FALLS POINT / LEESBURG, VIRGINIA
Done up in Southwestern motif, SWEETWATER TAVERN in Falls Church (one of three in northern Virginia) featured peach-toned stone castle design, purple-blue window trim, huge grain silo (near entrance), up-front copper kettles, and convenient side deck.
Located ten miles west of Washington D.C. at the Gatehouse Plaza, this upscale restaurant-bar offered beef-ribs-chops plus sandwiches-salads to go with revolving line of 36 brews. “Nick’s Handcrafted Beers” during July ’06 trip included three crisply dependable standards and three decent cyclical brews.
Regularly brewed libations were bright lemony-soft grain-spined clean-finishing Naked River Light, piney-hopped grapefruit-embittered caramel-sugared Great American Restaurant’s Pale Ale, and wispy yellow-fruited straw-grassed maize-dried Silverado Cream Ale.
Recurrent fare comprised brisk mandarin orange-embittered, tart banana-greened, coriander-spiced, wheat-chaffed Wit’s End (Belgian-styled) Ale, dry chili pepper-spiced, black chocolate-lined, licorice-blotched, tobacco-stained, English-styled Chipotle Porter, and dry-bodied Pale Ale/ Chipotle Porter mix, Snakebite Black & Tan (with its raw chocolate nibs, bitter espresso, dark spice, and earthen wood illusions).