There was a lot of buzz surrounding the recent arrival of New Belgium in the DC market, but I was not that worked up about it. My nonchalance is largely a product of having lived in California with easy access to the stuff and so there was not much novelty in it for me.
On the other hand – though my colleagues here may tease me about it – I have never lived in Brooklyn and so I have never had the opportunity to get bored by the output of Sixpoint Craft Ales and was delighted when they announced that they would be widely available in the DC, Maryland, Virginia region. Getting bored of Sixpoint would certainly take me some time. I like just about everything I have had from them and they produce a fairly long and rotating list of beers. (Not that I am unwilling to put in the time drinking their beers to find out, if pressed, of course…)
Starting off on Monday night with back-to-back release parties at both Pizzeria Paradiso and Meridian Pint, Sixpoint’s arrival in DC this week has been met with considerable excitement.
I have been able to try several of the Sixpoint beers in the last year in both New York and Philadelphia where they have been available, so on Monday night I wanted to be sure to try things I had not sampled before. Everything I tried, I liked, with my favorite being the Righteous Ale, a rye-based beer. It has a pronounced caramel flavor with a rye spiciness and bit of piney hop character. Delicious.
In addition to being on tap all over town already, Sixpoint also releases many of their beers in cans which will be for sale, which is great because it means I will not longer have to hoard them in my fridge and parcel them out between trips to Brooklyn. Instead, now I will just be drinking them all the time.
