The Great Baltimore Pizza Pursuit 2013: Bagby Pizza Company

The rules of The Great Baltimore Pizza Pursuit are simple.  Each category is worth 2 points (allowing for half points). The only pizza I'm considering is the basic slice of cheese. At the end of the year, the highest score wins the coveted Baltimore Bistros and Beer's Great Baltimore Pizza Pursuit title. This week's entry is Bagby Pizza Company. Click here to see how the last entrant fared.

Droop Factor - I was impressed with the strength of the crust on Bagby's pizza. The crust is paper thin and topped with A LOT of cheese. I had my doubts about it standing up to the awesome force known as gravity, but stand it did and came through with an impressive droop score.

Score - 2

Greaseification -  Just by looking at the picture above you can see the shimmery grease atop the pie. Thanks to a pizza topped with plenty of cheese there was plenty of grease but it never got out of hand. Could it have done with a little less? Sure, and that's why it only comes through with an average score here.

Score - 1

Aroma - The aroma of this pizza was a little different than what I usually get. Normally, I'm catching whiffs of sauce, herbs, or garlic. Bagby Pizza is unique in that the bready smell of the crust is what I noticed the most.

Score - 1.5

Cheese - Bagby Pizza Company tops their pizza with a lot of cheese. On the positive side, the cheese tastes really good. On the negative side, it's a little out of proportion with the rest of the pie. The crust is super thin and it's sauced very lightly. At times, the cheese gets to be a bit much.

Score - 1

Sauce - As I mentioned above this pizza is sauced very lightly. Sometimes that's not a bad thing, but with so much cheese I would have liked a little more sauce to balance things out. I'm guessing they go light on the sauce because the thin crust couldn't stand much more on top without completely falling apart. With that said, the sauce has delicious bright tomato flavors that can stand up with any pizza in the area.

Score - 1

Crust - For me, the crust was the best part of Bagby Pizza. There is a very audible crack when you bite in. No other pizza can match the cracker like crunch they bring to the party (at least those I've tried so far). I loved the crunch and I also loved the charred flavor they impart into the crust. Bagby gets a perfect score on the crust, and if I could give them higher than a 2 here I definitely would.

Score - 2

Overall Score - 8.5 out of 12

Bagby Pizza has the makings of one of the top pizzas (if not the top) in Baltimore. The sauce is delicious, the cheese is flavorful, and the crust is great. I'd like to see the cheese to sauce ratio adjusted a little bit, but even if they never changed a thing it's really hard to find a pizza as good as this.