Friday Night Beer Blog

Hi beer fans, happy Friday!

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In beer news this week, Vinepair just posted The Many Lives and Deaths of Bardo, America’s Weirdest Brewery, an entertaining story of a very odd place.

I think most of all I remember the garbage.

In a mostly vacant lot in one of Washington, D.C.’s worst neighborhoods, I was poking at chunks of macerated fruit in my beer and wondering what people saw in this place. Scattered around me were picnic benches, various pieces of brewing equipment, an aluminum skull with beer cans for teeth, and a wooden armoire, all of which were either meant to be used or had been left to rot. It was difficult to assess which.

That was my one and only visit to Bardo, which around this same time in 2015 earned a spot on Time Out’s 22 Best Beer Gardens in America. Even today the appeal is difficult to parse, but maybe it’s worth doing so in light of beer’s tanking market share and today’s mass closure of craft breweries. As Americans turn a colder and colder shoulder to their once beloved craft beer, there’s a great deal of wisdom to be gained by considering a brewery that truly pushed the boundaries of weirdness — and got away with it.

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Pictured is Rodenbach Grand Cru, sour beer from the old school, malty and delicious. I’m actually drinking SN Tropical Little Thing.

What are you drinking? Anyone brewing?