I came of age on craft beer in the Northeast and Midatlantic in the 1990s, where and when the main brewing influence was British. Alan Pugsley and the late Peter Austin either set up or consulted on the creation of many breweries between Alexandria, Virginia and Portland, Maine, and influenced countless others on the East Coast. On the northern end of that long I-95 trip, Shipyard Brewing made an Export IPA with Fuggles hops, while Geary’s Porter, redolent of roast and earthy, herbal hop notes, held it down for the maltheads.
Stephen Jones, head brewer at The Brewer’s Art, is part of this lineage. After coming of age and brewing at the Fowl & Firkin in Coventry, where he also attended university, he moved to Maryland in 1999 and began brewing at the Wharf Rat, in the shadow of Camden Yards, where Barrett Lauer was the head brewer. This brewery was also part of that English tradition, with a twist: the Wharf Rat’s brew kit was in the basement, in a series of rooms maybe seven feet in height. Founded by Bill Oliver of Oliver Ales, the “brewing equipment was brought over from the U.K. with the aim of creating authentic English ales.” Jones made English-style stouts, bitters, milds, and summer ales, often served on beer engines above. After a name change to the Pratt Street Alehouse, it was here that we first met.
Many American drinkers are at least passingly familiar with Samuel Smith’s: their stouts, cider, organic lager, and nut brown ale can be found in both better beer shops as well as Whole Foods and other grocery stores, along with a variety of pale ales. But due to lack of interest, the brewery and its importer, Merchant du Vin, stopped bringing one of their beers, Yorkshire Stingo, to the States in 2019. While there is scant interest in Stingo in the US, that’s interest all the same. Before Sam Smith stopped selling Stingo here, Kansas City’s Boulevard Brewing and Massachusetts’ late Pretty Things–helmed by British expats who are brewing back in the United Kingdom–collaborated on a Stingo. The limited run was bottled and available in the District. I recall it being pretty good. In 2021, Fredericksburg, Virginia’s Strangeways Brewing took a crack at the style as well, which I was unaware of until earlier this year. According to Untappd, Day Trip to Yorkshire, the Stingo Jones brewed last fall at The Brewer’s Art, is the only commercially available example of the style brewed in the United States.
Stingo is a peculiar style, think a cross between an imperial porter and an old ale, but if you’re into beers with notes of toffee, slight oak tannins, and dark fruit–think blackberries and currants–there’s really nothing else like it. Jones brewed a Stingo in the summer of 2023, then aged much of it in a foeder, a large oak barrel more commonly used for wine. “I make no secret of the fact that Samuel Smith’s Yorkshire Stingo is one of my favorite beers of all time, but sadly it hasn’t been available in the States for quite some time. Figured I’d best brew a tribute to it whilst I patiently wait for someone somewhere to grow a brain and get it back into Stateside distro,” he wrote. As it turns out, he only had to wait a year.
Jones used a grist of “English pale ale malt, brown malt, and double roasted crystal malt, chocolate barley and torrefied wheat,” adding light brown sugar to the boil, bittering with Target hops, and finishing with Fuggles and Bramling Cross. “English ale yeast (Fuller’s) for fermentation, fined but not filtered,” he notes. At Samuel Smith’s brewery in Yorkshire, the beer is fermented in a large concrete square–helpfully called a Yorkshire square–before being aged in oak and then either kegged or bottled. At The Brewer’s Art, Day Trip to Yorkshire was presented two ways, foedered and fresh. The brewery is bringing a sixtel of the wood aged version to the Baltimore Craft Beer Festival on Saturday, November 2. It is the last keg of the last Stingo made in the United States. It is not a whale, it is a unicorn. Make a day trip to Baltimore.
Jones and I arranged to meet at the Fillmore in Silver Spring in January to see The Charlatans and Ride–my Anglophilia extends beyond beer. He graciously brought along a growler of Day Trip to Yorkshire, which I stashed in my car.
Just like Untappd is perhaps best used for looking up obscure beer styles to see if any are available, the late Drizly was not just an alcohol delivery service. In fact, I never used it as such, instead preferring to price out Chartreuse and to see if any stores carried anything of interest. Enter Northwest Fine Wines, a bit outside Baltimore in Reisterstown, Maryland. Inexplicably, they had aged bottles of Sam Smith’s Stingo available earlier this year. Driving over two hours roundtrip for Stingo seemed foolish, but I had some help in the form of a friend who lives up that way. Jerry Hulla is perhaps best known online as Share a Pint, the name of a podcast series he hosted, focused on Maryland breweries with a few from DC and Virginia thrown in for good measure. He lives maybe 15 minutes from Northwest Fine Wines, and as a regular at DC Beer bottle shares, I knew I’d see him soon.
I bought four bottles of Stingo online letting the store know that Hulla would pick them up. He and they arrived at a beer share, and we immediately cracked one. It was a bit thin, but a modest amount of carbonation remained, with minimal oxidation. We chalked it up as a win. Volker Stewart, founder and co-owner of The Brewer’s Art, was able to swing by to deliver a bottle to Jones. Beer: we pay it forward, or back and forth.
Merchant du Vin sends out monthly emails of their offerings, and September’s newsletter held a surprise: Yorkshire Stingo is back in the US! There’s a catch, though: only about 1,400 cases are making it across the pond. “We are unsure if it will be a yearly release or just something we do every couple of years,” a Merchant du Vin representative told me. If you’re interested, it’s time to make some inquiries at your favorite beer stores.
Better yet, come to Baltimore on November 2, and try the last keg of the only US-made example of the style. “The Foeder aged beer is a little drier than its non-Foeder aged counterpart, with a corresponding increase in alcohol by volume to 9.5%. It’s beautifully complex with a light tartness around the edges, a hint of Brettanomyces at play methinks. A lingering blackberry to bitter chocolate in the finish comes into play as the glass warms in your hand (cup that glass, help it along). It is deep chestnut in colour, full bodied on the palate. An assertive hop bitterness… combines beautifully with the dark malt character of this beer… expect dark fruit (fig/raisin) with a touch of licorice and light molasses,” writes Jones. Have his version, have the original. We’re not after whales, we’re after unicorns.
Next up for The Brewer’s Art is another somewhat obscure style, although one that is not as rare. On tap now at the brewpub, take a Day Trip to Dusseldorf for an altbier. Cheers.
