W ith such a great holiday like Saint Patrick’s Day how could you go without stopping in at an Irish pub and having a pint of Guinness. Well we took it a step further, and hopped on the Federal Hill District Irish Pub Crawl . I was accompanied by my other half Leigh, Woody, and Bob and Karen. I found out about this annual celebration two years ago when I took two of my buddies to do some bar hopping in the Baltimore area. I had picked out a few places from Beer Advocate’s “beerflyâ€? section of their website. Specifically, I had wanted to visit Sean Bolan’s and Brewers Art. We made it to Sean Bolan’s around lunch time, and we thought since it was the weekend before St Patty’s day that it would be a slow day. As we sat and enjoyed a few pints people kept coming into the bar, would get one drink, and then leave. So we asked the bar tender what was going on, and that is when we found we were right at stop 9 out of a 18 count pub crawl. So we got directions to the first stop, and decided to join in. We had a great time so I decided to invite a few people to go down this year.
Don’t be too upset that you didn’t go along. I know there was little to no notice ahead of time on this adventure. We were all a bit disappointed at the lack of variety of beer at most of the bars. We started out at Mother’s , which was one of the places were you could pay $10 for a t-shirt and officially join the crawl. I didn’t take time to look at their tap selection. We headed straight over to a place run by Mad River . Unfortunately they didn’t have much, but I did grab a pint of Guinness. As I drank my pint, Bob and Woody went canvassing for other places to go. The next stop I wanted to go to was The Thirsty Dog, but they didn’t open until 5pm.
We peeked in a few other pubs, and had one or two. Crazy Lil’s was so crazy and wall-to-wall with people that they wouldn’t even let us in. We got the last two drafts of a keg of Brewers Art Resurrection at Ryleigh’s . Then we went into a pub called the Ropewalk . They had a decent bottle selection, so we stayed there for a few, until it was close to opening time at the Thirsty Dog . I managed to confuse this place with the microbrewery in Ohio called Thirsty Dog Brewing Company. I was really looking forward to an Old Leghumper . It is an easy mistake with the name being so close to each other. The Thirsty Dog Pub has their micros on tap. The bartender said Old Dominion made their beer. They even let you bring your pet dogs into the bar!
After wagging our tails goodbye, we headed down to the bar that was formerly known as Sean Bolan’s . Now re-opened as Clayton’s Tavern , Leigh and Woody ordered food. I can’t remember what I drank, but I do remember it was good. When I was there two years ago, Sean Bolan’s had a cask and quite a few nice micros on tap. I asked the one guy working there (Matt) what happened to the hand-pump. Matt said they were having problems with the food and safety inspectors, but really wanted to get the hand-pump setup again. I gave their info to Paul Pendyck, so hopefully they can work that out.
At this point in the crawl, we decided to bail out before it got much later. The parking garage had the stupidest setup I have ever seen. You have to insert your garage ticket into a vending machine and pay for you parking. Then as you drive through the gate, you were supposed to already have your pay stub to get out. Needless to say, no one including us knew about this, so it was a bit of a cluster fork (trying to keep it clean here).
We decided to top off the evening with a stop off at Max’s on Broadway . I ordered a Great Divide Hercules Double IPA. I had this before, but wow! Leigh ordered a Harviestoun’s Old Engine Oil Special Reserve. This is an old ale aged in malt whiskey casks. Double WOW! This stuff was like drinking oil, but in a good way. Bob and I mixed the Hercules and the Harviestoun’s together, and it was the best black and tan ever. Karen bought a Three Floyds Dreadnaught. I can’t get enough of that. Thanks, and thanks again Karen for driving us all home.
A lesson learned… If you want selection, go to Max’s. If you want to crawl with a bunch of college kids, then the Federal Hill crawl is up your alley. The Thirsty Dog is a nice place for doggie treats. Clayton’s has some potential, and is an easy drive straight down Light Street from Inner Harbor.
~Alex Barger
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