It’s already September. And you know what that means: pumpkin beers in summer, for weeks now. The official beer of the Void is here. Feel the excitement.
A lot has happened since the previous Void, so this is going to take a while. Bear with me. As always, let’s start with the local goings on.
3 Stars Brewing shut its doors just as the last Void went to print, so some of you may not know that some of the staff, including brewer Meth and events coordinator/plant swap guru Lyn moved to Atlas. Also, Atlas reopened their taproom in Ivy City.
On top of that, Jeff Hancock and his wife Mari Rodela have decided to leave DC Brau. Crazy times in the DC brewing scene, and not all of that is negative. Take this Travel and Leisure article on the growing Black brewing scene in Chocolate City (the city’s nickname, not the defunct brewery). Relatedly, Beer Kulture is joining forces with the folks that brought you Brave Noise beer to form an initiative to get more representatives of marginalized populations into the industry.
And in more good news, read about what will be DC’s newest brewery when it opens in Eckington, Lost Generation
Was this you at the new Aslin spot? It wasn’t me. I wish I could grow a giant pumpkin. What would a pumpkin party entail? Hopefully lots of beer.
Solace is adding hundreds of new seats at their new Navy Yard location and wants to brew. You can pregame at that location and see the absolutely sorry, no account Nats next door play losing baseball and pay exorbitant amounts for similar beer you can find outside, but at least it sometimes dispenses via a self-service tap. Will there be a Hard Mountain Dew dispenser at a ballpark near you? Data seems to suggest there should be!
Right now you can only find those dispensers in the Void, and it’s all we serve. Sorry in advance. Also, the Nats are still playing here. Also sorry.
A reminder to everywhere that serves beer, including the newly opened Taffer’s Tavern:
I am rooting very hard for Taffer’s Tavern to somehow end up like the old Piratz Tavern in Silver Spring, the subject of one infamous episode of his Bar Rescue show. Finding dirty draft lines for the $12 Heinekens would go a long way toward that dream. Oh, but I’m sure you’ll have a good time there.
Hopefully in the upcoming brewing video game you will be cleaning your tap lines in addition to lifting bags of barley to dump into a brew kettle over and over and over again. And also crashing a forklift into whatever and violating various OSHA laws on your way to modest success. Because when I think about settling down for a nice, relaxing gaming session, I think about slaving over a hot brew kettle. Hear me out, though, what if this video game was brewing but was actually this:
You’d play it. Don’t deny it.
In other news, it’s 2005 again. You’re in college chasing your morning energy drinks with your evening hard energy drinks. You sleep 2 hours a night. You eat Arby’s. But there are ice cream… dive… bars… for some reason. I don’t really understand it either, but it’s a good thing someone thought of the Void and its need for a dessert option in this economy.
Have you heard there is a carbon dioxide shortage? Yes, it’s another shortage. Yes, they’re still going. It has claimed the primary brewing capacity of one popular New England brewery, who struck a deal with another popular New England brewery to brew their beer there instead. Unfortunately, that meant staff layoffs. It is threatening more in the industry. And it is one of the strangest shortages so far. It’s difficult to wrap your head around it.
Mikkeller has tapped out of brewing at a dedicated location in the U.S. and has closed their San Diego taproom. You may remember they took over the vacated space that used to belong to AleSmith. They cited the COVID-19 pandemic. Even big beer is feeling the squeeze of the pandemic. It’s also mentioned in Chris O’Leary’s Brew York space, where you’ll find a bit of beer trivia on the breweries at the extremes of the country.
Asahi has said they want to push into the U.S. market and maybe acquire some breweries. Please wildly speculate with no evidence in the comments below, as this is both the Void and the internet. And in other Japanese brewing news… in other countries… news… Kirin is selling UK breweries Magic Rock and Fourpure.
While we’re on the subject of UK beer, lets transition to the long reads/listens section of the Void, where you can take up a chair and crack an ice cold Four Loko and stay a while. The never-ending saga surrounding Brewdog and allegations of abuse and mismanagement can be found here, in this podcast, for those that want to be up-to-date.
Treehugger has an interesting article on the history of using cans in beer and the disappearance of the refillable bottle, a much more sustainable form of packaging.
We’ll end with Pellicle mag’s essential guide to IPA, so you don’t have to eat truckloads of whole-cone hops to get your fix of bitterness for the day.
Bitter is all we are in the Void. Until next time.
