Max’s Taphouse in Baltimore, Maryland
All the brewpub people in Baltimore are super-friendly. They look and act like they really enjoy their work—and its important work, too. During a warm, slow afternoon at The Wharf Rat at Camden Yards sampling pints of English-style bitter, my waitress sat down at my table and started talking to me about beer. Before long she was suggesting other places in Baltimore that I should visit during the week. She strongly suggested—no, insisted—that I visit Max’s Taphouse over in Fells Point. Why? Because they have 70 beers on tap and something like 300 different bottled beers. I nodded my head and said, “It sounds like my kind of place.” And since I was staying over in Fells Point anyway, I had no excuse to miss it. However, Max’s was to prove a challenge and I almost missed it.
The second day I was in Baltimore this insane wind ripped in across the city from the west blowing icy gusts that just about could knock me over. The wind must have knocked something over, because by the time I got to Max’s that evening the whole neighborhood had lost power and all the businesses on the east side of Broadway were closed. I stood outside a dark and locked up Max’s in the biting wind dreaming of what could have been. But I try to make the best of bad situations. Just to get out of the wind I trotted down the cobble stone street to a place that had power and there I discovered Natty Boh—I’m like beer Columbus, discovering beers that people have known about for a century (almost). But my Natty Boh adventure is a different story.
The next day for lunch, I hoofed it over to Max’s Taphouse (737 South Broadway). I’ll tell ya, walking into a taproom like Max’s for me is like a monk walking into St Peter’s. There are more taps in Max’s than there are altars in that grand Roman cathedral. I parked myself right in front of a bank of taps and this guy with an earring and a purple shirt with the name “Elvis” stitched over the right breast pocket came over and asked, “What’ll ya have?” The only thing I could say was, “I’m overwhelmed.” He laughed and told me to take my time. To assist me with my decision he handed me a stack of paper. “That’s our beer list,” he said.
By quick calculation, I estimated that the numbers given to me by the waitress at The Wharf Rat were correct. 70 plus beers on tap and endless pages of bottled beers. Some of the bottled beers were exotic Belgian beers priced upwards of $50 (for a 750 ml bottle).
Okay, at this point I had a serious problem. I only had about two hours for lunch, because I had to get back for the afternoon sessions at my conference. How could I possibly sample 70+ beers, assuming that I focused my attention on just those? Well, I could eliminate a few because I had either had them before or because they were the (seemingly) obligatory lineup of American Light Lagers. So that leaves me with maybe 35 or so taps. What’s a guy supposed to do?
Now, for a guy of my size, at best I can drink two Imperial pints of standard brew (that’s just about 40 oz of 5% ABV beer). That’s my limit. The third one just knocks me out. I tried it once in college. I literally staggered out of the pub, found the nearest place to lay down and slept for nearly four hours. Not going to do that again, especially in a strange town. So the best thing to do is limit myself to glasses. Even with glasses or goblets I’m looking at trying only three or four different beers since at least two that I want to try are of the “high octane” Belgian variety. So, for me the visitor, what good is it to go and be surrounded by all that possibility and not have any hope of sampling a fraction of it? Am I just torturing myself? Isn’t it best to go to a place that just has two or three really good beers, since two or three is all you’re going to get to anyway?
Last year, I went to a kitchen/bar called Cole’s in the rough part of Los Angeles. They were the ultimate specialists. They had two beers (or maybe three) on tap: Budweiser and Chimay Cinq Cents are the two I remember. Not a combination I would have anticipated, but I knew exactly what to order under those circumstances and had no problem with deciding what I would have for seconds.
So there I am at Max’s Taphouse on Broadway in Fells Point trying to make the toughest beer decision—what out of hundreds of possible choices do I pick to have right now? Beer drinkers in Max’s Taphouse have been asking this question for decades. And it’s a problem we all love to solve.
