Thursday and Friday Baltimore Beer Week Previews and Picks

 Clicking on the dates below will take you to the Baltimore Beer Week schedule at their website.

Thursday the 25th: 49 events.  Thursday presents a second night of the Sour Beef Dinners at Zion Lutheran Church's Adlersaal Beer Hall (4:30-9:30, last meal seated at 8:00).  The Women of Beer event at Heavy Seas Brewery has been sold out!  Heavy Seas Ale House is serving chocolate with the brewery's Siren Noire; Kloby's Smokehouse brings together five Eastern Shore breweries and crabs with their BBQ; and Victoria Gastro Pub features high-alcohol beers.  Burley Oak will be at Racers Cafe in Parkville; The Brewers Art will have a Beer and Charcuterie Pairing with Twelve Percent Imports; and Max's Taphouse will be competing nine different firkins from Maryland breweries, each finished with jalapeno peppers, for a public vote on which one will be an addition to their menu for three months.  If you don't feel like going to a bar, the Enoch Pratt Free Library's downtown Central Library will be featuring author Rob Kasper and his book Baltimore Beer with a program from the author in the evening, along with a display of breweriana from noted Maryland breweriana collector "Turkey Joe" Trabert.  Finally, The Americana in Canton will be offering a "sneak preview" of a new brewing project in Baltimore, Full Tilt Brewing, with a "meet and greet" with the future brewers.  And, as usual, aside from the above there are many happy hour specials, "pint glass nights," week-long food-and-drink specials, and tastings and tap takeovers scattered throughout the region.

Friday the 26th: 43 events.  Friday nights are always problematic for "beer weeks" as the normal Friday night crowds of "amateurs" tend to come out and flood bars anyway, pretty much shoving aside the "beer aficionado" crowd.  Nevertheless, most of the "usual suspects" of Baltimore Beer Week are still hosting tastings, brewery representatives, and special beers.  Among the more interesting:  Metropolitan is holding a "King of the Pins" competition, in which several five-gallon "pins" of cask ale will compete for the honor of being the first to be emptied; Evolution Craft Brewing is once again holding a collaboration beer dinner with and at Pratt Street Alehouse; and Elliott's Pour House will be holding an 80's Costume Contest.  The homebrewers attempt to distract folks from commercial brews once again, however, with the sixth Charitably Charming Chilibrew informal, semiannual charity homebrew competition and chili cookoff, this time around benefiting the Baltimore Rock Opera Society, the Indypendent Reader, and Whitelock Community Farm with the $15-and-up suggested donation. Previous installments have each drawn around thirty or more entries each in both beer and chili and 200+ enthusiastic judges, and this time the event returns to the 2640 Space, a converted church at that number on St. Paul Street south of Waverly.  Furthermore, another homebrew competition is being held at Brewers Cask in Federal Hill.  The planned Saturday party at Union Craft Brewing has been canceled; instead, folks are being asked to swing by for Friday night's visit of 500+ bicyclists.  And not an official part of Baltimore Beer Week, but Joe Squared is one of two hosting venues for the Baltimore Folk Fest, with Liam Flynn's Ale House in between the two.