Brew Pub report

[psfred]

I stopped in to Capital City Brewpub in Washington, DC yesterday afternoon after swapping my niece's new MacBook for a working one (never had a new computer die completely like that....)

Nice place, across the street from Union Station. Big rectangular bar with huge copper clad dispensing vessels (I assume stainless steel inside) down the center of the bar.

My brother and law and I got a sampler, although the Kolsch wouldn't draw so we didn't get to try that one. Beer list was

Imperial Stout
Prohibition Porter
Dunkelweitzen
Belgian Tripple
Amber Waves Ale
Pale Rider Ale (with a skull motif)
Inauguration Ale (available with a commorative glass)
Honey Lager.

The Honey lager was good, but had a distinct husk flavor I don't care for. Nice and hoppy, with some orange blossom flavor from the honey.

The Inauguration Ale was very nice, pretty much an American Pale with subdued C-hop flavor, but was a bit green -- cloudy too, which it shouldn't be. Cost $8 with the glass, so we skipped it.

The Pale Rider Ale was a classic American Pale, very nice with almost perfect hops (meaning I almost could taste the malt over the grapefruit!). Very good beer, enough older than the Inauguration Ale that it was almost not green.

The Amber Waves is an English Pale with a bit more color -- very nice indeed. I think it has Fuggles as a finish hop, and was almost as good as that perfect Pale I once made in Canada and have never gotten quite right since.
The Belgian Tripple was delightful, but not exactly a good late lunch, drive for half an hour to get home beer! We just sampled that one. Long alcohol finish, I think it was 9% or so....

The Dunkle was also excellent -- just the right amount of clove/bubblegum to make it interesting without being overwhelming. I think the bartender said it was made with dark caramel malt, and I think it might have been better with Munich, but I'm not sure

The Prohibition Porter was delicious. I had one with my crab cake sandwich. That was good too, but I'vce been spoiled many years ago by fresh caught, home made crab cakes, so it was only good. The Porter had a lovely roast flavor nicely matched up to a nice bitterness.

The Imperial, sadly, was probably infected. Terrible off flavor right on top, just like that batch I took to the Brew-ha-ha if anyone tasted it, only not so strong. Otherwise delicious, though. I told the bartender to have the brewer keep an eye on it, as I suspect it will only get worse. Not brewed on premesis due to space considerations (they have several locations). Too bad, as it was delightful once I got past that initial "ugh".

We then walked down to the new Capital Visitor's Center buried underground right in front of the Capital building. It's almost impossible to get inside the Capital itself right now, unlike the old days in the 70's when I wandered around and looked in on the House and Senate from the Vistor's Gallery and you could walk around on the second floor in the Rotunda. The new display is quite nice, with some models of Capital Hill over the years and lots of pictures, etc.

We left just as sunset, with the buildings all lit up by that magical "golden light" of early sunset on a clear day.

Peter

[Chris Alvey]

Sounds delicious ... interesting they had a dunkelweizen. Man, a crab cake sounds tasty right about now too.

[Chris Norrick]

Nice report! We stopped by one in 2005 while in DC but I don't remember much from it. I did find this pic.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cnorrick/3147279865/" title="P8251245 by cnorrick, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3074/314 ... 59a30b.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="P8251245"></a>

[psfred]

That must be their other DC location, the one I visited was up a flight of stairs and across the street from Union Station down by the Capital Building.

Peter