at that. You should, you should be on a podcast.

Jacob Berg [00:08:34]:
Alright. We also have the Maryland Craft Brewers Fest coming up. Not this weekend, but next weekend, I would say, be on the lookout. Sorry. No bus this year, but you can Uber from the Shady Grove Metro. You can get there some way, somehow. Stein, while we were sleeping, Vanish opened up another location in Maryland with the head chef from Dominion Beer and Wine in Falls Church, not too far from you. What's going on over there?

Michael Stein [00:09:08]:
You love to see it, Jake. There was a point in time where, we were told so Ivan De Betts from was in town a couple weeks ago, and he said, there was a time when we'd go to the bankers and we'd we'd ask for a loan and they would throw stones at us. And now when you go to the bank, the the bankers are throwing money at the at the brewery loaners. And it's funny and much love to Ivan. I'm busting his chops. But what we're seeing is a proliferation of more brewing spots with more good food. And thanks to the Brewers Association, number crunchers like Bart Watson, we know when breweries have food, brew pubs, taprooms, etcetera, guests are more likely to stay. I am not mad at it with a food component because honestly, and this is not a dig at Vanish, I'm a fan of their beer, Even if I go somewhere else and the the beer is mediocre, if the food is on point, the food is an 8.5 to 9.5 to 10 out of 10, I'm sticking around.

Michael Stein [00:10:10]:
I I will have a mediocre beer with a dynamite bite. So we're seeing the proliferation of that old concept, which is the brewpub is a fortress applied in a new setting now in 2024 in the 21st century and, maybe we should just stay up all night and not go to sleep and there won't be, as many taproom kitchen brewpubs opening.

Brandy Holder [00:10:32]:
I mean, I already don't sleep, but I love when you're going with this, because I love some food. And as yeah. As long as the food is good, I will go. I mean, maybe you won't order as many beers or maybe I'll get a cocktail if the beer is little less than shiny. But, I do love me some food. So I I agree with you, Stein. I I like that point of view.

Jacob Berg [00:10:53]:
So here's the conundrum. Do you go with, like, great beer and the food is okay, hit or miss? Or do you go with great food where the beer is, like, okay, hit or miss? And you know there's gonna be something that's

Michael Stein [00:11:04]:
like It's

Jacob Berg [00:11:05]:
good enough. Yeah.

Michael Stein [00:11:06]:
It's a yes. It's a yes and. Because according to the Brewers Association, Maryland is at a 143 breweries right now. 143. So where would the DMV be without Maryland? We'd be a 140 3 breweries less. That being said, if the beer is dynamite and the food truck is meh, I'm probably taking beer to go because I know at home I'm gonna whip up something nice. I know Mrs. Stein's gonna cook up something nice. I might go to Brandy's house.

Michael Stein [00:11:38]:
I might ask mister Matt to to chef me up, you know, world famous brats. And then if he's cooking up, I'm gonna break out the nice bottles. I got I got some Sapwood Reserve. I got some Elder Pine. I got some of the premier Maryland craft beer. So I don't know. I might not stick around in the taproom.

Brandy Holder [00:11:55]:
Oh, see. I'm I'm a little opposite, though. I do appreciate your nice shout out to Matt. He just got a very fancy schmancy grill, and we've been cooking well, we he has been cooking.

Jacob Berg [00:12:07]:
Beer is best and

Brandy Holder [00:12:07]:
then either but I think I would go where the beer is best and then either order whatever food. I mean, I I love food truck food. I mean, it's not always the best, but when you're at a brewery that has a good beer that you love, like, that's that's the give and take that I'm willing to to give because I know I could probably have some bomb ass food when I get home. So I I want the it I want the atmosphere and the vibe of the good beer at the brewery. So but I totally get your point. Jake, can you can you weigh in? Can you be our our tie breaker here? Are are you gonna stay Sweden on this one?

Jacob Berg [00:12:55]:
Yeah. I don't wanna stay Sweden. Although, I do you know, I love their fish. I'm a big fan. But to me, a man's gotta eat. Food to me is more important. If I'm going to a brewery or a brew pub, it's usually because I wanna check out the beer. And what I whatever happens with the food is whatever happens, there's plenty of food, lots of different places.

Jacob Berg [00:13:22]:
If the beer is banging and the food is meh, then I'm with Stein. Like, I'm just grabbing, you know they've got a crowler machine. They've got cans. They've got bottles. Great. I'll take it. I'll go someplace else. Brandy, tell Matt I'm also coming over.

Brandy Holder [00:13:36]:
I'll tell him.

Jacob Berg [00:13:37]:
Thank thank you for thanks for the invite. But, obviously, if the food is great and the beer is just okay, you make 6 different kinds of beer. There's gotta be one that's like a b b plus beer. I'm very happy to eat, like, delicious, you know, 8.5, 9.5 out of 10 food with, like, a perfectly solid you know, if your if your best beer is, like, you know, your old school American amber lager, that's great. Like, I will crush it. It's 5, you know, 5 a half percent. Yeah. I'm not I'm not mad about it.

Jacob Berg [00:14:12]:
And, you know, I'll tell people, hey. This is probably what you should be drinking as for what you should be eating. Like, let's just order a whole bunch of food and get at it.

Brandy Holder [00:14:20]:
I love that, Wright Propper Shaw and Blue Jacket really play both of those cards beautifully. Like, when you go to write proper Shaw, you you know I'm gonna get those brussels sprouts and that chicken sandwich and the French dip and some delicious, probably low AB beard ABB beer to go with it. But then you go to Bluejacket and you have, like, an end that and Churchkey, you have this endless amount of, like, delicious beer, but the food is also, like, you could easily spend 8 hours at Blue Jacket. I could probably, as long as I have a DD. So, I mean, kudos to you guys making the good food and the good beer. Hell, yeah. That's the goal.

Michael Stein [00:15:04]:
Absolutely. Couldn't say it better myself, Brandy. We know that beer is a food product despite how it's legislated at the federal level. You know, good beer and good food go great together, so really what we're saying is where you find the good stuff, get it. Support local. If you support a food truck, that's dollars back into the small business economy and, you know, small businesses are the backbone of the American economy. We, as a small business, we pay more taxes, we work harder in my humble opinion than any other business. And really what it does is it floats the breweries to have high quality food at the food trucks, and it floats the high quality food trucks to have high quality beer coming out of these small, you know, mom and pops family owned shops.

Michael Stein [00:15:54]:
So support local, I know we do. That's honestly the most I can say. We do it. Join us in doing so.

Jacob Berg [00:16:02]:
And when you do it, tag us on social media. We're at DC beer. Well, folks, our guests couldn't make it. We had a last minute cancellation. These things happen in podcasts. I think the streak is 98 consecutive episodes with a guest, and that streak stops today. As we say in the 9 to 5, when a team's meeting ends early, we give you back some time. And so in this case, we're giving you back 10 or 15 minutes.

Jacob Berg [00:16:36]:
Please use that time wisely. Go forth and enjoy. I suggest that you use it by joining us over on Patreon for as little as $5, dcbeer.com/patreon. Be well, everybody, and we'll see you all on Tuesday, if not before.

Michael Stein [00:16:53]:
See you live on stage for episode 100.

Brandy Holder [00:16:58]:
I'll put my live face on.

Jacob Berg [00:16:59]:
Alright. Thanks, everyone. See you out there.