Summer is here and that means it's time for another round of beer fests celebrating craft beer in and around Washington, DC.

SAVOR

First off we have SAVOR, which is just around the corner with three sessions--one on Friday May 16, starting at 6:30 and two on Saturday May 17 at 12:30 and 6:30. The event takes place at the Andrew Mellon auditorium and will be a celebration of beer and food pairings. 35+ appetizers are on the menu to be paired beers from 48 breweries from around the country. Although Cap City is not on the bill, there are some 'local' breweries from Virginia and Maryland to drink from--Star Hill, Clipper City and Williamsburg Aleworks. If you ever wanted to pair a Hoptimus Prime Imperial Pale Ale with some artisan cheese, this might be your chance. Tickets are expensive! Support your local scene! http://www.beertown.org/events/savor/index.html

NOVA Summer Brewfest

Later this summer Northern Virginia will be home to a more traditional beer fest. On June 21 and 22 at Morven Park in Leesburg, VA, there will be 2 sessions 11am-9pm Saturday, and 11am-7pm Sunday. Tickets in advance are only $20 which includes a 6.75 sampling glass and 4 drink tickets. Additional tickets are a buck a piece. 40 breweries will be offering samples while crowds are entertained by live music. http://novabrewfest.com/summer/

Brew at the Zoo

Having attended this event the last two years, I have to say it is pretty fun. Before SAVOR, this really kinda was the only beerfest in town (that I knew about). Details are limited at the moment, but generally beers that have distribution in the city will probably have a few taps flowing at this event. Also local restaurants will be serving up delicacies again. Looking forward to the return of the Reef's pulled pork sandwich! It's happening August 21 this year. http://nationalzoo.si.edu/ActivitiesAndEvents/Celebrations/

Beer: The new Valentine's Day treat

As a craft beer lover, you probably think a bit more alternatively than the rest of the Bud Light drinking population. Why shouldn't this thinking also transfer over to Valentine's Day.

If you love beer and you love (or just really really like) your significant other why not combine the two this Valentine's Day and share some quality beer paired with a nice desert at home? Below are three beverages we suggest for a nice romantic night with your beer...and your date.

Chocolate Indulgence

My first suggestion would be Ommegang's Chocolate Indulgence in lieu of a box of chocolates. Stick a big bow to the front of this champagne corked 750ML bottle and hand it to your honey. Even if they aren't beer lovers to begin with, this new 10 Year Anniversary ale might do wonders for your relationship.

It's a stout (eww, dark beer, some people I know might say) but it tastes like chocolate! It's made with real cocoa and is brewed with a process that makes this a hybrid Belgian Ale/Stout style. Where can you go wrong? Pair it with strawberries or raspberries topped with powdered sugar and/or whipped cream.

Something with cherries?

If you'd rather eat your chocolate, you probably can't go wrong pairing it with Kasteel Rouge. It's a really sweet Belgian cherry beer that would pair quite will with a heart shaped box of Belgian truffels (or a bag of Hershey kisses).

This offering from Brouwerij Van Honsebrouck pours dark maroon with a nice pile of pink foam on top. Serve in a goblet glass to complete the picture and let the object of your affections take in the almost Valentine themed beer.

The pink champagne of beers

The age-old stand-by when one replaces champagne or wine with beer has often been fruit lambics. I know that I, on more than one occasion, have converted strict wine drinkers to the cause with Lindemans Framboise. Poured into a champagne flute and served with a sumptuous slice of thick chocolate cake. It's sweet, it's tart, and it pours to look like pink champagne, but goes way better with desert than any of that French stuff.

Light some candles, put a big bottle of one of these fine beers on ice and share some with your beer lover tonight.

For my 'research' on this piece, I found all the above beers at Cairo Wine and Liqour on 17th Street near Dupont.

Rustico in Alexandria, VA is offering a rather exclusive beer and food pairing at their chef's table every Thursday night. Only four seats are available and each one costs $115. That will buy you a 6 course meal with accompanying beer pairings from their select of domestic and imported craft beers.

Their website implores hop heads and food geeks to indulge. Between the chef's enthusiasm for locally grown foods, and the beer expert Greg Engert behind the beverage selection, you probably can't go wrong with this dinner.

