{"id":663,"date":"2010-05-26T14:08:38","date_gmt":"2010-05-26T19:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatsociety.org\/?p=663"},"modified":"2018-10-30T17:19:51","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T21:19:51","slug":"capitol-hill-drinking-the-cap-city-rumor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/?p=663","title":{"rendered":"Capitol Hill Drinking: The Cap City Rumor"},"content":{"rendered":"

After nine years, I\u2019m sad to report that the so-called \u201cNoMa\u201d section of Capitol Hill really sucks when it comes to drinking. I\u2019m talking about the Mass Ave stretch\u2026and beyond! NoMa being the wholly imaginary neighborhood \u201cNorth of Mass Ave\u201d which is Union Station and the dismal former-ghetto rolling down past the bus station to New York Avenue.<\/p>\n

Any news item \u2013 a new bar, a closure \u2013 is exciting, and so I latch onto it in the hopes that something will break up my sad workaday life.<\/p>\n

I hate working, see? I want to be a drifter like David Banner. Isn\u2019t that what that show was about? Angry drunk drifter who befriends small boys?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what every show in the 70\u2019s was about, I think. Highway to Heaven<\/em>! That was the 80\u2019s, right? But that\u2019s even worse. Two homosexuals, one big and simple and the other with a predatory intellect, travel the country in a windowless panel van taking advantage of the weak and the needy.<\/p>\n

Sick, man.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Anyway, I was stunned when DCbeer reported the rumor<\/a> that Capitol City Brewing Co. was closing their Union Station location. I figured that the rumor must be true because, really, Cap City sucks. And not in that good way. It\u2019s the sort of suck where, you know, you get there, and then Cap City leans out the car window and vomits and doesn\u2019t talk to you for the entire ride back to her parent\u2019s house.<\/p>\n

Ah, my.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I decided to spend this week going to Cap City for lunch and sort of pretending that I\u2019m a big bad local and\/or beer blogger. Because that\u2019s how you get multiple baskets of free pretzels. You need many pretzels at Cap City so you can smother them in the delicious horseradish sauce and, therefore, kill the taste of their beer. Because their beer is less \u201cbrewed\u201d and more \u201cflavored.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t come down on me about that. It\u2019s true. I don\u2019t want every sad-sack waterhead at the next door Bureau of Labor Statistics crying at me in the comments section. First of all, you people all look like you\u2019re prisoners of the Khmer Rouge when I see you through the windows, and, secondly, Cap City\u2019s beer is lousy. Here\u2019s how you can tell \u2013 Get the St. Adrian\u2019s Alt, the Amber Waves, and maybe the ESB. They all look the same. Okay. Whatever. Then taste them. The base notes are all exactly the same, except there\u2019s this sort of mass-produced flavoring sensation that is, supposedly, what makes them distinctive. But it\u2019s the same thing as saying that Chicken and Beef Ramen are distinctive. A tin-foil flavor pack does not a beer make.<\/p>\n

Regardless, there\u2019s something weirdly cozy about Cap City. It\u2019s a great tourist bar. It would be a breath of fresh air if I was just coming off the train. It has that weird sort of heavily-trodden-tourist-path London pub feel. It\u2019s the sort of place that feels like you can wander in there and say, \u201cHey, I just trained in from North Carolina, and I\u2019m fucking useless. Can you help me?\u201d And the smiling staff reply with: \u201cHave a beer and a shot of bourbon!\u201d<\/p>\n

So\u2026yes. You can help me.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s the big tanks, which I always believe are empty. There\u2019s the whole brewery-kitsch feel to the place. Like you\u2019re at the illicit tour group bar in some small brewery. Except it\u2019s huge and corporate. Which is confusing. So you drink and ask for pretzels.<\/p>\n

Cap City Union Station may be the only bar where I hate everything I\u2019m given in the food and booze department\u2026and still feel like visiting again and again.<\/p>\n

Today I pulled aside the day manager \u2013 who was drunk \u2013 and asked him WTF in regards to the DCbeer rumor. He told me that, absolutely, there was no problem. They were not closing. Then he lapsed into hubris and said they were never better and business was hopping. So I figured not to correct them when my bill came and was only six bucks for three beers.
\nAnd that\u2019s all from me! Here\u2019s Manakin!
\n[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bu2SkBK1mR4]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After nine years, I\u2019m sad to report that the so-called \u201cNoMa\u201d section of Capitol Hill really sucks when it comes to drinking. I\u2019m talking about the Mass Ave stretch\u2026and beyond! NoMa being the wholly imaginary neighborhood \u201cNorth of Mass Ave\u201d …<\/p>\n

Capitol Hill Drinking: The Cap City Rumor<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[78,82,75,395,83],"class_list":["post-663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lush","category-dc","tag-bar-reviews","tag-bitching-about-noma","tag-drinking","tag-lush","tag-swampoodle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=663"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":677,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663\/revisions\/677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}