Happy Anniversary (Mine, not Mahar's)!

My wife and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary this past weekend. Our anniversary fell on Easter Sunday, and my mom agreed to watch the kids so that we could go away for a night. Jenn and I chose to go to Baltimore Inner Harbor, and although the weather was a bit chilly (Easter was colder than Christmas this year), we were looking forward to spending some time on the waterfront. Jenn and I have always said it was more important to do something together on our anniversary rather than getting something. So this weekend Jenn chose the location and the activities, and I got to choose the places to eat.

We made it down there around lunch time, and took the water taxi over to Fell’s Point. The water taxi is a great deal, $8 all day, and allowed us to get some unique views of Inner Harbor. Fell’s Point is an area of shops and bars (the TV show Homicide was filmed there), with cobblestone streets. We went to Max’s Taphouse (http://www.maxs.com/) for nachos. Max’s has over 50 taps and a great selection of bottles beer. The highlight for me was finding Smuttynose Really Old Brown Dog (http://www.smuttynose.com/). Old Brown Dog is one of my favorite beers from Portsmouth Brewery in NH, and they’ve apparently come out with an Old Ale version. This was done in loving memory of their dog Olive, the poster child for the beer until she passed away a little while ago. For dinner we went to Capitol City Brewing at the Inner Harbor pavilion. They had an Imperial Kolsch, but the rest of the beers were just so-so.

The next day, Jenn and I went on the Duck Tour (http://www.baltimoreducks.com/experience-fun/). Jenn had been on the tour in Boston, and this was an opportunity to see Baltimore from a different perspective. For those of you who don’t know, the “Ducks” are old amphibious landing craft, and they do a portion of the trip on land and then head out into the harbor. The tour guide was very good, but it was chilly so the windows were left down and it hurt our ability to get a lot of pictures. I had planned to grab lunch at the Wharf Rat Pub (http://www.thewharfrat.com/), a nice English bar that specialized in cask ales. What I had forgotten was that it was the Orioles home opener, so by the time we got there, the place was mobbed. We couldn’t get a seat, but I was able to order their Best Bitter and ESB on cask. They were awesome, and Jenn and I both agreed we had to return sometime.

That still left us without any lunch, so I took Jenn to White Marsh where there was an IKEA store. It was also the home of the Red Brick Station brewpub (http://www.redbrickstation.com/), where we went in to dine. I got the Cobb Salad, and an Octopus’ Pajamas on cask. This is their version of a Scottish Ale, and it has a lot of character. The food was good and the beer was better, and Jenn was able to explore the IKEA for living room furniture.

All in all, it was fun to get away for a day. Our kids didn’t even miss us (Grammy and Pop-Pop are fantastic). - 4129


"Some people want champagne and caviar when they should have beer and hotdogs." – Dwight D. Eisenhower