Happy New Year!

The 2017 MD Brewery Challenge

For the 3 or 4 regular readers out there, sorry,  I took a couple weeks off for the holidays. I have a few things to report. I went on a few more brewery tours. Over the new week or so, I’ll let you know about these fine breweries.  Also, it looks like my 2017 Maryland Brewery Challenge will be extended just a little while longer. Although I visited 8 more breweries (Ruddy Duck, Mully’s, Calvert Production and Farm Breweries, Scorpion, Antietam, Cushwa, and Smoketown), I still have 4 breweries on my list to visit. They include:

• Ruhlman Brewing Co.  (a farm brewery in Carroll County);
• Monocacy Brewing Company or Frederick, MD;
• Full Tilt Brewing, who contract brews out of Peabody Heights Brewery in Baltimore;
• Greenspring Brewing Company, a specialty brewery in Calvert County. (I tried visiting this small brewery while doing a Calvert County road trip. Unfortunately, they do not have a tasting room and only sell growlers of beer. After talking to owner/brewer, Joe Puttlitz, I stopped at Rips Country Inn, one of the few places that offer Joe’s beer. Unfortunately, they had sold out and did not know when more Greenspring beer would be available. I’ll keep you posted.)

Highlights of 2017

I started this blog in November 2016, so 2017 was my first full year of posting. It has been a wonderful ride. I’ve posted over 200 posts this year, with over 3,000 visitors viewing nearly 8,000 pages. Pretty cool. Here are the top 6 postings of last year, in order of views:

• Midpoint Brewery (Erik Jensen, owner of Midpoint Brewery brews out of Peabody Heights).
• 57 Breweries in Maryland
• Bulk Head Brewing Company
• Yeast Class (given by  Andrew Wilkes of brewery-in-planning Crooked Crab Brewing Company)
• BJ’s Brewhouse
• Manor Hill’s New Brewer (Kurt Krol).

The Maryland Brewery Challenge has been amazing, giving me the excuse to visit 55 Maryland breweries, with 4 more still to go. Check out the interactive map.

I became a Peter Franchot groupie, attending many of the Reform on Tap Task Force events.  In response to Maryland House Bill 1283, Maryland Comptroller held 8 public meetings and 2 town hall meeting. As a result, Comptroller Franchot proposes changes to the Maryland beer laws with the Reform on Tap Act of 2018, a world without limits. Click The Reform on Tap Act of 2018 to learn more about the proposal.

For me, the most interesting post(s) were Bond Ride-Along 1 and Bond Ride-Along 2. I spent the day on a ride-along with my friend and craft beer expert, Steven Wilson. He works for Bond Distributing. Learning about the wholesale world was eye opening. Hanging with Steven for the day was an added bonus.

Most Wednesdays, a few of us meet, usually at Frisco Tap House in Columbia. We are the Pint Night Crew. There is a post for most of these adventures. Here is one of these Frisco adventures. Also, the Pint NIght crew headed to Philadelphia for our annual Philly Beer Week excursion – a wild weekend of fun. Check out Philly Day 1, Philly Day 2 and  Philly Day 3.

Of course, what started it all was the Columbia Pub Crawl. We continued the tradition with the 2nd Annual Columbia Pub Crawl. Fun times!

Cheers and Happy New Year!

Warren