Columbia, MD

The Columbia Pint Night Gang spent the evening at Frisco Tap House which featured one of the craft beer world’s classiest breweries, New Belgium. This employee owned brewery from Fort Collins, Colorado has a great beer culture of sustainability, bicycles and, oh yeah, happens to make great beer. 

Lots of casual beer drinkers know New Belgium from Fat Tire, their hugely successful Belgian-style ale. That night at Frisco, the New Belgium old standards were missing. Instead, the beers featured some really hard-to-find beers; mostly sours and IPAs.

Besides the usual pint glass giveaways, New Belgium was offering a chance to win some prizes. Like lemmings to the sea, we all ran to the Plinko board, eager to play.

After winning a bike light, I decided to try my luck with a few beers. I started with their Abbey, a Belgian Dubbel. I found it amazingly complex; a delicious mix of chocolate, cherry, vanilla and a hint of banana. Yum!!

I got a sip of the La Folie. It is a mouth-watering example of a Flanders Oud Bruin. I actually had one in Fort Collins a few years ago, and the memory still warms my heart and puckers my mouth.

My second beer was the Transaltantique Cherry Lambic. I chose this fruit lambic because well, I love a good sour wild ale. It did not disappoint, with a slight sweetness and cherry tart flavors – a beautiful, red beer.

Also featured was Victory’s 3 Monkeys: White Monkey, Sour Monkey and one of my personal favorites, Golden Monkey. All are 9.5%, so Laura and I tasted tiny samples of White Monkey and Sour Monkey. White wine barrel-aged White Monkey tastes more like a wine than an ale (not a bad thing). The Sour Monkey was wonderfully lemon-tart with a malty finish.

Just to wrap up, I have to say, Frisco outdid themselves this week. Their beer list is always first-rate, but this world-class set of beers, especially for this sour beer lover, was a night to remember.

Cheers!

Warren