Rock Bottom Brewery
Breweriana, Collectibles, Ephemera and Memories
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Arlington location CLOSED; Bethesda location OPEN; Boston location OPEN; Chicago location OPEN; Cincinnati location CLOSED; Denver location OPEN; Portland location CLOSED; Westminster location CLOSED |
| Also see the BIG VISIT MAP | 7900 Norfolk Ave, Bethesda, MD 115 Stuart St., Boston, MA 1 West Grand Ave., Chicago, IL 1001 16th St., Denver, CO 206 SW Morrison St., Portland, OR 10633 Westminster Blvd., Westminster, CO |
I have visited Rock Bottom Brewery in
- Arlington County, Virginia, USA
- Bethesda, Montgomery County, Maryland, USA
- Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, USA
- Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, USA
- Denver, Denver County, Colorado, USA
- Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon, USA
- Westminster, Adams County, Colorado, USA
Brewery/Brewpub Location Map
- Follow this link for a map of all the breweries and brewpubs I have visited.
Reason for Visit: When you're on the road and want to grab a decent beer and a meal, there's often a Rock Bottom conveniently located nearby.
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Front of Coaster: There are hundreds of different Rock Bottom Brewery coasters, so many that I've stopped collecting them. Here is a very simple version oriented in a diamond configuration with the slogan "Here for the Beer" and with a small image of the brewery logo at the bottom. |
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Front of Coaster: Many of their coasters are individualized by location. Here is an example from the Chicago Rock Bottom Brewery promoting their Chicago Gold. Continuing with the local connection, the front features a famous landmark, the Old Water Tower. |
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Back of Coaster. "CHICAGO GOLD A light, crisp, delicately malty ale brewed with three different varieties of Pacific Northwest hops. This golden brew is the perfect introduction to the world of handcrafted ales. Proudly brewed at the corner of State & Grand." |
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Front of Coaster: Here is another simple, generic coaster. This one proclaims, "You've hit Rock Bottom" with the brewery logo superimposed lightly along the background. |
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Glassware: This sizable ceramic mug also comes from the Chicago Rock Bottom location. There's an alpine village scene impressed into the entire back side of the mug. The front contains a flat surface with the brewery logo on the upper portion. The text reads, "Grand Opening October 1995. Charter Member Mug Club." I wasn't there at the grand opening and I wasn't a charter member of the mug club, but nonetheless this one somehow made its way into my collection. |
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Glassware:I am a member of the Rock Bottom mug club in general, though. Since I travel frequently I never know when I'll be near a Rock Bottom, so I always carry my card with me because it gets you a little extra free beer every time you make a purchase. Also once you hit certain milestones you get free merchandise. This glass (and the one below) suddenly appeared at my table once when I was at the Rock Bottom in Arlington, Virginia. This glass for Rock Bottom's Radio Tower Red features three rather large radio towers. The towers stood in Arlington from 1913 to 1941, when they were removed as a hazard to aircraft approaching the newly constructed National Airport. According to the Arlington Historical Society, this was the first facility to use the word "radio" rather than "wireless". OK, that's your trivia for the day. Back to the beer... |
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Glassware. Arlington's Rock Bottom is located in the Ballston neighborhood, so that's from where the name "Ballston Brown" derives. It features a finely dressed gentlemen driving a well-appointed coach. This would not have been a typical scene in Ballston during this time period, which was a remote crossroads in a highly rural area in spite of it being just a few miles from the Nation's capital. A more accurate rendition would be a subsistence farmer driving a hay wagon, but that probably wouldn't sell much beer. Nonetheless it's a nicely designed glass and the price was right. |
Sample list of beers produced by Rock Bottom Brewery
In my conversations with some of their brewers, Rock Bottom has some generalized styles in all of their locations with the brewers allowed some flexibility within specific parameters. They also can make their own seasonals, cask conditioned ales, etc. So between all of their locations you'll find just about every style conceivable. Even their house beers have names that reflect the specific location so it's not feasible to provide a list of all the different names.
Items featured on these breweriana pages are personal souvenirs of my visits to these locations, and an expression of the events and travels leading to their collection. They are not for sale or for trade.
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