Maryland’s largest hoedown returns to the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium on April 1st & 2nd . The Annual Beer, Bourbon & BBQ Festival is produced by local Trigger Agency as a benefit to the Spirit of Hope Children’s Foundation.
This year marks the 10th Anniversary production which started very humbly in Timonium, MD and has grown to a National Tour reaching hundreds of thousands of guests from New York to Florida.
The all-you-care-to-taste extravaganza starts with a Friday Night Whole Hog Session from 6:00pm – 10:00pm. This session will offer a dinner plate of BBQ with all the fixins’ as well as unlimited sampling of bourbon and beer. Saturday sessions run from noon to 6pm. An exclusive VIP only tasting will be held Noon until 2pm and then General Admission will follow from 2pm through 6pm.
A souvenir glass is included with every ticket purchase and offers guests unlimited tastings of 60 of the best craft beers and 75-80 top-notch bourbons. In addition, delicious samples of barbeque from the South’s best Pit Masters will be available throughout the day. The event will offer live music, arts, crafts, memorabilia exhibits and a cigar tent outside for the enthusiast. Full Schedules and Menus are posted on the website.
“This show has spawned many knock-offs all over the Country – but if the truth be known – we started here at The Fairgrounds ten years ago in one of the smaller buildings. We even had to postpone the first launch of the show because the Ravens were in the playoffs. To see where we’ve grown and to share it with all the fans is quite an honor.” explains the Festival Founder, Greg Nivens – a Baltimore resident. “We are looking forward to a great 10th Anniversary celebration!”
Guests can expect some fun exciting features this year:
- The Shrine of Swine is Back – but the whole hogs are always intriguing and new. Each hog is totally different and even tastes different.
- New Gaming Area – this includes Corn Hole, Tricycle Racing and Large Format Games
- All VIP Guests receive a FREE tote bag.
- Great Live Music is back with some new faces – Drymill Road, the 1974 Band, Super Bueno and GO-GO Gadget, round out the line-up.
- Fun crowd competitions will be featured on the Main Stage including the Stein Holding Competition, The Drink Like a Lady Contest, Baltimore’s Best Beer Belly, and Two Rounds of Bacon Eating.
General admission to the festival is $39 in advance / $45 on –site and includes admission into the event and a souvenir glass. VIP Saturday admission is SOLD OUT. The special Friday Night session is $49 per person. Designated Driver admission is also available for $29 and includes admission to the event. Kids 12 and under are free. For more information on purchasing tickets for the Beer, Bourbon & BBQ Festival, please visitwww.BeerAndBourbon.com or call 800-830-3976. There are thousands of free parking spaces on site, or take the light rail. Please drink responsibly and bring a designated driver.
Maryland’s largest hoedown returns to the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium on April 1st & 2nd . The Annual Beer, Bourbon & BBQ Festival is produced by local Trigger Agency as a benefit to the Spirit of Hope Children’s Foundation.
This year marks the 10th Anniversary production which started very humbly in Timonium, MD and has grown to a National Tour reaching hundreds of thousands of guests from New York to Florida.
The all-you-care-to-taste extravaganza starts with a Friday Night Whole Hog Session from 6:00pm – 10:00pm. This session will offer a dinner plate of BBQ with all the fixins’ as well as unlimited sampling of bourbon and beer. Saturday sessions run from noon to 6pm. An exclusive VIP only tasting will be held Noon until 2pm and then General Admission will follow from 2pm through 6pm.
A souvenir glass is included with every ticket purchase and offers guests unlimited tastings of 60 of the best craft beers and 75-80 top-notch bourbons. In addition, delicious samples of barbeque from the South’s best Pit Masters will be available throughout the day. The event will offer live music, arts, crafts, memorabilia exhibits and a cigar tent outside for the enthusiast. Full Schedules and Menus are posted on the website.
“This show has spawned many knock-offs all over the Country – but if the truth be known – we started here at The Fairgrounds ten years ago in one of the smaller buildings. We even had to postpone the first launch of the show because the Ravens were in the playoffs. To see where we’ve grown and to share it with all the fans is quite an honor.” explains the Festival Founder, Greg Nivens – a Baltimore resident. “We are looking forward to a great 10th Anniversary celebration!”
