I arrived at Cromwell Station shortly before the 11:28 AM train left. As usual, the ticket machine failed to read my credit card, which is why I had downloaded the CharmPass app to my phone earlier in the year. Via the app I bought a day pass, and it's a good thing because transit officers would ask to see my ticket twice that day.

The ride to B.C. Brewery was over an hour long, which gave me time to lay a base of peanut butter sandwiches and fake crab sticks that I'd brought in my day pack.

B.C. has 24 taps of self-serve beer where you pay by the ounce. I like this concept because you don't have to wait to get served. It costs about the same per ounce as you'd pay when a bartender serves you, plus you're not expected to tip since you do all the work, so it can work out cheaper. My friend Jim is the head brewer. I've known him through homebrewing since 1995. He was the head brewer at DuClaw for 18 years until he took the B.C. Brewery position when it opened in April 2018. He came out to talk to me, and when I mentioned the Turkey Shoot, he donated a gift card to the cause. Anyway, I sampled:

• Regulator (good clean doppelbock)
• David S. Pumpkins (12.1% ABV imperial stout)
• Electric Hammer (quite good 11.5% ABV triple IPA)

I rode down to the Woodberry stop where there are three breweries within walking distance. First I visited Union Craft Brewing, which is located several blocks away in an assembly of independently owned businesses called Union Collective. There are 5 other businesses in the building, including a distillery and a climbing center. The tap room is quite big, and Frank Sinatra music was playing. The flights here don't offer any advantage over ordering individually because you pay $9 for 3 samples while individual samples cost $3. The samples are 7 ounces each, and they're called "ponies" in reference to the 7-ounce bottles of yesteryear. This location houses a 180-bbl system for their regular beers, and they still brew small-batch experimental beers (their "Rough Draught" line) on the 60-bbl system at their old location, which is a stone's throw from the Woodberry stop. I tried:

• Divine (good clean IPA)
• Yonder Cities (good Norwegian farmhouse IPA) (collaboration with DC Brau)
• Double Duckpin (good DIPA)
• Tropical Hazy IPA (quite good NEIPA w/lactose) (one of their Rough Draught beers)

I walked down to Waverly Brewing, where Roy met me. We hung out for a while and he gave me samples of:

• Triple Mofo (good Belgian triple)
• Mama Cask (quite good 13% ABV barrel-aged strong ale)
• Resting Peach Face (peach sour ale)
• Blood Bath (blood orange IPA)
• Cardinal Rules (red ale w/hibiscus)
• Local Oyster (nitro stout w/oysters)

Note the photo of Mama Cass.

I picked up the donation bag and walked to Nepenthe Brewing which, like Union, used to be located right off the Woodberry stop but moved several blocks away. It was just a homebrew shop at the old location, and now it is a brewery and homebrew shop. The tap room is fairly large, and it was busy because by now it was after-work hours. I sampled:

• Crunchy (DIPA) (collaboration with Peabody Heights)
• Queen Jellyfish (DIPA)
• Lord Bones (good milkshake IPA w/Madagascar vanilla beans and lactose)
• Chaos Enabler (good DIPA)
• What Did You Do, Ray? (raspberry marshmallow fluff milkshake IPA)
• Polydribbles #4 (triple berry kettle sour)

The homebrew shop is located downstairs:

There are at least 4 more breweries that I could have hit on the way back (Brewer's Art, Pratt Street Ale House, Suspended, and Checkerspot) but the sun was setting and I didn't feel like risking life and limb walking around downtown Baltimore after dark. It had been a successful day nonetheless.