Pennsylvania Dreaming part 2

Our samples consumed, with beer styles, time, and stereoscopic vision beginning to blur, we wrong-turned our way to Reamstown, a name that, because of all the beer we’d consumed, was twice as hilarious as it should have been. Fortunately, Chris’ creative and whimsical approach to navigation gave us an hour to burn off our previous consumption. Thus, it was with a fresh palate and clear head that we entered the Union Barrel Works.

Suzi dispensing heaven at Union Barrel Works

The Barrel Works looks as if it could accommodate the entire population of the town in which it’s located. An immaculate bar and shiny stainless steel betray the newness of the place. It opened eight months ago. Suzi, the Cheerful Bartenderess kept up an amiable banter as she worked and we tasted.

Me enjoying the fruits of her labor

All the beer from Union was excellent. The Koelsch being a particular standout. Koelsch, a light, low-alcohol ale native to the city of Cologne, Germany, is an uncommon find among American Craft breweries. When done right, as union does it, it’s the perfect session beer. Because of it’s featherweight mouthfeel and alcohol content, Koelsch serves as an excellent companion to hours of leisurely discussion, and pairs well with chicken and fish dishes too.

It’s at this point that things start to get a bit hazy. A quick whirl through the shitty countryside and we fetched up at Stoudt’s, the Munster Mansion of the brewing world. The bizzare, quasi-Victorian decor and closed-off brewhouse makes Stoudt’s seem more like a restaurant that also brews beer instead of a major craft brewer whose beers are distributed all over the place. Predictably, each of us ordered and enjoyed a sample flight of Stoudt’s uniformly excellent beer. Which we enjoyed uniformly.

Patrick comes to grips with Stoudt’s eclectic decor, as well as his beer flight

It’s cozy, in a 19th Century kinda way

After Stoudt’s, we fetched up in a Downingtown, Pennsylvania industrial park. This would have been stupid had the park not contained the Victory Brewing Company.

Victory’s dining area has the feel of a roller rink with tables placed on the skating floor, but neither our group, nor the hundreds of other patrons, were there for the decor. We were there for the Victory Lager, which we can’t get back home, and the freshly released Baltic Thunder. Brewed in the Baltic porter style, but hoppier, Baltic Thunder is a dense, opaque, powerful brew with a chewy body and pleasantly bitter finish. Unlike the lager, which is so on-style you could A/B it with the Helles of Munich, the BT digresses from the parameters of the Polish and Estonian beers which inspired it. A hefty dose of bittering hops lends a distinctly American touch to a relatively homogenous European style. It went great with my reuben.

One of these Baltic Thunder sizes is unnecessary.

Here’s a quick tip if you’re thinking about going on a beer tour: take a commercial brewer along with you. Bruce’s credentials got us a full tour of Victory’s brewhouse led by Tim Wadkins, their Quality Control guy. He explained that, although Victory Hop Devil is their (very deserving) best seller, Victory’s brewers have a passion for German lager. It shows. They’re one of the few North American breweries to do the style justice.

It’s as fun to drink Prima Pils in the back of the house as in the dining area

By this point, most sane individuals would have called it a night. So we headed over to Bube’s, where Bruce drunkenly hit on the cute chick singer of the band that had just wrapped up its set. Apparently, he was impressed that they covered the Dead Kennedys. In homage to Delaware’s proximity, we plowed (sic) through a few Dogfish Head 60-minute IPAs. Then, our night ended somewhat abruptly.

If you’ve read to this point, I can’t imagine why. Suffice it to say that, for beer lovers, southeastern Pennsylvania has a hell of a lot to offer. Sure, you have to dodge buggies, shit trucks, and religious pamphlets, not to mention scrapple, but both the variety of beers and their more or less uniform excellence will make those tribulations worthwhile. If the rest of the country follows this region’s example, we’ll have earned a place among the great beer nations of the world.

Pennsylvania Dreaming part 1.

