The day before my friends’ wedding, a few of us guys had several hours to go out and drink rather than attend the women’s lunch.  We piled into one of the rental cars and ended up at the Eastern Shore Brewing taproom.  Maryland, like Virginia, also has laws against production breweries serving pints but doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to change that, unfortunately.  Samplers are still legal, and I found out about the obvious loophole to work around this no pints business:  flights of a single beer.  So you get three or four little glasses of the same beer, and it adds up to a pint, more or less.  That seemed to be what most of the visitors at Eastern Shore were ordering, but we went with the variety flights.  They didn’t have their Porter on tap when we showed up — apparently it alternates with the Hefeweizen.

Easy sailing at Eastern Shore Brewing — St Michaels, MD

Rob’s Picks
• Magic Hefeweizen – 6% – Slight banana aroma.  Crisp and bubbly with banana/clove flavor.  Not too bready.
• St. Michaels Ale – 5% – Fairly dry amber.  Nice caramel/malty/hoppy balance.  Subtle alcohol flavor.  Nice and light.

The Rest
• Knot So Pale Ale – 6.5% – Flavors are subtle.  Some maltiness, but it has a flatness to it.  Hoppy finish, but not too strong.  Somewhat bourbon-like.
• Gingered Amber Ale – 6% – St. Michaels Ale infused with ginger.  Little more malty, little more watery.  Ginger flavor comes through on the finish.  Previous batch had a stronger ginger flavor, so I guess they’re still tweaking the recipe.

It would’ve been fun to have had more time in the DC area.  There were quite a few breweries around that I just didn’t have time to visit.  Need to leave something to return to, I guess.