The craft beer business in Maryland is booming, so it's no surprise that a new brewery is slated to enter the Baltimore market. The Eastern shore's Burley Oak Brewing is quickly becoming one of the darlings of the Maryland brewing scene—alongside relative newcomers like Stillwater Artisinal Ales and Union Craft Brewing and stalwarts like Heavy Seas, Flying Dog Brewing and DuClaw Brewing. If you've never heard of the year-old brewery, that's probably because their small batch, hand-crafted beers are mostly only available in Ocean City, Salisbury and the tiny eastern shore town where they're …

DuClaw's Real Ale Festival Tickets are still available for what's quickly become one of my favorite festivals in the Maryland beer scene: the DuClaw Real Ale Fest. The festival takes place at the Bel Air DuClaw location this Saturday from 12-4 p.m. and a ticket gets you unlimited access to all the beer plus a whole lot of food including three whole pigs. In total the festival will feature over 40 firkins from 22 breweries. What's a firkin? Glad you asked. A firkin is an 11-gallon keg that holds cask-conditioned beer; "real ale" means the beer is unfiltered and served at cellar temperature (…

Graphic designer Jon Zerivitz spent the past decade carefully crafting catchy, colorful images that existed on his clients' websites, a virtual display case that left him longing to create a product he could touch, smell and, most importantly, taste.So the 32-year-old Lutherville-Timonium resident turned to beer. Not to drown his troubles over his career, but to launch a new one. Zerivitz opened Union Craft Brewing at 1700 Union Avenue in Baltimore's Woodberry neighborhood back in June alongside partner and head brewer Kevin Blodger. "The concept is a real neighborhood brewery that fosters …

Like every great hero, the latest addition to DuClaw Brewing's arsenal of craft beers has a sweet origin story and even some “super Powers.” The Harford County craft brewery announced Monday that they had a winner in their second annual H.E.R.O. homebrewer's contest—a chocolate chipotle stout brewed by Nottingham's own Vince and Suzanne Powers. The beer will be brewed and bottled by DuClaw Brewing and available at retailers sometime later this year. The best part? All of the proceeds, not just the profits, from the sale of the beer will benefit a charity. The Powers' Vince Powers, 39, and his…

Last Chance to Enter Homebrew Contest The deadline for DuClaw Brewing’s H.E.R.O. Homebrew contest is approaching fast — there’s pretty much no time to get a new batch going before the April 18 cutoff, but if you have a recipe and some bottles on hand you might want to think about getting in on it. Last year’s winning brew, a chocolate peanut butter porter cooked up by Tony Huckestein and Doug DeLeo, was wildly popular, selling out within a month and raising more than $15,000 for the Cool Kids Campaign's Learning Center. The contest allows beer fans to enter their own tasty creations for the …

There’s been a ton of big news in the beer world since the last time we spoke, so let’s not waste any time, and jump right into it! New Belgium Rarities on Tap at Racer’s Café A couple of rare beers (and some not-so-rare beers) from Colorado’s New Belgium brewing will be on offer at Parkville’s best craft beer bar next Thursday. If you stop by on April 5th, you’re in for a treat—in addition to a bonfire and a cornhole tournament you’ll be able to try: Cocoa Mole, a spiced beer made with cocoa and ancho, chipotle and guajillo chili peppers; it’s not super spicy though, drinks like a delicious …

Welcome, dear readers, to this week’s edition of Craft Beer, Here. The last time I wrote, I told you about an upcoming trip to Charleston, SC for what I think is one of the coolest beer festivals on the east coast: Brewvival. Held at Coast Brewing the last weekend in February every year, it’s an opportunity for small craft brewers to show off what they’re really made of. Brian Strumke, of Stillwater Artisanal Ales was representing Baltimore at the festival—pouring a saison called Kopstootje, an American amber/red ale called Holland Oats brewed at Bierbrouwerij Emelisse in the Netherlands, and…

  After much thought, I’ve decided that I’ll be running a semi-regular column here on Parkville-Overlea Patch about something that I’m super passionate about: craft beer. It’s interesting — when I first came of age, my tastes never ran toward beer. Sure, I’d had a Miller Lite or a Budweiser before but they did nothing for me. I was anything but a beer drinker. The very first craft brew I had was a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale — ever since that first sip more than five years ago, I’ve been hooked. (Not in bad way!) Since then, I’ve taken most of my time off to travel around tasting beer everywhere …