DC Beer Week- Stoudt's Tasting

As I mentioned earlier, we went to the Lost Abbey beer dinner on Thursday night, and instead of going home headed over to the Brickskeller. Not because we're that obsessed with beer... well, maybe a little. But the real reason is because we got the 4-pack of Brickskeller/RFD tastings in order to guarantee we got a place at the Lupulin Reunion. We probably wouldn't have gone to the Stoudt's tasting if we hadn't gotten the 4-pack, but we ended up being glad we went!

We hopped on the Dupont/Georgetown bus which was luckily pretty much outside Pizza Paradiso when we stepped outside, and ended up getting to the Brick at about 9pm. Of course we were about 2 hours late, but the staff was awesome about letting us sit in the back, and gave us all of the beers we'd missed. We weren't expecting that- we thought we'd get to try the last few beers, so hats off to the Brick for being accommodating!

We checked the tap list when we sat down and were excited to see some VERY vintage beers were available ON THAT DAY ONLY. Despite the fact that we had 5 beers each in front of us to catch up on... we ordered two beers:

Thomas Hardy's 1988. This beer was absolutely incredible. In fact, in my notes I have a quote from Ben: "Holy shit this is fucking amazing." And rarely does he express himself in swear words! It was the most complex beer we'd ever tasted- raisins, prunes, dark fruits, chocolate, caramel, coffee, molasses, vanilla and licorice were all present- and if we we're 6 beers in, I'm sure we could have tasted more! It was very port-like. We both agreed this was the best $5 we'd spent on a beer. And we ordered a second tasting of it later on. As you might expect, we rated this beer the elusive "6." We'll likely never get to taste it again, but man, it was awesome.

Vapeur d'ANTAN 1996. This was a slightly sour saison. It was also delicious, and tasting of granny smith apples and was very dry and refreshing. We both rated this a 5.

Thanks to the Brick for putting out those amazing beers.

Now, on to the Stoudt's tasting. We tasted 8 Stoudt's beers. Carol Stoudt was the guest and Bob Tupper was the host.

Stoudt's Kolsch: smells of straw and bubblegum and tasted fruity- we couldn't tell which type of fruit. We both rated this a 3.

Stoudt's Pils: smells slightly sweet and tasted like bread. We didn't think it was anything special, but it is still better than Bud. We both rated it a 2.

Stoudt's Heifer in Wheat: smells like banana and tasted like banana cloves and ginger. We both rated it a 2. The name makes me uncomfortable.

Stoudt's Gold Lager: smells of hops and tasted grassy. We thought it was very drinkable. We both rated it a 3.

Stoudt's Scarlet Lady ESB: smells of raisins, tasted of candy corn and slight hops. We thought it was too light and not very flavorful. We rated it 2.

Stoudt's American Pale: smells of grass and tastes slightly hoppy, very drinkable. We rated this a 3.

Stoudt's Double IPA: smells sweeter than just about any other IPA I've encountered, and tastes too sweet. It wasn't balanced and was cloying. Ben rated it a 3 and I rated it a 2.

Stoudt's Fat Dog Stout: smells of smoky malts and tasted much sweeter than it looked. We both rated it a 3.

Overall it was a really great evening. I wanted to like Stoudt's beers more because of the feminism factor, but I didn't feel excited about most of the beers. They were true to style, but I think I'm more interested in beers that step out of the box a bit.