Guests can expect some fun exciting features this year:
- The Shrine of Swine is Back – but the whole hogs are always intriguing and new. Each hog is totally different and even tastes different.
- New Gaming Area – this includes Corn Hole, Tricycle Racing and Large Format Games
- All VIP Guests receive a FREE tote bag.
- Great Live Music is back with some new faces – Drymill Road, the 1974 Band, Super Bueno and GO-GO Gadget, round out the line-up.
- Fun crowd competitions will be featured on the Main Stage including the Stein Holding Competition, The Drink Like a Lady Contest, Baltimore’s Best Beer Belly, and Two Rounds of Bacon Eating.
General admission to the festival is $39 in advance / $45 on –site and includes admission into the event and a souvenir glass. VIP Saturday admission is SOLD OUT. The special Friday Night session is $49 per person. Designated Driver admission is also available for $29 and includes admission to the event. Kids 12 and under are free. For more information on purchasing tickets for the Beer, Bourbon & BBQ Festival, please visitwww.BeerAndBourbon.com or call 800-830-3976. There are thousands of free parking spaces on site, or take the light rail. Please drink responsibly and bring a designated driver.
The event will bring wine experts and industry leaders from around the country to discuss, taste, and celebrate Virginia’s wine and food culture. Panels, tastings and discussions will be held throughout this day-long event, featuring remarks by keynote speaker Jon Bonné, one of the leading American voices writing about wine today.
Bonné will be joined by some of the nation’s foremost and influential wine professionals, including:
- Andy Chabot, Sommelier and Director of Food & Beverage, Blackberry Farm (Walland, Tenn.)
- Belinda Chang, Director of Wine & Service, Maple & Ash (Chicago, Ill.)
- Julie Dalton, Sommelier, Wit & Wisdom Tavern (Baltimore, Md.)
- Fred Dexheimer, Master Sommelier (MS), Creator of Rx Wine Lab, POPUP Wine Bar (Durham, N.C.)
- Anthony Giglio, Wine writer and personality (New York, N.Y.)
- Helen Johannesen, Director of Operations and Wine Director, ANIMAL and Son of a Gun! (Los Angeles, Calif.)
- Jennifer Knowles, Sommelier and Wine & Beverage Director, The Jefferson Hotel and Plume Restaurant (Washington, D.C.)
- Richard Leahy, Wine consultant and author (Charlottesville, Va.)
- David Lynch, Contributing Editor, Bon Appetit and Owner & Wine Director, St. Vincent (San Francisco, Calif.)
- Jack Mason, MS, Wine Director, Marta (New York, N.Y.)
- Frank Morgan, Founder, Drink What You Like (Chesapeake, Va.)
- Kathy Morgan, MS, Beverage Consultant (Washington, D.C.)
- Andy Myers, MS, Wine Director, Think Food Group (Washington, D.C.)
- Erik Segelbaum: Advanced Sommelier and Regional Wine Director, STARR Restaurants (Washington, D.C.)
- Chris Tanghe, MS, Wine Portfolio Manager & Educator, Vinum Wine & Spirits Importing & Distributing (Seattle, Wash.)
- Neal Wavra, Founder & Sommelier, FABLE Hospitality and Riverstead (Marshall, Va.)
- Andy Wedge, Sommelier, Husk Nashville (Nashville, Tenn.)
- Jay Youmans, MS, Educational Director, Capital Wine School (Washington, D.C.)
These esteemed wine professionals will join some of the most talented Virginia winemakers to discuss the regional and vintage differentiations that are continuing to raise the profile of the Virginia wine industry. Experts will address an audience filled with restaurateurs, sommeliers, media, wine-shop owners, winemakers and other industry professionals.
The past few years have been an exciting time for Virginia wines, which have recently established a track record for being an outstanding example of the caliber of wines the East Coast can produce. In addition to being the nation’s fifth largest wine producer, Virginia has been recognized regularly as one of the country’s most promising emerging wine regions. The climate and soil of Virginia places its wines stylistically between the West Coast wine region and European neighbors to the east. Virginia wines tend to be fruit forward like West Coast wines, but also embody higher acidity and balance, similar to European wines.
