Smoke & Barrel will be well stocked with crab and beer tonight. Photograph by Scott Suchman.
Friday
Crab Feast With Evolution and 3 Stars Brewing Companies
When: 6 to 8 PM
Where: Smoke & Barrel
Crab and beer lovers, rejoice. Pay $45 and eat all the crabs you can while sipping bottomless drafts from Salisbury, Maryland brewer Evolution and District newcomer 3 Stars.
We couldn't be happier about a week of beer. Photograph courtesy of Shutterstock.
The fourth annual DC Beer Week will be held August 12 through 18 and will kick off, says its cofounder, Granville Moore’s chef and co-owner Teddy Folkman, with a cruise on the Potomac River. Held aboard the Odyssey III cruising vessel, the boat ride will feature beers from 50 breweries, as well as a dress code. “It’s semiformal for beer people,” says Folkman. “That means, ‘Please wear a clean pair of pants.’” Though the ship fits 500, only 400 tickets will be sold.
As far as the weeklong event goes, “you can pretty much expect all your favorite watering holes to have something going on every day of the week,” says Folkman. Happenings range from drink specials to meet-and-greets to a possible home-brewer exposé. Folkman says he’s working on a music and beer event with DC 101 but can’t offer details quite yet.
What qualifies brewers to be involved? “You have to do something with craft beers.” The Brewers Association’s guidelines specify three levels of craft beer: small, independent, and traditional. Small crafts have an “annual production of 6 million barrels of beer or less.” Independent ones have “less than 25 percent of the brewery . . . owned or controlled by an alcoholic beverage industry member who is not themselves a craft brewer.” Finally, traditional craft breweries have “either an all-malt flagship or [have] at least 50 percent of [their] volume[s] in either all malt beers or in beers which use adjuncts to enhance rather than lighten flavor.”
Here’s a list of things to look forward to—a lot of places will announce specials and events closer to the occasion, so check back for updates as the celebration of suds approaches.
By Anna Spiegel
Restaurants celebrate Belgian beer and food this week. Photograph courtesy of Shutterstock.
Bastille Day brought plenty of Francophile activities to Washington this weekend, but the Belgians are one-upping their neighbors with Belgian Restaurant Week. Party like a Walloon with a different event for every day.
Fuel Up on Monday
You may not catch the chefs as they bike to farms and markets for
special produce, but you can literally sample the fruits of their labor
at Tour of Belgium beer dinners. Tonight’s is at Et Voila! with dishes
and beers from the Bavik region, while a
lineup
from Ghent is rolled out tomorrow at Granville Moore’s. The full week’s schedule is available online.
I was doing a little fact-checking on an earlier post this morning, and in so doing noticed that you can still buy tickets for Savor at Ticketmaster, despite the fact that the great craft beer bash had reportedly sold out months in advance. I inquired with a rep, who tells me that, indeed, the Brewers Association had released “a small number of tickets into circulation.”
So, yeah. If you want to go, better get on that.
Even if you were unable to score a spot at Savor—the all-important craft beer happening that takes places Friday and Saturday at the National Building Museum, there are still a number of opportunities to sample rare brews and hang out with beermakers in town for the occasion.
One of the coolest beer-related things happening this week is that we’re going to get our first taste of the brews from Bluejacket—the forthcoming Navy Yard brewery from the Neighborhood Restaurant Group. On Thursday beginning at 6 PM, ChurchKey suds sage Greg Engert and Bluejacket brewer Megan Parisi will unveil a collaboration with Cigar City and Funky Buddha. The Miami-brewed beer, which incorporates flavors from movie snacks--caramel, Raisinettes, etc.—will be available in four-ounce and full-size pours.
A “vintage game room with jukebox” reads the liquor license application affixed to storefront glass at 1737 Connecticut Avenue—a posting first eyeballed by the intrepid Prince of Petworth. “It harkens back to my childhood,” says Washington native Mark Handwerger, owner of Bedrock Bars—parent group to Mackey’s, Rocket Bar, and Atomic Billiards. He’s partnering with Beth Lindsay—last at Rocket Bar on Seventh Street, Northwest—who will handle operations for the tavern.
Handwerger says he’s spent the past few months indulging his nostalgia into the wee hours on eBay, buying up old Monopoly sets, Parcheesis, and a 6 Million Dollar Man game from the ’70s. Board Room patrons can choose between 15 to 20 readily available games or reserve-in-advance vintage sets—a 1954 edition of Clue among them. The Board Room’s website will be set up to allow guests to claim their games online.
