Since my last blog returned to beer, I thought it was only fitting to stick with that for at least one more post.  Today’s blog takes us to the Mad Fox Brewing Company located in the “downtown” area of Falls Church right on Route 7.  The brewery sits in one of those new mixed use developments with retail and restaurant space on the bottom floors and condos above.  The setting is nice and with an underground parking garage, parking is not an issue.

The brewery had a large selection of beers on draft.  We actually began our tasting backward because we wanted to try their heartier beers with a clean palate.  We moved back to the beers lower in hops afterwards.  The Broad Street IPA was a very good beer. They also had another IPA on draft at the time, which I apologize but I didn’t write down the full name, this was one actually a bit better. However, in general the beers were good.  Keeping in line with the autumn seasonal beer that everyone seems to offer nowadays, Mad Fox had a pumpkin beer called the Punkinator which tasted almost exactly like Dogfish Head’s Pumpking, one of my all time favorite seasonal beers. The Madjacket was also a sort of seasonal brew, having tastes of cinnamon.  The Renyard Black Saison reminded me of the St. Bernardus Christmas brew we had drunk a few days before at The Bier Garden in Portsmouth, VA.  The Mason’s Dark Mild is just that– mild, so mild, in fact, I would consider it down-right bland.  The Stir About Oatmeal Stout was very good and I am not much of a stout drinker.  Although the Festivus Ale is not touted to contain anise, to me this beer tasted a bit too much like licorice.

For our second round, we tried the lighter style beers.  The Kolsch was very mild and reminiscent of Budweiser.  Its counter part, the Kellerbier Kolsch was just Budweiser on steroids.  The regular Saison was a very good Belgium style beer.  The brewery also offers one beer on cask which happened to be their Defender American APA, which was not noteworthy.

In addition to the beers, we also sampled some of the menu items. The food was fair, nothing to write home about, but the good IPAs and seasonal beers made it worth the trip. If you find yourself in the area, stop by and have a brew.