The Spirit World

We’ll be getting back to beer mixology soon, but I had a couple of updates from recent beery wanderings that I want to share with you. So for the next two weeks I’m going to take you to a particular corner on Broadway in Fells Point, Baltimore, Maryland.

I had the good fortune of making a return trip to Baltimore last week. You might recall that I went down to Poe’s city for St Patrick’s Day last year. Again, my investigation of beer culture centered around the Fells Point area; however, this time instead of focusing on the brewpubs (like DuClaw) or the bigger taprooms with mega-selections (like Max’s) I hit some of the smaller places. Places whose main attraction is character and atmosphere rather than extensive beer selections.

Has Donavan gone mad? Sacrificing beer selection for decor? It’s not just decor that you get with these small, well used watering holes. You get the intimacy of rubbing elbows with the locals and the chance of observing some real characters up close — sociological opportunities that are not really possible in a big, polished, yuppified drinking space.

If you look back at my post about Max’s from last March, you’ll see that I questioned the utility of the huge selection. Not that I object. I would love a world where every taproom I walked into had 70 taps and 300 bottles to choose from, but selection (alas) isn’t everything. I did return to Max’s and tried some of their more unusual offerings, but this time around I was less enamored with mere selection size and was left thirsty for a drinking space with a different atmosphere. Max’s for all it’s beer diversity is a mult-screen sports bar with a predominantly college age clientele. Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast the Monday before last in Max’s watching the University of Florida trounce Ohio State. Max’s was full of Ohio State fans dressed up in their jersey’s and “made in Ohio” tee-shirts.

While watching the game on the huge screens in Max’s I drank from taps pouring the beers of far way lands. I discovered that Green Flash had made it’s way from San Diego. Max’s had their West Coast IPA on tap. I wanted to try the Green Flash Trippel, but they had just run out.

I had some truly hideous stout, Tommyknocker Black Powder Stout, from Idaho Springs, Colorado. It’s the first beer in ages that I’ve had to abandon in mid-glass for something else. I passed this Tommyknocker brew around to the folks I was drinking with to see if my taster had gone on the blink, but they all confirmed that there was something distinctly medicinal about this brew. Admittedly, one of my fellows was a committed Guinness man.

After the game ended, we all filed out of Max’s onto Broadway. That’s when I spotted a little place across the street called Bertha’s and made a mental note to return the next evening.