Rustico is rather well known for their extensive beer list, they have over 300 bottled beers and a rather sizable list of drafts. According to their website they have taps pulling Algäuer Cambonator (Doppelbock), Allagash Tripel, Bear Republic Big Bear Black Stout, BBC Jefferson's Reserve Bourbon Barrel Stout, Bell's Two Hearted Ale, Brigand (Belgian Strong Pale Ale), Brooklyn Lager, Brooklyn Brooklyner Weisse, De Glazen Toren Ondineke (Triple), Dogfish Head Chateau Jiahu, Eggenberg Hopfenkönig Pils, Gouden Carolus Noël (Belgian Strong Dark Ale), Guinness Draught Stout, Grimbergen Dubbel (Dubbel), Harpoon Hibernian Ale (Irish Red Ale), Humboldt Red Nectar (Amber), Köstritzer (Schwarzbier), Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout, Lagunitas Dogtown Pale Ale, Meantime India Pale Ale, North Coast Scrimshaw Pilsner, Redhook Winterhook Winter Ale, Rogue Imperial Red, St. Louis Framboise, Smuttynose Barleywine Style Ale, Spaten Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse, Victory Hop Wallop, Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier Dunkel, Witkap Pater Singel-Stimulo, and Wolaver's Brown Ale. For those of you not living in DC, this seems like the place to be, but you might want to call a cab after drinking half of those drafts.

Reservations must be made 24 hours in advance and will be accepted on a first come, first serve basis by calling 703.224.5051.See more info on their website. Rusticorestaurant.com

Need a last minute Valentine's Day idea? How about L’Enfant café? The tiny bistro on the corners of 18th, U street and Florida is offering a 3 course menu tonight for $39 dollars apiece. Not bad considering you'll be getting some great French fare. Goat cheese or duck truffle pate topped salads, Salmon or Beef Bourguignon and a choice of chocolate desert crepe or a rasberry merangue for desert.

Complimentary champagne is also on the menu, but we here at dcBeer would advise you skip that and split a tall bottle of a classic Chimay with your beer loving SO. Their beer list is stocked with other Trappists and Belgian themed beers. Pair that chocolate crepe with a little framboise to seal the deal.

Dinner reservations recommended. Please call 202-319-1800. Check them out at www.lenfantcafe.com.

Yesterday, Feb. 4th, tickets went on sale for SAVOR--the American craft beer and food event that is being hosted here in Washington, DC. There will be 3 different sessions over the weekend of May 16th and 17th. Each session will be limited to 700 people to ensure maximum contact between attendees and the brewers! Tickets are $85 each--netting you small dishes and appetizers meant to match up with craft beers, a commemorative tasting glass, souvenir program, Craft Beer Taster’s Journal, and lots of 2-ounce samples of specially selected craft beers.

Not only do you get to pair food and beer during the sessions, you can also attend some great educational salons. Garret Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery and author of the Brewmaster's Table will be speaking about beer and cheese. Jim Koch of Boston Beer will be joining Randy Mosher (Radical Brewing and Seibel Institute) for a seminar on beer and food. To top it off, Dogfish Head's Sam Calagione will be going head-to-head with the assistant dean of the French Culinary Institute on Beer vs. Wine.

There is an awesome list of participating breweries at this event: 21st Amendment, Abita Brewing Company, Allagash Brewing Company, Avery Brewing Company, Blackfoot River Brewing Company, LLC, Boscos Brewing Company, Boston Beer Company, The Brooklyn Brewery, Clipper City Brewing Company, Deschutes Brewery, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Florida Beer Company, Flying Dog Brewery, Flying Fish Brewing Company, Foothills Brewing, Four Peaks Brewing Company, Free State Brewing Company, Full Sail Brewing Company, FX Matt Brewing Company, Great Divide Brewing Company, Great Lakes Brewing Company, Harpoon Brewery, Heiner Brau Microbrewery, Hoppy Brewing Company, Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant, Legacy Brewing Co., Montana Brewing Company, New Albanian Brewing Company, New Belgium Brewing Company, New Holland Brewing Company, Otter Creek Brewing, Pelican Pub & Brewery, Port Brewing Company, Rock Art Brewery, Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery, Rogue Ales, Russian River Brewing Company, Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing, Sierra Nevada Brewing, Smuttynose Brewing Company , Sprecher Brewing Company, Starr Hill Brewing Company, Stone Brewing Co., Stoudts Brewing Company, The Saint Louis Brewery, Inc, Tröegs Brewing Company, Two Brothers Brewing Company, and Williamsburg AleWerks.

Lots of allstars on that list. As happy as we are to see all these great breweries coming to town, it is a sad realization to see that DC doesn't have a hometown brewery to represent.

SAVOR will be hosted at Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium located at 1301 Constitution Avenue, N.W. in Washington D.C.

