Celebrate Summer Beers At Maria's Every Thursday in June
By Julia Weeman in Food on Jun 1, 2014 8:30PM
June is here and Packaged Goods & Community Bar wants to help you ease into Summer one Thursday at a time. It's time to set aside the winter porters, stouts, and brown ales in favor of lighter brews for sipping in the sun.
Every Thursday in June, Maria's will host a Taste of Summer, starting at 7:00 p.m. and featuring samplings of refreshing, thirst-quenching beers suited for the seasonal shift.
The first Thursday, June 5th, will feature Belgian style beers from Brewery Ommegang from Cooperstown, New York and Brouwerij Duvel Moortgat from Breendonk-Puurs, Belgium.
Ommegang was founded by Don Feinberg and Wendy Littlefield, owners of Vanberg & DeWulf beer import company, along with three family owned Belgian breweries including Duvel Moortgat. They are known for their specialty in Belgian style ales, including the ever popular Three Philosophers and their Game of Thrones series. Duvel Moortgat was founded in 1871 and is best known for their strong golden pale ale, Duvel.
On June 12th, one beer will take the focus: Trooper, a collaboration between Iron Maiden (yes, the band) and the UK's Robinson's Brewery. The Trooper Beer Party will allow patrons to sample the deep golden ale, made with Goldings, Bobec, and Cascade hops to produce complex citric hop notes. Trooper is a great example of how summery beers can maintain depth of character and complexity. Purchase a pint of Trooper and get to keep the Trooper pint glass.
Next up on June 19th, Heartland Distribution will be showcasing beers from their various small and nano breweries, including Cahoots and Middle Brow. Cahoots is a brewery without their own facility that collaborates with local craft breweries. The styles of beer, recipes, labels and logo design for their beers are all crowdsourced via forums and polls.
Middle Brow Beer Company shares a somewhat similar philosophy by getting about half of its recipes from home-brewing contests and selling the winners' beers in bombers.
June 26th will be a Tap Takeover featuring some extremely limited drafts from Deschutes Brewery, out of Portland, Oregon. We are most looking forward to the first release of the limited edition Mirror Mirror, which is only brewed every 5 years.
Mirror Mirror is a barrel aged barley-wine, born of a double batch of Mirror Pond Pale Ale. Mirror Pond Pale Ale is the brewery's most popular beer, packed with Cascade hops for what Deschutes calls "the quintessential Northwest pale ale." Mirror Mirror is aged for 10 months in Oregon Pinot Noir, Tempranillo, and Malbec barrels. The award winning barley wine is described as "brandy, malty, hoppy...piney, and very sweet" by the World Beer Awards, who named it the world's best barley wine in 2010.