We’ve spent the last week visiting family in Pennsylvania and seeing friends and family while performing in a choir concert in Washington, DC. We’ll have more on that later, but in the meantime, we wanted to pass along a quick word about beer in the area. Even while visiting friends and family, we made sure to fit in plenty of beer tasting whenever we had the chance.

First up, we spent the early part of last week in Harrisburg visiting Charley’s brother, Brian, his partner Vanessa, and daughter Caitlin. Brian’s turned into quite the homebrewer, and we had the chance to sample a few of a his brews. I remember a really fantastic double IPA that blew my socks off. We also found the time to pay a visit to Troegs Brewing Company in Hershey, PA. The flights are really affordable there, and I should be sure I give a shoutout to the smoked cream cheese that came with an order of potato chips. I sampled a little more than I should have, including several of their “scratch” pale ales as they play with their recipes to see what works for them. My favorite was their 717 Collaboration, which I’m told is different every year. This 2016 batch was awesome: it tasted like citrus without feeling too juicy. If you don’t know them, have a look through their website, and be sure to stop by if you’re in the area.

After a few days visiting with Brian, we headed down to Charley’s hometown of Chambersburg. I’m told it was a small farm town when he was growing up, but they’ve had a lot of recent growth, and it feels like a pretty sizable suburb these days to me. There are lots of new shopping centers and product distribution centers, and of course we made sure to stop by local brewery Roy Pitz for lunch. You can peruse our Untappd feeds if you’re curious about all the specifics, but my favorite of the day was Ludwig’s Revenge, a German style “rauchbier.” Rauchbier is a type of smoked beer and holds a special place in my heart as the first craft beer I ever sampled after college; sometimes it’s hard to separate my nostalgia for the style from great tasting beers, but Ludwig’s Revenge was top notch to me.

After leaving Chambersburg, we headed down to Washington, DC to join some other members of the NYC Master Chorale in a visit to join the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington in performing the Carmina Burana. We didn’t have the time to visit any breweries while we were there, but we stopped at a couple of beer bars that impressive bottle lists, and the friends we stayed with, Juan and Robby, were incredible enough to make sure that the fridge was stocked with beer when we arrived. Juan in particular recommended The Corruption IPA from DC Brau Brewing Company as one of his favorite IPAs of all time, and I couldn’t agree more. It ranks right up there with the Green Flash West Coast IPA in my book. Just fantastic.

If you’re a beer aficionado and use the Untappd app, be sure to contact us so you can find us on Untappd and see the beers we’re drinking in real time!