Southeast Pennsylvania is a beer mecca; a curious vortex of zymurgy amid the rolling farmland and simple cities. Some of the finest craft breweries in the nation can be found occupying the once run-down warehouses of Harrisburg, the industrial parks of Downingtown, and nestled among the small towns in the surrounding void. When our friend Chris, wrapping up a 180-day sentence fixing the management problems of his company’s Lancaster branch, invited us down, we jumped at the chance to crash on his floor for three nights of beery stupor.

It turns out Mount Joy is a town, not an activity. It’s where Chris lives and thus our base of operations for the beer safari. It’s also home to Bube’s Brewery, a kick ass combination restaurant, brewpub, homebrew supply store and live music room located in a long-defunct 19th century brewery. Finding a place this cool in a sleepy town that sees as much traffic from horse-drawn buggies as cars surprised and delighted us. So did Bube’s premise-brewed oatmeal stout, which, while marred with a slightly roastier flavor than is typical for the style, went down very well. Multiple times.

Spooooky! The entrance to Bube’s tap room

This place is like a living museum. Up on the second floor, homebrew supplies await purchase amid dusty old implements of the cooperage trade, and colossal wooden fermentation vessels stand as disused monuments to the industry’s former glory. It seems you’re free to just wander around any old where, and the building has another fascinating thing in every old limestone cranny.

Bube’s, the way beer used to be brewed

Anyway, a bunch of beer later, we called it a night in preparation for the ambitious regional circuit that would begin with the crowing of the cock. Or more realistically, the rumbling of a truck spraying yet more pungent cow shit on the surrounding fields. They use real, brown, gloopy cow shit instead of chemical fertilizer. The odor hangs in the air like Los Angeles smog. It’s freakin’ terrible. Bruce farted in the car and I didn’t know what to do. Rolling down the window produced an odor exactly as noxious as the one emitted from his ass. I expected a shitduster to come swooping over the horizon and disgorge a brown mist on the farmland below.

But I digress.

After a hearty breakfast of eggs and scrapple, we piled into my trusty Honda Element and motored over Harrisburg way, to Troegs Brewing Company. The beers of Troegs are much-heralded and totally unavailable to us Western New Yorkers. Troegs is not a brewpub, it’s a large brewery with a bare-bones sampling, growler filling, and merchandise foisting room up front. And they’re generous with the samples. We got to taste any 6 out of the 5 beers they had on draft. I found myself returning to the Hopback Amber. Its balance and substantial body demonstrated just how much a beer can stick out from the pack merely by being excellent at what it is: not super strong, not overly hopped, no exotic or gimmicky ingredients.

A cool, frosty sample of Troeg’s Hopback Amber

Bruce showed a fondness for the Troeginator Doppelbock, a 9%+ ABV Americanized take on the classic German style. There’s a noticeable hoppy departure from the typical “liquid rye bread” flavor that characterizes Doppel, and the warming kick started our trip off nicely.

Chris Troegner, wondering why the hell his picture is being taken

So after getting us buzzed for free, co-owner Chris Troegner kindly took us in the back for a more thorough tour of the facility than three random walk-in schmucks from Lake Ontario had any right to expect, explaining their process, their expansion strategy, and their bottling procedure in great detail.

Troeg’s brewhouse grows by a couple of tanks each year

24 samples, one tour, two Troegs pint glasses, a T-shirt, and a case of Hopback later, we pulled out of Troegs’ gravel parking lot for our next stop, the Appalachian Brewing Company, located pretty much around the corner. ABC is a testament to two things America has in abundance: good beer and dilapidated warehouses.

Appalachian is one of the largest brewpubs in the country

They certainly must have sunk a great deal of money into undilapidating the building. Although industrial and nondescript on the outside, ABC’s cavernous interior is immaculate. We immediately pissed off the bartender by each ordering an eight-beer sample flight, saddling the poor bastard to the time consuming chore of pouring thirty-two tiny glasses full of beer.

