Brewery

Last September, the Burley Oak Brewing Company opened up about 8 miles inland in Berlin. The new brewery rapidly gained local popularity, and you can now find their beers in more than 32 bars, including an ever-expanding list in Ocean City. The care with which they make their beers is what has made it a real local favorite. "I think people want a product they connect with more than just your average, mass produced beer," said head brewer Sean Sasscer. "All our beer is made with a lot of love and a lot of local ingredients.

The two flagship beers from Woodberry's Union Craft Brewing Company - Duckpin Pale Ale and Balt Altbier - will be sold in 12-ounce cans in Baltimore city retailers by Friday, according to co-founder Jon Zerivitz. The cans will be sold in other areas of Maryland and Washington in the next few weeks. The brewery recently acquired three new 60 barrel tanks, which increase its brewing capacity by 75 percent. The expansion explains why UCB can now sell its beer in cans, Zerivitz said.

Heavy Seas Loose Cannon, the flagship beer of Clipper City Brewing Co., hasn't stayed on shelves of stores across 18 states and Washington, D.C., for long. The thirst of beer drinkers for the India pale-ale-style beer showed no signs of diminishing this year as it made up nearly 50 percent of the brewery's sales, according to a company spokeswoman, Kelly Zimmerman. To meet the demand, the Halethorpe-based brewery stopped production of its imperial cream ale, called Davey Jones Lager, until next summer.

Brooklyn Brewery is on the road. The New York-based brewery is in the middle of an 11-city tour that began in Austin, Texas, before moving on to New Orleans, Nashville, Tenn., and Boston. The traveling event is a benefit for Slow Food USA. It's Baltimore's turn. The Brooklyn Brewery Mash: Adventures in Food, Film, Music, Books and Beer is in Baltimore through Sunday for a week of parties, comedy, concerts, pop-up supper clubs and readings. Among the six days of activities are a few food highlights.

The long-dormant American Brewery, an East Baltimore landmark, will be converted to a new job-training and employment center under a plan proposed by a minority business organization.Baltimore's Council for Equal Business Opportunity is spearheading a drive to refurbish the four-building complex in the 1600 and 1700 blocks of North Gay Street and already has obtained a federal grant of $1.025 million to start the first phase of renovations.Michael Gaines, president of the council, said that the grant from the Department of Health and Human Services will enable his organization to begin renovating one of the four brewery buildings and launch a job-training program for unskilled city residents, especially those from the impoverished Broadway East area around the brewery.

A Mass of Christian burial for Patrick J. Ryder, a retired brewery worker, will be offered at 11 a.m. today at St. Joseph's Passionist Monastery Roman Catholic Church, Old Frederick Road and Monastery Avenue.Mr. Ryder, who was 83, died of heart failure Tuesday at North Arundel Hospital. A Stevensville resident for the past 10 years, he had earlier lived in Catonsville.He retired in 1965 as a bottling machine operator for the National Brewing Co. Earlier, he worked for the Globe Brewing Co. and the American Brewery.

There is no finer example of a Victorian industrial structure in Baltimore City than the old American Building in the 1700 block of Gay Street. Standing on a hill, this temple of Bacchus rises over the surrounding rowhouse community like a magical storybook castle.After years of vandalism and false starts, the badly decayed American Brewery complex finally seems destined for renovation.Using a combination of city loans, state and federal grants as well as historic tax credits, the Council for Economic and Business Opportunity is in the process of putting together a $1.5 million package to turn the bottling wing into a flexible manufacturing center for light industrial business.

When you hop on a bus loaded with beer drinkers you may not know your exact destination, but you usually have a pretty good idea of where you will end up. Namely, at a spigot dispensing freshly brewed beer. That is what happened to me recently when I joined about 40 other thirsty pilgrims aboard a chartered bus traveling from downtown Baltimore to Victory Brewing Co., a new brewery and restaurant in Downingtown, Pa.I took the trip to improve my understanding of local geography, and to drink a little beer.

A meeting has been scheduled for 6:30 p.m. tomorrow at the St. Paul Community Baptist Church, 1901 E. Federal St., to give city officials community input before they issue a request for proposals for possible redevelopment of the long-vacant American Brewery. Housing officials said they decided to issue an RFP after a developer expressed interest in the nearly 2-acre site in the 1700 block of Gay St. near North Avenue, which the city has owned since the late 1970s and which consists of an 1887 brewhouse and a separate bottling plant.

Louis A. Herstein Jr., a retired Gunther Brewery executive who had a long career in Baltimore's distilling industry, died Saturday of pancreatic cancer at his home in the Cross Country section of Northwest Baltimore. He was 94. Born in Baltimore and raised in the 3800 block of Park Heights Ave., he was a 1927 Polytechnic Institute graduate who earned a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the Johns Hopkins University in 1930. As a young man, he worked at his father's Howard Street electrical repair and contracting store, where he learned to fix toasters and irons.

