Day 276, Oct 3 / Harvest Brown Ale

Day 276 / October 3, 2011

Harvest Brown Ale

Long Trail Brewing Company / Bridgewater Corners, VT

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The Unwritten Rule… until now.

As you know, I published a set of rules when I started this blog, i.e. a different beer every day, no repeats, etc.  But there's one unwritten rule that I have held myself to through the course of the year.  I've only had to invoke it a couple times, and last night was one of those times.

We'll call it "The House Beer Rule."  Some restaurants and bars have a “house beer” on tap with their name on it.  Around here, you might see Glory Days Lager, Hard Times Lager or J. Paul’s Amber Ale.  In the DC area, many of these beers are actually made by Old Dominion Brewing in Dover, DE.  But “The House Beer Rule” prohibits me from having one of these beers for blogging purposes, because you can never really be sure where it is from.

Monday night, I attended a Happy Hour Reunion of former employees of GTSI, where I worked twice, for 7 years each time, with 7 years in between.  It was great to see so many old friends.  But, I had had everything on tap at Paolo’s in Reston Town Center.  Everything except J. Paul’s Amber Ale.  So I had one.  Or two.  But I knew they wouldn’t count.

So when I got home, I opened up a Long Trail Harvest Brown Ale.  Now, Sunday night I had a Red Hook Late Harvest Ale, which I would say was a notch better than the Long Trail.  The Harvest Brown was maltier, and just kinda average.