In retrospect, the samplers may have been a touch… ambitious. Eight five-ounce glasses is enough to impart a buzz on even the most seasoned beer drinker, and we already had stomachs full of Troeg’s. Patrick’s abstention from anything but the most cursory of sips from each glass is to be commended. Someone had to drive. Better him than me.

Bruce contemplates the enormity of his sampler.

As for the beer itself, ABC was a little underwhelming. While not bad, most were noticeably off-style. But the Weizenbock excelled, cloudy with yeast and bursting with banana and clove, pretty much bang-on how we’d expect a Weizenbock to taste. Were I a regular there, the Weizenbock is the only beer I’d order, but I’d order it over and over again.

Part 2 tomorrow… deeper into the brew!

Chocolate indulgence and a return to Boston

I tried the Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence last night. Unsurprisingly, it rocked. A robust, mocha presence giving way to a dry, slightly astringent finish. Could it be that I’ve found the perfect nightcap beer? Try it with fresh raspberries, waffles, and puppets.

Ommegang Regional Sales Manager Tori Perez pours it chocolate-style

In an hour, we’re heading for Boston for the Beer Advocate Belgian Beer Fest. It’ll be a challenge to keep my anger level down amid a sea of smug Red Sox fans, but hey, I’m visiting their town, so who can blame them for celebrating?

Anyway, I’ll post a shitload of pics, as well as whatever recounting of events i can remember after tippling trippels all day.

-Mark

Seattle Stumbles, part II-

So where was I? Oh yeah. When last we left our intrepid hero, he was reluctantly vacating the beginnings of an epic microbrewery crawl to go watch a USL 1st Division soccer game that didn’t even feature the team he supported…

(Hold on a sec while Mark bitchslaps himself for using this third-person prose)

OK. Whew. I’m good. Anyway, there’s something to be said for watching soccer on a field demarcated for football in a nearly vacant 70,000-seat stadium. The open seating for the 3,000 or so Seattle Sounders fans in attendance was all on the east side of the field, and acres of folded blue jumpseats towered over us like a permanently cresting wave as we kicked back with our Rogue IPA (a very nice touch for the stadium vendors). The only way this place could’ve been emptier is if the Cleveland Browns were in town.

Five or six $8 Rogues later (Hey, our hero TOLD you he was intrepid), we tottered off the the nearby Pyramid Brewing Company, nestled in the shadow of Safeco Field.

With an MLB park across the street, and an NFL stadium the next block up, Pyramid is geared for mass service. A large, crescent-shaped bar serves as the focal point for the cavernous seating and merch area. The brewery sits in a glass-enclosed room off to the side.

“Hi, I’m John from Spokane,” slurs the guy next to me. He’d been holding that stool down for a while.

“Hi. How’s the beer?”

“It’s awesome. I like the Curve Ball [Koelsch] the best.”

Based on this recommendation, I promptly ordered a Hefeweizen, the beer for which Pyramid is famous, despite their weird marketing campaign insisting patrons receive a lemon in it.

Pyramid Brewing, sponsored by the citrus industry

John wasn’t done with me. He moved to Spokane from Fort Lauderdale, and really likes the Pacific Northwest, partly because of the beer and also partly because it looks less stupid to walk around in flannel than in a wifebeater. I bought him another Curve Ball and settled in for some serious Weizenation.

Hefeweizen is one of those styles that really benefitted from the tenacity of American brewers. Five years ago, American Hefes sucked. The characteristc banana/clove notes imparted by the yeast were usually absent. The space above the beer where your nose goes was often suffused with a swampy, sump-pump odor, and the liquid sometimes had a weird yellow-green tinge. The fact that breweries like Pyramid are now producing excellent Hefeweizen, with perfect apricot coloring and a big, soapy head, is one of those things that instills patriotic pride within me. I drank two. And a Curve Ball Koelsch for John’s sake.

