5.9 🍺 above average
Stuck Inside of Cambridge with the Chessie Blues Again
Decades before most of us were aware of global warming, manatees living in Florida sensed the increasing temperatures and began swimming farther and farther north during the summer months. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, a few adventurous individuals were visiting the Chesapeake Bay, where they soon became Maryland’s most celebrated cryptid: Chessie the sea monster.
Nautical observations have never been very reliable, especially for Eastern Shore vacationers sipping cocktails on the patios of their waterfront properties. The gentle, slow-moving manatee, resembling a small whale, was transmogrified in eye-witness reports into a long-necked, serpentine creature resembling Nessie of Loch Ness fame. Finally, in 1994, scientists apprehended one of these intrepid mariners, tagged it, and began tracking it by satellite. The adventurous sea cow—dubbed “Chessie”—has been tracked for nearly 30 years and was last spotted as recently as 2022.
Today, the only place you’ll see a long-necked plesiosaur in the Chesapeake Bay is on cans of beer from the RaR brewery in Cambridge, MD. As most of the Chessie sightings were made from Kent Island, it seems only fair that a craft brewer just 25 nautical miles to the south should appropriate the celebrated cryptid as a mascot.
Settled in 1684 at the mouth of the Choptank River, Cambridge, or “Groove City,” is the third oldest city in Maryland (behind St. Mary’s City and Annapolis) and has a long association with slavery. The city’s Long Wharf was a major entry point for enslaved people arriving from Africa and the West Indies to work the tobacco fields of the Eastern Shore. Dorchester County is also the birthplace of Harriet Tubman, and, on the opposite side of the Choptank in Talbot County, lies the birthplace of Frederick Douglass.
Cambridge is also the origin of another Maryland icon: Phillips Seafood Restaurants. Founded in 1902, the Phillips Packing Plant F was once the largest fruit cannery in the nation and earned Cambridge the nickname of “Tomato Capital of the World.” The company was the largest employer in Dorchester County and provided jobs for one-quarter of Cambridge’s 8,000 residents. When the packing plant closed in the 1960s, the city entered an extended period of financial decline and racial unrest that it has only recently begun to recover from.
Craft breweries have led a revitalization of downtowns across the nation, but few have had such an outsized impact as RaR Brewing, which now owns and operates nearly a quarter of downtown Cambridge’s 18 bars and restaurants. But back in 2013, it all started with a couple of carboys and a brew pot in the back room of the Ocean Odyssey Seafood House on Rt. 50, where homebrewers Chris Brohawn and B.J. Wheatley perfected their brewing chops and cobbled together a business plan for a commercial brewery. Along with co-founder J.T. Merryweather, the group leveraged $75,000 in seed money into a revitalization loan from the Dorchester economic development office. In August 2013, RaR, or Real Ale Revival, began serving beer in a former pool hall and bowling alley on Poplar Street.
RaR immediately established a reputation for brewing excellent hoppy beer with its flagship IPA, Nanticoke Nectar. Head brewer Randy Mills merged the citrus and tropical flavors of the newly popular Citra hop with the more traditional grapefruit and pine profile of Cascades and Centennials to produce an IPA that was bigger (7.4%), brighter, and more complex than what many Maryland beer lovers were drinking at the time. Rather than name the beer after the adjacent Choptank River, the brewers looked southeast to the more picturesque Nanticoke River, whose watershed is the most biologically diverse on the Delmarva peninsula and contains the highest concentration of Bald Eagles on the East Coast.
Subsequent creations continued to celebrate Maryland culture and lore, such as the chocolaty Ten Layers Stout (7.2%), brewed to honor the official state dessert, Smith Island Cake; Marylan Blonde Ale (5.2%), whose portrayal of Marilyn Monroe features the Maryland state flag in her hair; and at least four “Chessie” beers (Hoppy Pils, Lab House IPA, Oktoberfest, Winter Lager). Groove City Hefeweizen (5.2%) recalls Cambridge’s heyday as a major stop on the Chitlin’ Circuit for Black performers like James Brown and Ella Fitzgerald and salutes the contemporary Groove City Culture Fest, an annual music and arts festival celebrating the city’s African-American roots. But my favorite tribute is Puck Face (4.4%), a fruited sour ale that commemorates Baltimore Oriole Billy Ripkin’s infamous 1989 baseball card, in which “FUCK FACE” appears on the knob end of the bat he is holding.
In 2015, RaR introduced Maryland beer lovers to the joys of haze with Hyde (6.4%), a classic Citra/Mosaic IPA that was not as turbid as beers to come and still retained some of the hop bitterness of RaR’s earlier West Coast interpretations. It wasn’t until 2017 that the brewery fully embraced the NEIPA style with Pulp (6.2%), an orange-accented juice bomb that rivaled the better-known versions from Massachusetts and Vermont. By then it was apparent that no one was brewing better beer in Maryland than RaR.
