Every now and then the stars collide and we’re able to go on a trip that gets partly expensed; this was one such occasion and we made our way to Virginia for beer work. But in all seriousness, plenty of beer work was consumed performed that totally justified our my beercation business trip. And hey, my favorite North Brewery buddy just so happens to just a short distance away from where I would be drinking working.
The trip down to VA can either be one of scenery, tolls and cops or crashes, tolls and cops. So we chose scenery, tolls and cops on the way down by taking 95 to 113 through Delaware and oh hey a brewery. So on our way down to Kale’s we got to stop at two new to us Maryland breweries.
Burley Oak Brewing Company (Berlin, MD)
Burley Oak Brewing Company of Berlin, MD was one of the places we unfortunately had to skip last time we were in the area due to time restrictions but we were damn determined to hit this place had we the chance to visit again. And sure enough, we did and sure enough the place was worth it. Right off the bat you notice a massive line up of sours on the blackboard wall and a stunning array of different styles. 19 drafts and 15 different styles to be exact.
In no specific order, our flight of 6 contained: The Fruits of our Labor Boysenberry sour ale, 3 Blondes are Better than One soured blonde, Cocoa N’ Cream cream ale on nitro, Mango Blood Orange JREAM sour ale, SAVAGE AF IPA, and Juice Jamz Vol3 fruit beer. The Juice Jamz was a grapefruit beer that was our least favorite. I’d imagine if you enjoyed grapefruit it would have ranked higher on the list, but the bitter citrus didn’t leave a favorable impression on our pallets. Savage AF and Cocoa N’ Cream were next. Savage was your above average citra/mosaic IPA that wasn’t terribly savage in flavor profile or abv (7.3%). Cocoa N’ Cream tasted as advertised but it wasn’t presented how one might normally expect a beer named Cocoa N’ Cream. This brew is a dark cream ale and we couldn’t help to wonder if this brew would have been better in stout form.
3 Blondes are Better than One is certainly on Team Melissa. This smooth sour blonde was more of a tart, liquid candy than an average beer containing the word “blonde;” so be weary. Continuing on Team Melissa’s flight was Mango Blood Orange JREAM; sour ale. Holy cow this brew is a JREAM come true. This was truly a thick sour beer and by using mango puree, Burley Oak produced an intense mango flavor that we seldom see in mango beers. Lastly; Fruits of our Labor Boysenberry was a sour ale conditioned on boysenberries. I still have no idea what a boysenberry is as of writing this, but I can tell you that it must be delicious and colorful. The beer has a thicker body, great nose and flavor that wasn’t overly sour or tart. This was truly the best brew on the flight. Oh, and if you want cans or bottles of any of these crazy sours you better show up early because they are gone in under 50 minutes; no growlers of sours.
Burley Oak Brewing Company of Berlin, MD came out swinging and after exiting the brewery we were concerned that this may be the highlight of our trip. A great draft selection, fun community events, and a spacious outside patio make Burley Oak a must visit brewery earning 4.6 out of 5.
Wiki: “The boysenberry is a cross between the European Raspberry, a European blackberry, an American dewberry and the Loganberry.”
Evolution Craft Brewing Company (Salisbury, MD)
Now there isn’t much between Burley Oak and our destination so we had to make a slight detour off 113 to 13 to take a stop at Evolution Craft Brewing Company or Evo for short, of Salisbury, MD. This brewery offers a wide variety of beer and food in a massive establishment. Not only do they have a large tasting room, but they also have another full bar with plenty of restaurant style seating and a patio for those warm summer nights. They offer a flight of four and apparently offer drink specials when a train goes by.
Let’s talk beer: Hops Limon IPA, Muscles from Brussels Belgian style IPA, Pine’Hop;Le IPA and Southern Pecan Pie brown. Hops Limon IPA and Muscles from Brussels both scored average for IPA on untappd. There wasn’t anything too exciting from these beers; just well-built IPAs. The Pine’Hop’Le on the other hand was an above average IPA with a noticeable amount of pineapple present. The bartender wasn’t sure if the flavor was from actual pineapple or if it was from a specific hop; so I guess we will never know at this point. The Pecan Pie was the best beer in our flight of four. This malty brown ale certainly had a full and appealing pecan flavor with hints of cinnamon and vanilla, but we feel that it could have been improved if it wasn’t so boozy. It sat too heavy at 10% in our opinion, which gave it an off-putting backend.
Unfortunately, we had already eaten lunch so we didn’t get a chance to try any of the food; which we had been told is delicious according to the locals at Burley Oak. Evo is certainly a good place to stop for a beer traveler, but it will lack in variety and distinctness for a beerventurer. In hind sight, we probably wouldn’t make the deviation again for this brewery, but it is certainly worth a stop if you’re traveling down 13. Evo earns a solid 3.9 train shots out of 5.
In order to facilitate our back log of brewery blog posts we’re going to expedite these reviews by making them a tad shorter and pumping them out to the blog in order of consumption; not consolidated by day as we had previously. Maybe I should have paid more attention in my English lit and writing class in college…
-Andrew & Melissa
