What the hell is going on with you Marylanders out there?? I just checked and I’m sitting on second for MD ticks at the beginning of a Frederick brewery crawl, and the only person ahead of me is @Travlr who quit rating here…
And I live in Virginia…
I expect @sloth @beastiefan2k @maniac and the others to hang their heads in shame here…
Quality not quantity here, pal. Also, I am Sloth. 
rating is too much work but I am also relatively new to MD. Also, there are like 2.5 breweries I care to drink in all of Bmore. Maybe 2.5 more others in the entire state.
What are they @beastiefan2k ??? Elder Pine, Diamondback? Maybe Peabody Heights, Black Flag? Or some of the Frederick guys? Flying Dog is still solid
Maryland has been a bit of a tough nut for me to crack. Despite being just over the Potomac river my entire life, it’s been really, really hard for me to rate a great number of Maryland beers. I’m actually shocked I’m not in the top 10 for the state. It’s still my 3rd most rated state though.
One big hurdle was that access to breweries in MD was difficult until recently. There weren’t many breweries in the DC area until recently. Franklins being the OG, but for the longest time you’d have to go into the sticks or up to Annapolis or Baltimore to get anything. There’s a lot more local options for me now, but with a kid and then the pandemic, I think I’ve only tried a handful of beers from any of the breweries just inside or outside the beltway.
Ya, funny you don’t see MD breweries on tap even nearly as much as VA. When I first moved here in 2014 it was different–you’d see stillwater and flying dog, olivers etc all the time but Virginia still had very few decent breweries. Since then VA kind of blew up and conquered the DC scene. At least in terms of what taps you see at Pizza Paradiso, Churchkey and its subsidiaries.
Yeah, even DC breweries haven’t really had the same kind of boom, and that’s not meant as any disrespect. I’m sure if you looked at their books, places like DC Brau are doing gangbusters. I used to head into DC to hit up the breweries pretty often in the early days of the region’s recent craft beer wave, but I actually don’t think I’ve been to DC Brau or 3 Stars since probably 2014 or 2015.
Right Proper still beats most of the breweries in the region in terms of quality beer, but their reach doesn’t seem to extend that far outside DC, and it’s unlikely that you’ll find any beer other than Raised by Wolves in cans on regular basis.
We used to see Right Proper drafts in NYC years ago, but i doubt any have been around in the past few years.
If we separate breweries into three tiers: seek it out; ok with it, and avoid it
IMO, the best breweries in Bmore that go into the 1st tier are Suspended and Guildford Hall Brewing. Peabody Heights and Diamondback (along with many others) go into the second tier.
Other breweries in MD that I would put into the 1st tier are Sapwood for sure. Some that may be in that tier but I just haven’t had enough is Denizens, Monocacy, and Silver Branch. I would not be surprised if many disagree.
I know this will be more controversial but Elder Pine and Black Flag are low on my list. I never seek them out. I tried a bunch of Elder Pine when they first came out and never enjoyed a single beer enough to want to drink it again. Black Flag just makes adjunct and hoppy beer I have very little interest in drinking. Every time I drink a Flying Dog The Truth, I wonder why people waste their time and money drinking horrible hazies.
I forgot about Sapwood. When I went there the one time all they did was hazy beer. It was well done, but that was my impression of the place. Denizens, Silver Branch and Monocacy are all in the second tier for me.
My first tier is probably those mentioned (FD, Elder Pine, Diamondback, Peabody Heights, Black Flag). Elder pine is probably the king for me, in the sense that it is top tier not just on a MD level but beyond, with their dark stuff at least.
Also maybe Sapwood. Manor Hill has been pretty good. And Steinhardt, Idiom, and definitely impressed with Midnight Run–Frederick is really coming along.
I used to like Cushwa but since I got tired of haze I’ve started disliking them. Their stuff tastes the most average of the haze pushers these days. Plus their cans are always like $1 more than their competitors, who make better beer, which is basically enough to drop them to the third tier of your reckoning.
I see more ANXO cider on the shelf in major metros than any DC/Maryland brewery.
The problem with DC not booming more is just technicality. All of DC’s suburbs, aka where you can install a bunch of fermenters for reasonable rent prices, are in MD or VA. Basically a new DC brewery has to pay a lot for property rent or brave the ghetto, so you don’t see so many in actual DC unless they come in with big money like Bluejacket or the new Other Half location. Or maybe all these temporary beer gardens opening up from Aslin, Solace etc. But those are just outposts.
That’s true. However, when I wrote that I was mostly thinking about the OGs in the area: DC Brau and 3 Stars not seeming like they’re making the same kind of leaps their area contemporaries and breweries that came afterwards, you see a lot more variety and core beer volume from Port City. Now, their books might say something else altogether…
Totally jinxed it. Coming in next week for work(for a week!).
Sapwood has a gin barrel dry hop on that is pretty tasty.
Isn’t that a contradiction of goals? I’ve never understood barrel-aged IPAs
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