BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

Beginning operations September 1, 2019 at the Pigtown site now occupied by M8, CHECKERSPOT BREWING COMPANY moved westward down the street to an eye-catching black cinder-blocked warehouse with yellow butterfly trim and white company lettering.

Entrepreneurial brewing spouses Rob and Judy Neff renovated their new Checkerspot digs in 2023 at a former industrial printing plant they now own. Its community-tabled first floor includes a wood lacquer-topped 20-seat bar with 20-plus driftwood draught handles and two TV’s. The lounge-chaired balcony area contains a few pinball games. A subaquatic theme runs thru the wall art and windowed tanks contain the copious liquid suds on hand.

Adding a kitchen for worthy pub fare to complement the mostly ‘lighter malt-forward beers’ as well as ‘hop-lover’ ales and non-alcoholic selections, Checkerspot’s grown to be one of Baltimore’s most successful brewpub ventures.

My wife and I settled in on a Friday at noon, February ’24, to try a traditional British ale and honeyed kolsch. We left with about a dozen canned brews reviewed in Beer Index.

Conventional English pub ale, Average Joe, suited the everyday light-bodied pilsner-lager fan with its mossy brown tea-like dewiness, dry pale ale malting and cocoa-dried wattleseed nuttiness given a dainty lemon spritz.

Raw-honeyed buckwheat saddled Bird Is The Word, snatching a honey-wined mead theme teased by oniony chive, butternut squash and pecan illusions over buttermilk breading.