The Great American Ale Trail - Christian DeBenedetti [152]
MAX’S TAPROOM
737 South Broadway • Baltimore, MD 21231 (410) 675-6297 • www.maxs.com • Established: 1986
SCENE & STORY
Fell’s Point is Baltimore’s cobblestoned former Colonial seaport boasting over 160 National historic register buildings, a flotilla of historic tall ships tied up along the shore, and alley upon alley of laid-back bars where brothels and old-time boarding houses used to be. It’s also home to Max’s, one of the best beer bars on the East Coast. Max’s organizes a huge Belgian beer festival, for starters, so the Flemish/Wallonian contingent runs deleriously high. With a long bar lined by 140 rotating taps, 1,200 different beers in coolers, bar top casks, and a wild collection of breweriana, it’s absolutely chockablock on weekend nights with a mixed crowd of college kids (and occasionally their parents), hordes of tourists (especially in the summertime), and tourists who end up partying with those college kids and their parents.
PHILOSOPHY
The bigger the beer list, the more fun you’re having—right? Or, sometimes, maybe that’s “the bigger the cup”. Friday is “big ass draft” night—$6 for 32 ounces of anything on tap (except for big Belgians and other crafts), served in beer pong-ready plastique. In other words, avoid Max’s on Friday nights, unless your inner collegian wouldn’t have it any other way. Tuesdays, on the other hand, are dedicated to the “Beer Social” at 6 p. m. when brewers and members of the local craft crowd mingle upstairs. And you’re more likely to get on the pool tables downstairs later, since no one is drunkenly sprawled across it.
KEY BEER
Beers from Baltimore’s own Clipper City Brewing Co./Heavy Seas Beer line like Loose Cannon (a 7.25% ABV AIPA) are big favorites, but the chance to drink the even rarer local Stillwater Brewing Company’s one-offs (such as “Our Side” saison, a recent 7.5% ABV collaboration with Danish “gypsy brewer” Mikkel Bjergsø) should not be passed up.
THE WHARF RAT
801 South Ann Street • Baltimore, MD 21231 (410) 276-8304 • www.thewharfrat.com • Established: 1982
SCENE & STORY
Walking into the late-1700s building that houses the Wharf Rat pub instantly conjures the time when Fells Point was still so teeming with privateers just off a square rigger from some port afar that the British called it a “Nest of Pirates.” Low-ceilinged and cluttered with valuable nautical memorabilia, a solid tap row of Northeast and mid-Atlantic craft ales, and several Oliver’s English-style ales from Pratt Street Alehouse, this is one of Baltimore’s most beloved spots, if not for the food then for the massive stone fireplace in the back of the bar and the incredible atmosphere. Legend has it the place is haunted too, notably by a gentleman who was shot for playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” far too often (and too loudly) on his gramophone. Ask a bartender or bouncer for the tale.
PHILOSOPHY
Cask-conditioned beers, good friends, and a roaring fireplace is all that matters on a cold winter’s night.
KEY BEER
Oliver’s Best Bitter, an amber, smooth, gently carbonated traditional sipper of 4.8% ABV.
Best of the Rest: Maryland
THE QUARRY HOUSE TAVERN
8401 Georgia Ave # B • Silver Spring, MD 20910-4486 (301) 587-8350 • www.quarryhousetavern.com
A classic, cash-only dive (“Beer. Burgers. Basement.”) down a steep stairway underneath an Indian restaurant called Bombay Gaylord with an improbably long list of import and craft brews, the Quarry House has been around nearly 80 years and generates about as many differing opinions on its merits, most of them positive. It’s dimly lit, the walls are lined with cases of beer, it gets packed. You’re here for a huge beer list, 9on tap and about 300 bottles (Allagash, Dogfish, Clipper City), perhaps a bit of greasy pub grub (½ lb. cheeseburgers, Old Bay tater tots, battered pickles, fried Oreos ala mode), and occasionally live bands.
Virginia
MODERN CRAFT BREWING IS RELATIVELY NEW