Bluejacket in DC

I go to Bluejacket for the coffee.

 

What is this another hipster 9:30 club forum inside joke stolen ala I go to the Birchmere for the food?

 

wat

 

Yeah, something like that!

 

oooh, 9.30 club forum reference!! loads of music geeks turned beer geeks on there

 

All coffee and brewer lineage aside. I went to BlueJacket a few weeks back and can pretty much agree with most of the previous reviews. Here's my take.

First, the space is very nice. Not my particular aesthetic, but well put together. Huge with high ceilings and visible brew kettles. It needs some wearing in as it's pretty obvious that they're going for the industrial/shabby chic look. Like a cross between Chipotle and Restoration Hardware. Just to give some reference, I really like the set up and feel of smaller places, like Eulogy in Philadelphia.

Service was very enthusiastic and timely. Although, it seemed like the waiter had more of a script for all of the offerings than actual experience. That said, it would be hard to try and really know all of the beers in the short time since opening.

Food was very good. I tried the charcuterie, some pig tails, and the kale salad. No complaints here.

Beer. Okay let's get to the real reason a person would venture out here in the first place. One word, "meh". I started with the Seersucker berliner weisse which was a bit warm and soapy. It turned out that, it was literally soapy because the second pour I received after sending the first back was better. It still was not as crisp as I am used to with this style and it did not have any of the sour funk that I've come to expect. I tried the Mexican Radio next which was the standout of the group. The carbonation wasn't quite on but the flavor profile was good. Lastly, our group tried a sampling of the pale ales. All in all they were underwhelming with a mish mash of flavors.

I understand what this place is trying to do but I agree that they would be better off with 5 very solid and consistent beers offered at a lower price point and some wilds from other brewers offered at a higher price. I can't imagine the cost of some of the ingredients that they use (e.g., 100 POUNDS OF NEWTOWN PIPPIN APPLE POMACE, PRESSED BY FOGGY RIDGE CIDER IN THE VA BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS). But in my opinion that money could be better used to improve the standard styles. I'm all for weird and wacky beers, but a good tasty pilsner (like Nomad from Great Divide) would do a place like this wonders.

Here's to hoping the focus changes from quantity to quality. Just using myself as a sample size of 1, I drink a lot more quantity of beers that are quality, and I always like to pair them with a place that offers great food and plenty of room for some friends.

 

I went about a week and a half ago, and while not every beer is great, I enjoyed many. Also I appreciate that not many beers are super high in alcohol so I can try a bigger variety. As I've stated on another post, maybe that they don't have super high ABV DIPAs, or Imperial Stouts, or Sours makes people not excited. I like the approach, if you just start off making standards that you can get at 2700 other breweries, what's the point?

My personal favorites from my dinner:
Lost Weekend(IPA)
Forbidden Planet (Kolsch, hoppy)
The Butcher(malty, smokey)
The Panther (schwartzbier)
New Zealot(APA)
9 Pound Hammer(DIPA)

 

Maybe the point is people think you need to master the basics before you move on to the tricky stuff? I don't know, I'm not a brewer. Also, the ones you listed as favorites seem like standards that you can get at 2700 other breweries.

 

I merely referenced the styles so people knew in general what they are. I just appreciate the approach, although it does seem like the rotation is a bit heavy. If most of the team has professionally brewed before, why do they need to "master the standards" again. For all we know there were standard brews in their earlier test batches.

I was pretty happy with six of the beers I tired, and I had 12(lots of samplers). Nobody is going to bat 1.000 the first time around.

The approach is the opposite of Port City - who makes very good beers - that are very on style. I haven't had the opportunity to try Port City's anniversary beers yet.

 

For one thing, it's easier to pair beer with food when the place has some straightforward examples of various styles, so that you can know with some degree of certainty when ordering that you will get a beer that pairs well with your lunch/dinner. For another, I'm not going to trust that a place can do a good job of making a beer with some exotic ingredients if I don't know that they can make a good example of the style without said ingredients.

I don't think the beer-drinking public-at-large needs high-ABV DIPAs, Impy Stouts, or sours to get excited about a place. In fact, the large crowds at Port City every weekend tell me that you can be quite a draw serving nothing but straightforward, well-made examples of classic styles. The fact that they have worked to improve those beers from when they first opened, and now have a firm grasp on what those beers are supposed to be, makes me much more likely to trust that their pilsener, imperial stout, steam, or even oyster stout will be good beers. And you know what? They are. And as a result, I would gladly plunk down money for a Port City offering any day of the week. Hell, I've been to the tasting room probably a half-dozen times now and still want to go every time I'm in the area. Whereas the Bluejacket approach of starting off with a bunch of crazy collabs and then opening a taproom with beers that mostly are made with nonstandard ingredients is a turnoff, particularly since it seems they CAN'T brew beer well, at least not yet.

