Washington DC / Baltimore and region

DC isn't such a great place for brewpubs. There are some reasonable chains, such as Gordon Biersch and Capital Brewing. The Brickskeller has hundreds of beers to choose from, and RFD has about 30 on tap.

The best destination for craft beer was the Old Dominion Brewery in Ashburn, Virginia. However, the family-owned firm was recently sold. I don't know how, if at all, it has changed.

Dav Vandenbroucke davanden at cox dot net

Hands down the Brewer's Art brewpub in Baltimore. It has great Belgian-styled beers--better than anything I've had on domestic draft, and more celebratory that you can get in bottle. I avoid dubbels because they tend to be simple and sweet-like (I usually prefer hoppy-styled tripel thingies like Piraat), but their Resurrection is so dry and flavorful and sublime, that it is worth an entire journey (to use the vocabulary of the Michelin green guides). The tripel is nice too. Not only that, but the Mount Vernon neighborhood that it resides in is one of the most interesting (setting-wise and architectually) places I've been in the last year or so in the U.S.. Baltimore has been a cheap destination on the carrier that I pile up miles on (NW), so I went there last fall, and then decided to fly to BWI and stay nearby to visit DC this Spring. I lasted about 3 hours in D.C. with the immense walking distances and bombastic monuments and ueber-pervasive security presence bordering dull downtown concrete and all these homeless before high-tailing it back to Baltimore, which has far more character, really. The markets are great, and you can get oysters and crab cakes up and down. Baltimore is a great city to visit if you like (and can tolerate) incredible architectural variety and in-flux cultural diversity sometimes mixed together with nervous-making socio-economic factors--if you relax and wander to worthwhile spots, it is really a feast for the eye. The Brewer's Art can be your reward at the end of the day (and if you need to pick up some off-licence, there is a really curious but well-supplied mini-market in a souterrain a couple blocks south of the Brewer's Art).

On Mon, 4 Jun 2007 3:33:22 +0100, Douglas W Hoyt wrote (in message ):

I love this idea of tolerating incredible architectural variety! It's a very US thing to say (I'm a Brit, btw) - having been to some desparately ugly US cities (all rectangular boxes in grey and biege) with huge urban sprawl, Baltimore sounds delightful. Bring it on!

Keep 'em coming!

For beer? Brewer's Art, period. The Mount Vernon neighborhood where it sits is not spectacular, but that is a GOOD thing by typical touristic standards where spectacle is the goal, and where subtle charms don't count. But it is beyond subtle charm, it is strong and vivid and unique.

For beer, the other place to go and hang is the Fell's Point neighborhood. It is brushed up with pubs and restaurants in a dense, Covent Garden sort of way, with a few cobblestones in between, and the only real way to get there by transport is to take the overpriced water taxi ($8 for a day pass) from the not-to-miss but still corporately Disneyesque massive Inner Harbor--(the Inner Harbor is where most tourists go and NEVER venture from--it has every chain store that can afford a station there--plus some good crab cakes here and there; and some interesting usurped ancient architecture, and a great

1800's ship that is really worth touring in the bay). Fell's Point, a 10-minute water taxi ride from the inner harbor, has lots of beer places that cater to a semi-yuppie, semi-college, semi-beer-knowledgable crowd, but it has a yuppified commercial heart. A few minutes walk north of there and you get into a quarter with loads of Mexican places, and loads of latino people. It feels a bit wilder, with more police presence, but you might get a better meal there for much less. You can actually walk (like I did) from the Inner Harbor, through the old Italy neighborhood (characterized by...loads of Italian restaurants) into the latino neighborhood north of Fells Point, and then down to Fells Point, but it is not that rich (architectually) a stroll, though it is revealing.

But a nice daytime trek from the downtown/Inner Harbor neighborhood is to walk south from the harbor to the Federal Hill neighborhood

, with its tight, small, brick row houses that have been gentrified to expensive homes and small businesses, with an ultimate view to chowing down on seafood at the Cross Street Market at 1065 S. Charles St. where there area also boutiquey pubs (with sometimes good beer!) sprouting up in the immediate vicinity.

Another nice, offbeat trip is to take light rail to the Woodbury station and walk (or take the Hampden Shuttle Bug) into the Hampden commercial strip--a casual, semi-hippie-ish very neighborhoody place. But the WALK from the light rail to the station, though twisting and uphill, includes some memorable semi-row-housed streets that are like nothing I've ever seen. I think it was W. 37th street with it's sloping curve of stuck-together houses into the valley that sticks in my mind like no other simple residential street I've ever seen. Physical geography meets practical civic architecture in the most enchanting of ways--and the more you hop on light rail and go from place to place around Baltimore, the more curves and delapidation and enchantment you will find.

Even taking the city bus (I think it is the #1 or #10 but be sure to check), from downtown to Fort McHenry, site of the Star Spangled Banner (though really not seriously threatened by the British fleet) is a GREAT experience--rambling row houses on wide open streets to an historic fort with great views--it's nice!!!

Yahoo has this decent page on Baltimore neighborhoods (and crab cakes--though they cost more than a farthing; my local Trader Joes has GREAT crab cakes at really reasonable prices):