Planet Beer

This is the place where the obscure and the exceptional in beer and ale have come together. Even though the place was slammed, it took minutes to get a table, and the service was both sharp and beer-knowledgeable. Dinner was an exceptional house salad with mushrooms, roasted red peppers, mixed greens and an onion vinaigrette dressing. The entree of smoked duck, crimini mushrooms and a brown ale sauce over linguini was loaded with ample duck and mushrooms.

From one of those flailing tap handles came the Dogfish Head 90-minute IPA. This small, quirky craft brewery in Lewes, Del., has taken the common variety beer hop and turned it into a food group. An India Pale Ale is usually crisp with hops, but theirs is so immersed with them that the flavor was virtually identical to the duck and mushroom brown ale sauce. Now that is an experience.

There are 30 of those dancing tap handles, each with a beer that you may or may not have heard of. The same applies to the more than 100 selections by the bottle. Our waiter Jacob helped us navigate through the names and nuances of this wonderful experience on Planet Beer.

— Layne Witherell

Capitol Ale House

623 E. Main St.

643-2537

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