For more information check out http://www.beertown.org/events/SAVOR/ or stay tuned here for more info as we get it.

The Wine Specialist (believe it or not) on M Street has been hosting a number of beer tastings lately. Despite the word Wine in their name, we can no longer ignore that they are doing this. Frankly we'd like to see more local beer sellers offering tastings like this! Thursday January 31, they are featuring the Petrus line of beers from Bavik, a Belgian brewery. They will be serving samples of the Petrus Dubbel Bruin Ale, the Petrus Gouden Tripel Ale, Petrus Winterbeer, and Petrus Blond Ale. On top of the free samples, they will be giving 10 percent off purchases for the tasting. The Wine Specialist is right around the intersection of M St and New Hampshire Ave NW mid way between Dupont and Foggy Bottom metros.

We've heard through the grapevine that Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant down by Gallery Place now has two happy hours! Both happy hours are bar only.

They take place 4:00-6:30 PM Monday through Friday and 10:00 PM until close Sunday through Thursday. That means no happy hour on Saturday. All beers will be $1 off for a half liter. That's around $4 bucks for their regular brewed-on-premise beers. Bar appetizers will be $4.95 for those who like food with their half liters of beer. (Probably a good call.)

Also look for their Brewers Select beer on tap... Brewer Jason Oliver has a Baltic Porter for you at the downtown location--sounds like just the thing to warm us up as DC descends into subzero temperatures.

Tonight starting at 6 PM the Brickskeller is hosting the Strong Ale Extravaganzee. The tasting will focus on local strong winter beers. One of the perks of the night is that there will be a ton of local brewmasters on hand to talk about their strong beers up for the tasting. Wharf Rat, DuClaw, Sweetwater, Franklins, Gordon Biersch DC, Gordon Biersch Rockville, District Chop House, and Red Brick Station breweries will all be on the ticket tonight to speak with attendees.

Tomorrow--the second night of the Stong Ale Extravaganzee--they plan on having Cap City DC, Cap City Virginia, Vintage 50, Old Dominion, Clipper City, Johansson's, and Troegs. There are also a few other local breweries that may show up on either night, though they have not confirmed.

Tickets for each night are $35 a pop, and they are only available through the Brickskeller website. Looks like a lot of tasty local brew at a bargain price.

Today's Washington Post had a great feature today highlighting the exclusive beers on tap at The Reef, The Saloon, Brasserie Beck, Belga Cafe and Central Michel Richard. As the DC beer scene explodes more bars and restaurants are offering great Belgian imports and American craft brews. Apparently The Reef was one of the first three bars in the U.S. to stock Chimay on draft--back in 2002. The bar still stocks some great beers including their exclusive-on-tap De Koninck's Winter Koninck Ale. They are also the only bar to pour De Koninck's Blonde during the summer months.

Brasserie Beck's been getting a lot of press lately with this article being no exception, quoting local beer celeb and knight of the Belgian Brewers Guild Bill Catron about the benefits of exclusives like Campus, Bacchus and Anker-Bok keeping regulars coming back. The extensive Belgian beer list and Catron amazing ability to get rare beer stateside certainly does have the dcbeer staff stopping in regularly to check up on his stock.

The Post continues on to discuss Commy Jahanbein's Saloon and its rare and limited supply of kegged Urbock 23. The neighborhood basement bar also boasts an exclusive on Eggenberg's Dunkel. Belga Cafe has been drawing in patrons with a not-so-modest list of 80 Belgians with two white labeled house beers brewed by Brewery Keersmaekers. Not to be outdone, Central Michel Richard matches expensive tastes with exclusive and expensive beers while also converting the average Budweiser drinker to the superior Blusser Blonde ale brewed by Het Anker in Belgium.

Source: At Area Bars, Grab a Pint of Exclusivity by Fritz Hahn

Belga Cafe has just announced that it will be hosting Beer Tastings every 4th Tuesday of the month. Each month patrons will be guided by Beer Sommelier Jens Piferoen as they sample the night's theme and enjoy an entree. At $49 a person, that is actually pretty competitive versus some of the other beer tastings in DC!

The first such event will take place on January 22nd at 6 PM and has been entitled "The Trappist Beers." There will be NINE beers to taste as well as a beer flavored main course to go along with them. With the knowledgeable Jens Piferoen at the helm, the night is sure to be just as educational as it is tasty. You may want to get those tickets in advance as space for the night is limited.

They have also announced that the next beer tasting will be "The Chef's favorites." It will take place on February 26th.