i.m. Wine: Make Your Own Six-Pack In Fulton

99 bottles of beer on the wall.  99 bottles of beer.  Take six down, pass them around, 93 bottles still left for you to choose.

Summer is the time for beer, and you can make your own six-packs at i.m. Wine store.  The Fulton liquor store shows off its wine on beautiful displays, but on the way to the back room, there are steel storage shelves unceremonially lined with beer -- dozens of different brands, styles, flavors.  You pick your own.

For a dinner party, I made two six-packs to augment the random beers floating around our refrigerator.  I picked six different beers and bought two of each.  Three wheat beers.  Three pilsners.  It was an easy way for me to sample something new, and it was fun to have a guest say, "This is a great mix of beers!"  My discovery -- a DeGroen's weizen  from a Delaware brewery that I had never heard about before.  Delicious and slightly bitter.  Not your 18-year-old's party beer, but perfect on a summer evening.

The wall at i.m. Wine is an eclectic mix.  Lots of small American breweries like DeGroen's.  Some European beers, but few of the usual suspects that are in coolers anywhere.  Also few of the flavored beers that I have come to hate.  (I still cringe remembering the taste of a cranberry beer from Boston.)  The i.m. Wine folks have always lead me right.  Everything that I bought was good, and the beer seems aimed at companies brewing beers in traditional styles like IPA, Belgian ale, wheat beer, etc.  Great taste; less gimmicks.  That's my kind of wall.

The beers are individually priced.  Most seem to be about $1.50, and there is a $2 charge per six-pack for the "pick your own" opportunity.

I posted before about why i.m. Wine is a great place to go for suggestions.  If you are in Maple Lawn for i.m. Wine, check out the three restaurants nearby:  Trapeze, Ranazul and oz Chophouse.

i.m. Wine
8180 Maple Lawn Boulevard
Fulton, MD 20759
240-456-0330
www.imwine.com

NEAR: In the Maple Lawn commercial area off Rte 216 just west of Rte 29.