Cask Ale This Week--and lots of it! UPDATED

Quick updates:

*Heavy Seas releases their new 8% imperial chocolate stout, Siren Noire, at Alonso's in Roland Park tonight.  Hugh Sisson should be in attendance, weather permitting (there's that snow threatening us, after all).  Also on draft, four other Heavy Seas beers.  Alonso's Tuesday night special is lobster, though, so BYOB (bring your own bib, as they say).........
UPDATE: Also to be tapped is the "last" firkin (quotation marks are Alonso's, not mine) of Thank You, Thank You Very Much.

*Should you miss out on that and/or live out west of the city, a firkin will be tapped on Thursday at the Phoenix Emporium, the beer bar down at the bottom of the hill in downtown Ellicott City, across the street from the Ellicott City B&O Station Museum and the tiny-but-excellent liquor retail establishment Carpe Vinum.  Tapped at 7 PM, accompanied by 25-cent wings 7-close. 

*Too far away for that firkin?  It's the usual Thursday Cask Night at Max's Taphouse, with a twist: it's also the January meeting of the Chesapeake Bay Branch of the Society for Preservation of Beers from the Wood.  It's open to the public, and you can join the SPBW there for a year's worth of benefits, which include, right off the bat, two members-only events on the annual schedule, one in January.  $10 cash at a meeting or $11 online with PayPal.

On the beer engines:  RCH Steam Carnival,  Victory Yakima Glory, BFM Douze, RJ Rockers Patriot (dry hopped), and Wells Bombardier.  Firkins on the bar: Williams Bros. Joker,  Evolution Lot 6, Stillwater Autumnal.

*Thursdays is also Firkin Night at Metropolitan Coffeehouse and Wine Bar in Federal Hill:  RCH Old Slug Porter from England:  "In the old brewery we had a problem with slugs getting into the brewery. As the beer leaves a trail down the glass as you drink it like a slug, that's how the beer was named. A delicious traditional porter with a full bodied taste of chocolate, coffee, blackcurrant and black cherry with a good aroma. A near black colour with a good white head when served through a tight sparkler."  .

*And if my clock and Blogspot's agree with one another, this will be posted at 11:11 on 1-11-11.....

*Late addition: DuClaw gets in on the cask action on Friday with locally-grown hops:

Get to DuClaw Brewing Company of Arundel Mills, Bel Air or Bowie January 14th, 2011 at 5pm for a Firkin Friday treat like no other... Double Dry Hopped Black Locust Venom. We have taken our Venom Pale Ale and given it a second dry hopping of Cascade hops in the firkin. But these Cascade hops come hand tendered from the Black Locust Farms in Northern Maryland.

In 2007, three friends with a shared passion for hops began an arduous journey toward a lofty goal: Building their own hop farm... from scratch, and Black Locust Farms (named for the locally collected trees used to create the farm's hop trellis) was conceived. After nearly four years of back-breaking labor and painstaking attention to craftsmanship, Black Locust Cascade hops are here... and they're in our beer!

More on the farm (well, not a lot, but enough) at the farm's website.