Beer and Loathing in Washington, DC

It was a melancholy I hung in my heart—a winter coat I'd just as soon take off for warmer days. I've just seen a silent version of Hamlet (without all the "words, words, words", it was a magnificent spectacle of "inexplicable dumbshow and noise"), and it is time for beer.

Our efforts to visit Bluejacket have been hampered earlier by a mob scene, one of whom accosted my partner in crime, then made tracks before I could extract from him a cost of a knuckle sandwich. ("Is that the meaning of 'accost'?") Anyway, I thirst for beer, and Churchkey, equally packed though it is, remains my destination. The suggestion of pies is put forth, but Titus Andronicus is in my thoughts (which were bloody, or nothing worth), and I pass. No traffic can conspire to separate me from my quarry, not even a psychopathic motorist whom we avoid by mere inches. My caravan leaves me there alone, lacking the patience for crowded beer-times. Flights of angels sing them to their much-needed rest.

People who take tequila shots in one of the foremost beer bars on the east coast are beyond my comprehension, but there they are. Pricey as it is, I'd go elsewhere were it not for beer. I angle in and break the fast with a Fastenbier, it being the season, and then realize that they are out of Hemel & Arde and also Vandals & Goths and basically anything separated by an ampersand. The bartender, spotting me for the rare-beer-dork that I am, recommends a Mikkeller George. It's spot-on, with that character that you know, if aged for a few years, will become delicious shoe-leather. I move on to try a "Spaghetti Western" which tastes of mostly coffee and barely any spaghetti (it contains both). Then, a Querkus (on cask) which has that distinct flattish cask character—it's decent and mild, but hard to stand up to everything else. A sessionable breather—wedged as I am between bar stools, it's the only breathing I can do.

I finish with a Cuveé Delphine. Surprisingly light, with blueberry and slightly tangy nose. Some red currant and bitter root. Not very bourbon-y but still nice. At this point, I realize my menu has left me. Stolen evidently, by some people who are also taking bar stools which I don't recall having been free, and for which I doubt they were waiting longer than I. I don't mean to impose. I've sampled my personal gamut, and I elect to leave. It was that or another Fastenbier.

I stumble back to the house, thoroughly lost in Tenleytown, no one at all about, recording some of this entry in a drunk-Orson Welles impersonation (If you need to ask whether I am drunk, or whether I am impersonating a drunken Orson Welles, or both, you clearly haven't been reading very well.) en route. I make awkward small-chat with people I don't know terribly well. "Would you like a cup to brush your teeth with? // No thanks; I usually use a brush for that." I am the epitome of wit.