It was not our intention, but on a recent Friday night at the quickly popular Ale House Columbia, our table of four really tested the patience of the server. As Top 40 blared overhead, our server leaned in and asked for drink orders. She was knowledgeable about the wide selection of beer (including the many types of house brand Oliver Breweries), and offered what I heard as a beer "sampler. " After choosing four beers, it was the next person's turn. "I'll have whatever he's having," the friend said.

The Super Bowl is serious now. Beer bragging rights are on the line. While Budweiser inevitably will dole out millions on advertising during Sunday's big game between the Ravens and 49ers, two craft breweries with ties to Baltimore and San Francisco have opted for a friendly wager. According to the Frederick News-Post , Maryland's Flying Dog Brewery and California's Anchor Brewery have agreed that the brewery from the home state of the losing team will have to pour the other's beer for a week.

Nothing screams Super Bowl weekend like hot wings, chips and dip, and, most importantly, beer. Padonia Station in Timonium is taking that last element to the next level, hosting the first Super Bowl of Maryland Craft Beer from Thursday, Jan. 31, through Sunday, Feb. 3. Expected to be on tap are 40 beers from seven local breweries, including 10 from Halethorpe's famed Heavy Seas brewery. Padonia Station General Manager Larry Leonardi said it's a chance for the bar to transform its image.

The folks at Gordon Biersch Brewery have a passion. Surprisingly, despite the name, it's not just for beer (though their German lagers will keep aficionados busy). Instead, their brand is defined by craft: From brew to food to cocktail and anywhere in between, the newly opened Harbor East restaurant believes in made-from-scratch, small-batch meals and beverages that customers can get excited about. Though handcrafted beer is their first love, Gordon Biersch brewery aims to "up the ante" with their drink program as well, elevating it to craft-level by infusing quality brands, fresh flavors, and sustainable products into their cocktails.

There's a transformation taking place this fall that is obvious from the former National Brewery in Brewers Hill. On a terrace just below the iconic Mr. Boh sign, I observed a construction army at work along Conkling and Dean streets. Over the summer, they labored on the creation of more than 600 new apartment rental units in low-rise buildings. Week by week, floors rose. Balconies appeared. Parking decks arrived. And sweeps disappeared down an ancient brick powerhouse chimney. For years, this eastern end of Canton was a hard-toiling industrial neighborhood, served by ships and rail sidings, surrounded by rowhouses and dotted with church steeples.

The Bi-Weekly Beer Bash at Clementine is a good way to get to know beers better. Each event features one craft brewery. This Wednesday, it's Baltimore's own Union Craft Brewing. The event at Clementine begins at 5 p.m. and runs until about 8 p.m. Brewery founders Kevin Blodger and Jon Zerivitz will be there. Union doesn't have much in the way of beer swag yet, so don't expect to walk off with a Union Craft glass as a keepsake. But you will get $3 glasses of either Union Craft's Balt Alt and brand new Gose.  A menu of $5 bar snacks will be available, too. Founded in the fall of 2011, brewing operations officially began in the spring of 2012 with the installation of a 20-bbl brewhouse and the initial launch of Duckpin Pale Ale. 

The buckwheat season arrived when the kitchen began smelling like a brewery.It was well into the fall when my grandmother, Lily Rose, started her weekly buckwheat cake production. "Flannel cakes," her name for what everybody else called pancakes, could be made early Sunday morning. The same was true for her light and fluffy waffles.The buckwheat batter was special. It needed a whole night to ferment and gurgle. The dish took guts to eat. There is no middle ground about this Baltimore breakfast.

DuClaw Brewing Company is still negotiating to purchase a 167,000-square-foot warehouse in Harford County for a future brewery, the company's president and the site's broker said Tuesday, a project that could make the brewer a major player in the regional craft beer market. Though an original deal fell through, Dave Benfield, the craft brewer's president, is bullish on the project, contrary to an early published report in a local trade. "I'm extremely confident we'll be producing beer starting in 2013 out of the new facility," he said.

Graphic designer Jon Zerivitz was tired of being stuck at a computer for up to 12 hours a day as a contractor forT. Rowe Price. "I needed a hobby," Zerivitz said. Indulging a longtime passion for beer, he went to the Maryland Homebrew store in Columbia in 2010 and bought everything he needed to brew beer. "The first batch was really good," he recalled. "The second batch was really bad. I kept at it. " Two years later, Zerivitz, 32, was brewing beer again Aug. 3, but on a larger scale, as co-owner of the new Union Craft Brewing Co., on the border of Hampden and Woodberry.