DC Brau wakes up and smells coffee; Port City in St Pat's Parade

DC Brau, fresh off its release of a very good Thyme After Thyme seasonal ale, took over taps this week at Churchkey and debuted its newest creation, the Penn Quarter Porter, made in collaboration with the MadCap Coffee Company, a Grand Rapids MI company that will open a location in DC in the near future.

---

We also visited Port City for the first time two weekends ago during the Saturday afternoon tasting session and spoke with Bill Butcher, the owner and Jon Peters, one of the brewers. Bill comes from the wine business, while Jon is a former U.S. State Department employee. PC just celebrated its one year anniversary and has grown very quickly in that time.

The brewery will be entering a float into the Alexandria St. Patrick's Day Parade.

DC Beer Doc in the Washington Post; 3 breweries enter SAVOR

Well, this was unexpected, but certainly appreciated. Earlier this week, our second beer trailer was featured in a story in the Washington Post about the recent partnership between DC Brau and Pizza Paradiso, converting spent grain into bread for the social nonprofit Bread for the City.

Every work week Brandon Skall and Jeff Hancock of DC Brau shovel about 1,500 pounds of soggy grain out of their mash tun. Left to itself, this used-up barley (it resembles “dehydrated oatmeal,” according to Skall) would begin to fester, turning sour and smelly in a day or less.

...

Skall is hatching plans not only for new beers (an imperial IPA called On the Wings of Armageddon will debut in February) but also to ramp up his philanthropic activities.

Specifically, he’d like to partner with other D.C. breweries and about 8 to 10 local restaurants to produce 500 loaves of beer bread each month, to be donated to charity. “We want to be a catalyst for something that wouldn’t happen otherwise,” Skall says.

We knew there was something up when the views for our trailer tripled in the span of 48 hours.

In other news, DC Brau and Port City, along with Capital City Brewing Company, will all be entering their beers into SAVOR, the annual craft beer and food festival in June. SAVOR will probably represent the culmination of this film project, by the way.

Second wave of breweries; New from Flying Dog

First, freelance writer Daniel Froms files a story for the Washington Post on the coming second wave of breweries opening in DC, including Low Brau and Hellbander. I've exchanged messages with both, who are currently looking for space in DC to set up shop. Steve Sorrell of Low Brau has German roots that will heavily influence the craft and taste of his line of beers, while ben Evans of Hellbender says they are going to start things off with a Kolsch. On a personal note, I moved here in 2000 and really never thought I'd see the day when DC was drawing influence from the Germans, but it's slowly happening before our eyes.

In another story, Frederick-based Flying Dog will release 20 new brews in 2012. Of particular interest were the facts and figures of the craft beer industry as a whole and in MD:

Flying Dog had an upbeat 2011; overall sales were up 25 percent over 2010 and 60 percent in the Mid-Atlantic. The company produced 85,000 barrels last year up from 78K the year before, said spokeswoman Erin Biles.

Like in the rest of the country, where craft breweries expanded from 1,587 in 2009 to 1,716 in 2010, according to the Brewers Association, the Maryland craft industry grew as well.

One final note, back in the Post story, Neighborhood Restaurant Group's (Churchkey, Rustico, etc) much-ballyhooed brewery appears to be farther off than word of mouth had previously indicated, looking at 2013 But, this is the first I've read of location plans and it sounds like a big place close to Nats Park. Might help turn that into an actual neighborhood eventually.

Trailer #2 - DC Brau delivers

Last week, DC Brau partnered with Pizza Paradiso to cook up bread from spent grain used in the brewing process to provide about 55 loaves of bread for local nonprofit Bread for the City. I rode along as Brandon from DC Brau and Greg, the beer director at Pizza Paradiso, hand delivered the bread.

DC microbreweries rundown

OnTap, a former employer of mine (as a freelancer), provided a rundown of the breweries in the area. Good overview of what's out there and what's coming up.

Headed over to DC Brau shortly to experience their facility tour.

Bizjournals takes a look at DC beer

A new article on DC beer demand and how the crop of new breweries has found a sustainable market for their products. The entire article is behind the subscription wall, so look for it in the print edition next week.

DC's Craft Beer Scene on BeerNationShow

A short video from the BeerNationShow from Feb '11 on DC's craft beer scene, with a stop at Churchkey to speak with Seth and Mike from Lagerheads and one Greg Englert, Beer Director for said bar as part of the Neighborhood Restaurant Group.

One thing I learned: the guys from Victory Brewing in Downington PA used to be regulars at the former Brickskeller. Further reason to loop PA into my project.

Ups and Downs of Running a Brewery

TBD did a short article on running a brewery, talking to the guys at DC Brau about what's great about it and what's not. Woudl have liked to see more about what specifically people romance about when thinking of beer brewing. The customers? The special events? Smelling like yeast all the time?