By John Rosnow
October 27, 2008

This was the weekend of 3 August 2008. Terri and I went to Aberdeen Proving Ground for the day. http://www.apg.army.mil/apghome/sites/local/. After getting caught in a tornado warning and taking cover at the Post Exchange, we went to tour the Ordnance Museum. After the tour we stopped on base at the Shoppette and I picked up a few beverages to try.

The first one we had was J.K. Scrumpy's hard cider - www.organicscrumpy.com. This was listed as a farmhouse organic. It was very sweet, but had 5.5% alcohol. I would buy this one again. I also purchased some Dry Blackthorn fermented cider. It was 6.0% alcohol and very dry. It did not have much apple flavor.

I also purchased a Scottish Beer Sampler from the Fraoch Brewery in Scotland. http://www.fraoch.com/historicales.htm. These were consumed at a later date, but I will cover the ones that I had in the sampler.

Grozet - Gooseberry. This was a light tasting beer that did not have a lot of fruit flavor.

Alba Scots Pine Ale - This beer was OK. It did have a spruce aroma.

Fraoch Heather Ale - I have had this one before at the Brickskeller in Washington, DC. It is said to be one of the oldest ales around. Heather was used before hops.

Ebulum Elderberry Black Ale - This was my favorite out of the four, but none of them were worth going out of my way for again. Interesting to try once, but nothing that I crave to have again. Not much of a fruit taste to this one either.

On another occasion, Terri and I stopped into Stateline Liquors in Elkton, MD - http://statelineliquors.com/. The looks from the outside are deceiving as it looks like your normal roadside, aluminum topped liquor store. This place has one of the largest beer selections in the world! They not only have a great selection of beer, but also have a nice tasting room in the back for wine and a fine selection of glassware. Their website is pretty modest, but also has a lot of information on it.

We picked up a few beers that I had read about in All About Beer Magazine. One of them was Reunion 08 Organic Red Rye Ale from Bison Brewing, Chico, CA. The beer is benefiting the Institute for Myeloma and Bone Cancer Research. It is a dark amber ale and tastes a lot like a home brew. It is sweet, but has a well balanced taste. It says it is brewed with caraway seeds, but I can neither smell them or taste them which was good as I am not a big fan of caraway.