It has been obvious for almost a year now that Dry 85 was going to have a great bourbon selection. So I have to say that I was a little worried when Dry 85 refused to send me their opening day beer list.

@TheBeerSpy Thank you and negative. 🙂 See you soon.

— DRY 85 (@_DRY85) December 19, 2013

I went ahead and chocked this up to Dry 85 wanting to maintain its mysterious speakeasy style allure and decided to check them out on opening day. Best decision I have made so far in 2014!

Dry 85 is definitely a whiskey bar. The drink menu has at least a full 5 pages of bourbons, single malts, and other whiskeys. It’s the first place I have ever been that you can get a whiskey paddle with three small pours to sample. Maybe I just don’t make it into enough whiskey bars, but I didn’t know this had expanded past the craft beer scene.

The place was a bit cramped. The bar keepers actually had more space behind the bar to work than we had for making our way through the place, but I don’t think this will be a problem once Dry 85 has been open a few weeks and the crowds have thinned.

I also have to give the bar and wait staff a huge shout out for providing some incredible service. Billy, Aaron, and Max, were behind the bar slinging drinks, taking questions, and chatting up all the customers without making any mistakes that I ever saw. The bar service was absolutely top notch.

We went in a group of six, were seated quickly considering the crowd, and got our food faster than I expected. Everything tasted great, and our glasses never ran dry.

My concerns about the beer selection were luckily unfounded. They had twelve taps pouring quality craft beers from Maryland, to Texas, to California. There were even a few beers I’ve never seen in Annapolis. There wasn’t anything exceptionally rare on tap, and I was surprised there were no bourbon barrel aged beers, but I was told these taps will be constantly rotating with new beers and we may see some barrel aged offerings in the future.

Get over to Dry 85 and check this place out. Also, keep an eye out for their upcoming Bacon Brunch.