217 Brew Works' Ship in a Bottle

Oatmeal Stout

Oatmeal adds fullness and body to this rich, roasty, bittersweet beer. Delightful alone, this coal-black stout truly blossoms with food and is an unbeatable companion to foods as diverse as shellfish, curries, broiled beef, and chocolate cheesecake.

The name Ship in a Bottle describes 217 Brew Works’ brewery set up behind a glass wall. We are the archetypal microbrewery existing in a former livery stable. We don’t brew oceans of beer like the big guys. We carefully hand-craft small batches of elegant beers and follow through with quality control unsurpassed by breweries twice our size. That’s how we pack all that flavor into Ship in a Bottle.

We freely admit that it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to bestow such an evocative moniker on a beer. A Ship in a Bottle represents impossible complexity in a deceptively simple package. It alludes to boundless horizons with sharply limited space. It’s inherently ironic, romantic, and fun. It’s also, apparently, a shamefully easy target for teasing.

At first it bothered us that the would-be comedians out there find our carefully considered name such an easy target for abuse… “Ship in a Bottle? Why would anyone name a beer Ship in a Bottle? What’s that mean, barnacle brew?" That is, it bugged us until we noticed that the permutations on the name became more outrageous on the wag’s second pint. Even more so on the third, and doubly so when they came back with friends for two or three more the next day. Given the accolades we’ve received, we decided we could live with a little ribbing – to keep us humble.

After all, we barely fit into our cozy little brewery without swelled heads.