By John Rosnow
Wednesday, October 8, 2008

This trips takes my girlfriend Terri and I to Wild Goose Brewery Tour & Tasting room in Frederick, Maryland. http://www.wildgoosebrewery.com/. Some history on the Wild Goose Brewery. It was established in 1989 and was one of the largest micro-breweries in the Mid-Atlantic by 1996. In 1997 Wild Goose merged with Frederick Brewing Company and moved to Frederick Maryland. In 2006 they were purchased by Flying Dog Brewery and now both those brews are brewed in Frederick.

The brewery is located in an industrial area and well off the beaten path. They only offer tours on Saturday. They open at 1:30 and have tours at 2 and 3. For $5, you get a tasting glass you get to keep. They used to use plastic disposable cups, but they decided to go with the greener option. This was no small sample glass. It is a full size pint glass. A normal sample was about half a glass. We were there from 1:30 to about 5:00 PM. They also raffled off growlers.

Now for some of the beers:

• Amber lager - amber color, good balance.
• Tripeleit - Belgian Style light yellow color. Tasted like a triple with a Belgian or wheat type yeast.
• Golden ale - very light & refreshing.
• Cask conditioned Barley Wine - dark brown. Chocolate & pineapple nose. Warm. Strong malt flavor and finish. Light tasting but strong finish.
• Wild Goose brown ale - a brown light porter.
• Wild Goose pumpkin patch - light amber color spice nose. Light taste.
• Dogtoberfest - dark gold in color. Very well balanced. Not heavy at all. Light for a fest beer. This one was Terri's favorite.
• Schwartz dog s looks like nitrogen tap. Black can't see through it. Rauch bier. Excellent for the style.
• Root beer - great flavor.
• In Heat Wheat - German style wheat. Great flavor. Banana & clove esters.
• Gonzo Imperial Porter - imperial with hops. Hop nose to it. Black in color. Very hoppy.
• Gonzo Imperial Porter Barrel aged 11.5% ABV - tastes like a barley Wine.
• Classic pale ale - gold color, strong hop nose & taste for a pale ale.
• Double dog - 8.5% ABV. Hoppy nose, taste & finish.

We went to Brewers alley for dinner - http://www.brewers-alley.com/

We had the vegetable quesadilla $9 - which was good.

Lobster sherry bisque $7 - excellent flavor, but no chunks of lobster in it.

I had the beer sampler. Luckily, they were small normal sample size glasses.

• Kolsch - crisp, light, refreshing
• IPA - amber, hop nose and flavor.
• Nut brown ale - light clear brown/chestnut color. Light in color, flavor, and finish.
• Weizen - good German wheat. Clove and banana.
• Oatmeal stout - brown & clear. Very flavorful.
• Pils - straw color. Very good flavor. Slight bitter finish.

For the main course we had steak and crabcake $26. Excellent steak. No fillers in the crabcake. It came with big asparagus spears and on a bed of mashed potatoes.

We had white chocolate creme Brule for dessert.

For photos, check out

http://good-times.webshots.com/album/567726096GILHEd?vhost=good-times