Virginia Wine Summit attendees will enjoy a lunch celebrating the food and wine of Virginia, courtesy of the Salamander Resort & Spa, as well as remarks from keynote speaker Jon Bonné and panel discussions throughout the day.
The Virginia Wine Summit will be held on Tuesday, April 5, 2016 at the Salamander Resort & Spa in Middelburg. Tickets to the day-long event, priced at $225, are open to the public and include entry to the lunch and post-summit reception. To register for the event and for more information on panel topics, please visit www.virginiawinesummit.com.
Over the past month and a half, Washington City Paper readers have nominated their favorites in almost 300 categories ranging from “Best Restaurant When Someone Else Pays” to “Best Go-Go Band” to favorite “Marijuana Cultivation Supplier.” The results of this year’s poll will be revealed in the April 7th issue of the paper, with winners feted the night before at the annual Best of D.C. Celebration, taking place this year at the DC Armory (2001 E Capitol Street SE).
“The Best of D.C. issue is always one of our most popular issues,” says group publisher Eric Norwood. “We’re excited to toast all the winners at the celebration on April 6th and invite the public to join us!”
The 4th annual Best of D.C. Celebration will feature tastings from more than 50 restaurants, cocktails by the region’s best mixologists, live music on multiple stages and more! VIP ($100) and General Admission ($65) tickets for the cocktail affair are available for purchase online at http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/events/bestofdc. The VIP ticket includes an extra hour of tastings and entertainment (6pm entry), a VIP swag bag, access to the VIP lounge, and more. Ticket prices will go up on March 28th.
A portion of the proceeds from the Best of D.C. Celebration will go to benefit two worthwhile local organizations: Brainfood (http://brain-food.org/), which “uses food as a tool to build life skills with youth in a fun and creative setting,” and Words Beats & Life Inc. (http://www.wblinc.org/), which “harnesses the power of hip-hop to transform the lives of youth.” Sponsors for the 2016 Best of D.C. Celebration include presenting sponsor Events DC, as well as St. John’s Community Services, Palm, Schöfferhofer, Violet Boutique, DC Sustainable Energy Utility, DC Shorts, Anytime K9, and L’Alliance Française.
About the Washington City Paper Best Of D.C. Reader’s Poll
The first Washington City Paper Best Of issue hit newsstands in the mid-1980s, and was brought back as an annual feature in 2008. Write-in nominations for this year’s reader’s poll closed March 1st.
Alvarez and Carrell have collaborated on a brand new spring/summer house vermouth, a seasonal variation on its year-round vermouth, dispensed from a vintage fire extinguisher. The duo say the new vermouth “is going to be more bright for the warm-weather season, with some fresh herbs, rhubarb, and rosé wine. We’ll even be adding some rose petals for florality and aromatics.” The evening will serve as a sneak peak at the new offering, which will officially launch next month with a barrel-tapping party after aging for several weeks in a 53-gallon barrel.
Alvarez and Carrell have also created nine specialty cocktails for the night, highlighting unique French, Spanish and American-made vermouths such as Miro from Spain, Dolin from France, Cocchi from Italy, Uncouth from Brooklyn, Imbue from Oregon, and of course, The Royal’s own house vermouth.
Alvarez, who made a name for himself as one of DC’s aperitif experts, has created the following drinks:
Carrell highlights the extensive variety of vermouths he stocks at The Royal’s bar, in cocktails such as:
For those feeling bold, Alvarez created the Vermouth en Fuego shot, a blend of Italian, French and American vermouths, 151 rum and spices, literally served on fire. And a limited number of porrons, the communal Spanish drinking vessel, will be available for those who choose to drink their aperitifs with friends or in daring fashion. All vermouths will also be available to enjoy on their own.
