Flying Dog, one of We’re Out of Here’s favorite microbrew brands, recently moved their production from Colorado to Frederick, Maryland, a small town about an hour north of DC. (NOTE: this post originally ran in Nov. 08)
We’re not ones to pass up a chance for free beer, even if it means devoting an entire Saturday to the trip. So, We’re Out of Here and two friends drove up to Frederick yesterday afternoon for a tour of the brewery and an unlimited beer tasting (with the purchase of a $5 pint glass).
After downing a half pint of Flying Dog’s pale ale, we joined the first tour group (The tour starts at 1:30 p.m each Saturday, but arrive early) for a look around the brewery grounds. Beer novices beware, this tour is for advance brewers only. The commentary about gravity, fermentation and bottling speed was lost on us. The tour mostly comprised members of the <a href=”http://www.beertown.org/”>American Homebrewers Associatio</a>n (think: Middle aged men with stick-on name tags, beer bellies and flannel shirts), who nodded sagely along. The AHA were having a membership drive that afternoon.
We trailed through a cave of tanks, past a mysterious room filled with beakers and test tubes and into a storage area packed to the ceiling with six packs. Working my way through another half pint, the place started to seem like an adult beerage version of Willy Wonka’s factory. The final room had a dummy stuck on top of a the conveyor belt and Flying Dog’s trippy logo suspended from the ceiling. The tour guide lead us though a hallway lined with kegs and back into the real world.
Back in the bar area, the tasting room was packed with young area residents in search of cheap beer. We decided to get the most for our $5 and half tank of gas; we tried Flying Dog’s lineup (called Canis Major so clever they are!) of beers with high-alcohol content. After a half glass of Imperial Porter (7.8% ABV), Barley Wine (10.2% ABV), Double Dog Double Pale Ale (11.5% ABV) and Kerberos Tripel (8.5% ABV), we were ready to head home.
![Recommend [wereoutofhere]](http://s3.amazonaws.com/arkayne-media/img/logo-recommend-me.png){kind=logo}
One Trackback
[...] Flying Dog Brewery: While this is not actually a bar – and we visited some great bars this year – it comes in 3rd. Flying Dog has an excellent spread of beers of which you can enjoy limitless samples. The atmosphere at one of these Saturday afternoon tasting is that of a well-behaved college house party – strangers chatting and spilling out on to the back porch. And, did I mention, its $5. See our post here. [...]