GAITHERSBURG, MARYLAND
Perched between Washington DC and Baltimore, Gaithersburg’s rustic charm is best discovered at street-cornered brewpub, GROWLERS, visited April ’09.
After operating as Summit Station Brewery for eight years, Growlers came into existence during 2006. Located inside a historic red brick building at the center of town, this refurbished dig features Redskins football-inspired paraphernalia, faux-marble painted walls, antique wood furnishings, cozy right side and loge dining, and a smattering of archaic beer cans.
The left side bar had two TV’s and served house beers from the windowed brew tanks. Lighter fare such as lemony grapefruit-fronted, fig-spiced, biscuit-buttered Kingpin Kolsch and mild corn-spiced D Rail Lite Ale make pleasant session beers. Tangy peach-pear-apple-spiced, currant-embittered, grapefruit-soured, woody-hopped Engine House Pale Ale topped the bitterer Brass Lantern IPA, a briskly Cascade-hopped, alcohol-burnt, lemony grapefruit-soured medium body. Meem’s Crème Ale gained a hop-spiced vanilla ice cream appeal that may’ve outdid sweetly soured blueberry-seeded wheat-sugared Blueberry Wheat as a dessert treat.