This is part of The Royal’s “Royal Knights” event series, where on the second Monday of each month, they focus on a new batch of craft spirits, lesser-known liqueurs, and the creative people who make them, hosting guest-bartenders from around the country and introducing guests to creative new brands in the booze industry. Royal Knights on May 9 will center around Mezcal.
The Royal’s monthly “Royal Knights” industry nights are free and open to the public, running from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. on the second Monday of every month. Details for subsequent “Royal Knights” nights will be announced closer to each event. For more information, please visit www.theroyaldc.com or call 202-332-7777.
WHO:The Royal Bar Manager Lee Carrell
501 Florida Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
Ardeo+Bardeo would like to invite guests to enjoy a special kosher wine tasting on Wednesday, April 13 beginning at 6:45 p.m., just in time for Passover. In this engaging session, guests will have the pleasure of sampling four kosher wines paired with two kosher hors d’oeuvres. Led by Summer Whitford, the Food and Wine Diva (www.foodandwinediva.com), with representatives from Pearson’s Wine & Spirits, located at 2436 Wisconsin Ave NW, 20007, guests will be both entertained and educated on the ins and outs of what makes a wine kosher, and how to find quality and value. The evening tasting experience is priced at $50 per person (not including tax and gratuity). Space is limited and guests are required to make a non-refundable reservation by contacting Ardeo+Bardeo at (202) 244-6750. As an added bonus, those who attend the tasting will enjoy a discount price on any featured bottles of kosher wine from Pearson’s Wine & Spirits purchased at the event. Purchased wines will be available for pick-up or delivery directly from Pearson’s.
WHEN: Wednesday, April 13th, 2016 at 6:45 p.m – 8 p.m.., limited seating is available and reservations and payment are required in advance.
WHERE: Ardeo+Bardeo is located at 3311 Connecticut Avenue, NW Washington DC 20008; phone (202) 244-6750; www.ardeorestaurant.com. The restaurant is one block from Cleveland Park Metro Stop (Red Line) and valet parking is available for $8 a car.
WHY: It used to be a challenge to find great kosher wine for Passover and most people ended up buying the traditional sweet stuff that came in a square bottle. Thankfully, things have changed, a lot, and there is plenty of well-made kosher wine one can proudly serve. Whether one is seeking a California Cabernet, a new modern wine from Israel, or a classic beauty from France, there are nice options, and this tasting can assist with learning how to find quality and value in Kosher wine. Kashrut is the body of Jewish law dealing with what foods we can and cannot eat and how those foods must be prepared and eaten. “Kashrut” comes from the Hebrew root Kaf-Shin-Reish, meaning fit, proper or correct. It is the same root as the more commonly known word “kosher,” which describes food that meets these standards. The word “kosher” can also be used, and often is used, to describe ritual objects that are made in accordance with Jewish law and are fit for ritual use.
Event: The Hecht Warehouse at Ivy City will host a Fashion Show on Thursday, April 14, 2016, in conjunction with local D.C. fashion designers and retailers Rosies and Rockers, Michelle C. Gibson, Mila and Fire, Carrie Rockwell, Ankara Streets, Elite Fitz, Brown and Williams Clothiers, Beyond The Velvet Rope and Deborah Mdurvwa. The free event, executed by On Tap Production, will include a runway show, complimentary food and drinks, entertainment and live music.
When: Thursday, April 14, 2016 | 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Where: 1401 New York Avenue NE, Washington, D.C., 20002
Cost: Free and Open to the Public | Please RSVP HERE
Information: To learn more about the Hecht Warehouse, visit http://www.hechtwarehouse.com/ or follow on Facebook and Twitter.
ABOUT THE HECHT WAREHOUSE AT IVY CITY
The Hecht Warehouse at Ivy City embodies the cultural evolution of D.C.’s historic Warehouse District. The revitalized residential building is a restoration of the former Hecht Company Warehouse, featuring original details throughout the amenity spaces and apartment homes. Brand new additions to the neighborhood include fitness, shopping, and dining retailers, including Nike, Planet Fitness, and MOM’s Organic Market. Residences feature historic glass blocks, exposed brick, and industrial finishes refined and restored to reflect the rejuvenation of the iconic Ivy City building.