The fact that a non-brewer runs the brewing operations and forced out the only experienced brewer they had just tells me that they will likely never get it right, and vindicates the view that they had the wrong approach from the start. I think in any business, if you take your vision and try to build your products around it, you are doomed to failure. You need to know you can make the product first. Brewing unique, world-class beers is a fine vision, but opening a ginormous brewpub and production brewery before knowing if you can actually brew unique, world-class (or at least above-average) beer is, well, stupid.

 

Are you guys trying to say that Port City has improved their IPA to beyond tolerable? Because that's all it was when I gave up on it a couple of years ago. Their porter is excellent and their witbier pretty good, though.

 

Personally I enjoyed six of the beers, and really nothing they offered was bad. I wouldn't say they can't brew beer well, to me.

My point about DIPAs, Imperial Stouts and Sours is that on BA those are the beers that seem to get the most attention, especially if they are hard to find. There seems to be a general lack of desire to enjoy something well made that's readily available, which I try to do on balance with trying new things.

Port City does make very good beers that are on style. But beyond supporting local, there is nothing about their beers that sticks out to me right now that I can't get at a store already from another brewer. In a crowded marketplace, to me you need to differentiate beyond just being local.

 

Yes. Their IPA was borderline undrinkable when they opened; now I'd place it in the "solid" category. It's still weaker than the Wit and especially their delicious, delicious porter, but significantly improved over what it was.

 

I generally agree with this, although I think Port City Porter is good enough so as not to be readily replaceable with other beers you can find on the shelf. I would buy that beer up here in Philly if it was available. I also think the BAs are not very representative of the general beer-drinking public who, judging by how crowded every taproom I've ever been to at any time on a Saturday, anywhere in the country is, very much enjoy drinking locally, and make a point to support those places. The ones who never move beyond mediocrity may eventually close, but I envision beer turning back to its roots - communities will all have their own local brewer supplying craft beer almost at a neighborhood level.

But anyways, my point was basically that Bluejacket seems like it was built to be a ready, out-of-the-box mega-powerhouse world-class brewpub, churning out mind-blowing beer after mind-blowing beer. At least, all of the press and hype they were encouraging seemed to be building it up as such. The problem is, the business doesn't really work that way. Now, it's one thing if you're in an industrial park in Alexandria, starting out quietly selling beer, some of which is subpar but gradually improves over time. You deserve and will get some slack.

It's quite another to handle yourselves the way Bluejacket has. You don't get the slack for making OK beer when you told us all that this would be the greatest, most innovative brewery ever. And maybe nailing the standards at a new brewery isn't always necessary - IF you have great brewing talent being given the freedom to make the beers they want. But if you're going to start out trying to get the head brewer to brew to YOUR vision instead of hers - well, Bluejacket seems to be what you'll get. And now that they're basically starting from scratch, it would make a lot more sense for the guys in there now to crawl before trying to walk.

 

I agree the hype machine was high, but if Neighborhood Restaurant Group were to open any brewery after already having Churchkey and their other restaurants, there is built in hype. I was trying to look beyond the hype and see what's there..I've had enough experience of "hype" not living up to the truth, being a Washington football fan. Personally I was excited to try it, but waited quite a bit before actually going there. The beers I listed I enjoyed, so I was really surprised to see how disappointed people were on BA. I didn't try the stout, or the high abv Belgian they had that night, but thought their initial beers for a place open so little were pretty good. But that's my personal opinion.

My personal note on "note having any whale style beers" is just more of what I generally see on BA. I enjoy BA forums, I just try to balance the desire for whales with what is available at a local store easily.

 

I definitely didn't go there seeking "walez". I simply wanted well made beer from a group that had been promoting their amazing new brewery like it was going to cure cancer. The beers were a mess. I tried almost all of their offerings, and other than the kolsch I probably wouldn't order any of them again. The IPAs were the worst of the bunch just muddled and dirty. All of which said to me that they needed to get the basics worked out before pumping out 20 styles. I'd like to hope that they would grow and improve but this news doesn't particularly give me confidence that this is the case.

 

I certainly do not wish them ill will, but when they launched with 20 styles, that made me scratch my head a bit. That's a monumental task to launch with 20, but in the DC market, especially since they are part of their own hype machine, those 20 beers had damn well better be spectacular. Release three beers to pair with individual doughnuts today as well, that's a bit odd.

 

The beers were inspired by doughnuts, not to be paired with doughnuts. The WaPo article was updated since published online.

For those saying the IPAs are muddled, how recently have you gone? The Lost Weekend I had was good, and that was about a week and a half ago. Is it possible people tried the place earlier and they have since improved?

 

Maybe, I have not been there for 3 weeks.

That being said, the brewer wasn't fired for doing a good job. The fact that they hired a coffee barista to be the new brewer can't be good either.

You simply cannot pimp the place like it is the awards table at GABF, and then pour beers worse than what I can homebrew. I am only okay, and my IPA is better than what they were charging a lot of money for.

Having 1 good quality beer out of 20 is complete failure.