County’s first farm brewery to open Dec. 11 in Laytonsville?
Montgomery County will welcome another brewery this month when Waredaca Brewing Company, housed on a farm in Laytonsville, opens Dec. 11. The business announced the opening Tuesday, writing in a statement it will offer “independent, local and fresh beer brewed on the farm that has been in the founder’s family for three generations.”
Jessica Snyder, a member of the extended Butts family that has owned the horse farm since the 1930s, said the family decided to open a brewery to repurpose an underutilized building on the farm. One of the partners in the brewery, Keith Kohr, was brewing for Flying Dog in Frederick before joining Waredaca, Snyder said.
The brewery has a 10-barrel system and it uses hops and other ingredients such as herbs and honey that are grown or produced at the farm to make its beers. Snyder said the brewery will offer a lemon verbena IPA, honey wheat, coffee stout and farmhouse saison when it opens next week.
The taproom can seat about 100 customers and offers views of the horse pastures. The brewery is at 4017 Damascus Road, about a 40-minute drive from Bethesda.
The taproom and brewery is located in the farm building pictured here. Photo via Waredaca Brewing Co. on Facebook.
Washington Post food critic praises Peter Chang Rockville
Chef Peter Chang inside his Rockville restaurant that opened in April. Credit: Andrew Metcalf
It’s a tie. Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema wrote in a review published Wednesday that acclaimed Sichuan chef Peter Chang’s Rockville and Arlington locations tie for the “area’s best source for traditional Chinese right now.” Sietsema gave the restaurants 2.5 stars on his 4-star dining scale—a good/excellent rating—and praised the chef’s fiery cooking.
“The most arresting presentation over the course of multiple visits to both restaurants captured bites of crisp and snowy flounder beneath a lean-to made of woven cane,” Sietsema wrote. “Scattered with dried chiles, cilantro, onions and cumin, the fish kept our chopsticks moving at warp speed until nothing remained but a sense of great contentment.”
Chang, who was once featured in The New Yorker, is known for his spicy, traditional Chinese cuisine. The Rockville restaurant opened in April at Rockville Town Square.
Chefs CAN Cook Competition to take place Saturday in Silver Spring
Chef Alex Garcia of AG Kitchen will face off Saturday morning in a light-hearted cooking competition against Jenna Umbriac, director of nutrition programs at the Manna Food Center in Gaithersburg, and Mark Mills, of Chocolates and Tomatoes Farm in Poolesville, at the plaza stage in downtown Silver Spring. The chefs will use one fresh ingredient and canned foods to create their dishes, which will then be judged by local food writers. The competition is being hosted as a way to highlight the Manna Food Center’s season-long canned food drive. The event begins at 10:30 a.m.