The next phase in RaR’s brewing evolution started in 2018 with That Night in Key West (5.2%), a kettle sour made with Key limes, marshmallows, graham crackers, and vanilla. The experiment soon grew into the Out of Order series of extravagant smoothie sours, made with thick fruit purees, sweetening agents, and a variety of adjunct ingredients only limited by the brewer’s imagination. Anathema for many beer purists, these beverages often attract drinkers who would otherwise be drinking seltzers or cocktails. Hard to hate brewers who want to expand their customer base—or push the boundaries of what beer can be.
To date, 159 different Out of Order sours have been reviewed on social media. From Abooga Booga, (RaR’s house lactose sour conditioned on mango puree and apple fritters) to Yub Nub (with raspberries, French vanilla, Colombian coffee beans, cinnamon, and pastry cream), each version of Out of Order features a different variation on the series’ befuddled beagle created by in-house illustrator B.J. Wheatley. Whether malty, hoppy, sour, or sweet, the one thing that all RaR beers have in common is Wheatley’s artwork. Over the past 12 years, he has designed close to 500 labels. Enlarged versions—as well as other examples of Wheatley’s art—line the walls of the taphouse like spray-painted street art.
Despite the success of the Out of Order beers, RaR continues to push the envelope for its “hop saturated ales,” experimenting with a variety of hop concentrates and extracts, such as Cryo, Hyperboost, Hop Kief, and Incognito. The sense of exploration and innovation is as palpable today as it was in 2013.
Longtime RaR fans, though, might not recognize Poplar Street today. The original taproom is now flanked by the LabRaRtory, a cocktail bar and lounge, and Chessie Burger (formerly RAR Eats), a casual dining spot for burgers, wings, and fries. Across the street is the Dive Club, a more intimate space serving small-plate tapas and tropical cocktails. The 500-block of Poplar Street has become an RaR theme park.
I stepped into the original taproom to get my bearings. It was a bit after noon on a Sunday in early November, and the brewery had just opened. An employee slid open the garage door window and the gentle warmth of a perfect fall day spilled into the taproom. The open and airy sensation is unlike any taphouse I’ve visited.
The main bar runs along one side and seats eight or nine, and cocktail tables are scattered around the room. You can easily walk around the bar and enter the LabRaRtory, decked out with leather sofas and chairs and another bar of similar size. On the other side of the room is an entrance to the Chessie Burger restaurant, which features wooden booths and a long communal table.
I picked up the two-sided beer menu and gazed in awe at the tap list. Among the 41 offerings (from two bars) were a dozen IPAs, including “hop saturated” collabs with Fidens of Albany, NY, North Park of San Diego, and Noble Savage of Glen Cove, NY; four fall seasonals; five Out of Order sours; three LUKR, side-tap pours; one nitro pour; a couple of roasty dark beers; a half dozen of RaR’s core beers, and seven guest taps from the likes of Other Half, Fidens, Maine Beer, Foam, and Mortalis. A couple of full flights of 5-ounce samples barely scratches the surface of the variety and depth of offerings, but it was enough to assure me that RaR is still pushing the envelope across a range of styles and doing them all well.
Food can be ordered from either the taproom, cocktail bar, or restaurant. The house specialty is the Chessie Burger—basically a smash burger—served in a half dozen variations. Chicken, pork, franks, and fish sandwiches are also available. Sides include fries, wings, tots, onion rings, and mac & cheese. A more extensive menu can be found across the street at The Dive Club, which specializes in seafood with a Cajun accent and offers 30 tropical cocktails, including a dozen house specialties. Mainlanders reluctant to cross the bay can find the same food and massive beer selection at RaR’s newest outpost, Chessie’s Wharf in West Annapolis, which opened in January 2024.
RaR BREWING – TAPROOM
504 Poplar St.
Cambridge, MD 21613
OPEN
Sunday – Thursday: 11 am – 9 pm
Friday & Saturday: 11 am – 11 pm
NUMBER OF TAPS
41
SPECIALTIES
3 LUKR side tap pours
1 nitro pour
AVERAGE ABV
6.9%
FOOD
Sandwiches, wings, fries, tots, tenders, pretzels, salads
PARKING
Free parking on Poplar Street
CHESSIE BURGER
508 Poplar St.
Cambridge, MD 21613
OPEN
Every day – 11 am – 9 pm
LabRARtory
502 Poplar St.
Cambridge, MD 21613
OPEN
Monday – Thursday: 3 – 9 pm
Friday & Saturday: 11 am – 11 pm
Sunday: 11 am – 9 pm
OTHER BEVERAGES
10 Specialty Cocktails
DIVE CLUB
501 Poplar St.
Cambridge, MD 21613
OPEN
Tuesday – Thursday: 4 – 9 pm
Friday & Saturday: 3 – 11 pm
OTHER BEVERAGES
12 Signature Cocktails
17 Tiki Classics
Red & White Wines by glass or bottle
FOOD
Full kitchen featuring seafood with a Cajun accent
CHESSIE’S WHARF
609 Melvin Ave.
Annapolis, MD 21401
OPEN
Sunday – Thursday: 11 am – 9 pm
Friday & Saturday: 11 am – 11 pm