There’s a fine line between ‘critic’ and ‘idiot’

It’s simple evolution; a mediocre brewery would not be allowed to survive in this capitol of beer. My only regret about the Seattle trip was a lack of time to visit the other breweries. This will be rectified sometime this winter. In the words of a Great Seattleite, KAMPAI! (Oh, and Ichiro, get your ass over to the Yankees. We could use you in right field).

Beer in Seattle: Elysian Brewing Company

To many, the Pacific Northwest is the Bordeaux region of American brewing. A good chunk of the microbrewery movement got its start in the top left corner of the country and most American hops are grown there. After a whirlwind weekend in Seattle, I’m pleased to report that the beer is as good as you’d expect, despite the city’s mawkish obsession with espresso-based coffee drinks.

The problem with spending such a short time in as interesting a place as the Emerald City is you’re quickly overwhelmed with things to do. the other issue is that, although home to a ton of breweries, the place is really spread out. Thus I was limited to the physical premises of Elysian Brewing Company and Pyramid Brewing, although I tried beer from many others over the course of the weekend.

Elysian Brewing’s tap room

Elysian takes up an avenue corner in the trendy/seedy Capital Hill district, a roomy glass-fronted box perched at the halfway point of a steep incline. The place might have been an old car dealership, or something. Judging from the beer names, the owners enjoy their Athenian history.

My buddy Brian neck-deep in Elysian’s “The Immortal” IPA

IPA is the beer to order at Elysian. “The Immortal” is excellent, with a tantalizing citrus bite that makes you wonder if, like salmon from Puget Sound, the hops weren’t harvested from that day. I mean, obviously they weren’t; there wouldn’t be time to brew and ferment the beer, but there’s a freshness to Elysian’s draft Immortal that I hadn’t encountered before.

The preciously-named Perseus Porter stands out as well. There’s a dry, bready quality to the finish that I vastly prefer to the more common cloying sweet aftertaste of porter. There’s caramel and mocha in the aroma, ahd a hint of that in the flavor, but they accentuate the dry, roasted character of the beer instead of dominating it. The Perseus is capped off by a back-of-tongue bitterness that brings the beer into balance; This is the product of a skillful brewer.

Most of the other beers rocked as well. Nancy was on the Hefeweizen like Persephone on a pomegranate. “The Wise” ESB held its own, as well. The Zephyrus Pilsner disappointed, though, with a noticeable diacetyl flavor and a surprising lack of bitterness in the finish, considering they got the bitter flavor so right in the IPA.

Anyway, an hour at Elysian, and we were off to 70,000-seat Qwest Field to slurp Red Hook ESB and join 3,999 fellow soccer junkies as the Seattle Sounders defeated the Charleston Battery. Then, off to the nearby Pyramid Brewing company- a place which will be discussed at length in tomorrow’s post.

-Mark

Beer in Europe- the travels of Mark, Part II

When last we left our intrepid travelers, they were catching a high speed Thalys train through the Ardennes to Germany. We exited the train under the overcast skies of Cologne.

There are lots of picturesque, stately towns in Germany, and Cologne is not one of them. You’d think any town with the worlds largest gothic cathedral would try to measure up with the rest of its buildings. This is not the case. The Dom (cathedral) is settled on top of a huge concrete slab, across the skateboarder- infested square from the train station. All the surrounding buildings on the south side are squat corporate lego-offices built in the ’60s. North of the church runs the Hohestrasse, a cloned German pedestrian shopping street in which high-end boutiques mingle with kebab stands and lowbrow discount stores. On the Hohestrasse, you could be in any crowded city in Germany.

The Cathedral and an inexplicable David

The Altstadt and the Rhein seen from the Cathedral

That’s ok, though. We weren’t there for shopping or architectural wonder. We were there for the Kolsch.

Light in body, light in alcohol, and unique to Cologne, Kolsch is at once a unique beer style and a proud symbol of a city. “We served our Kolsch in .3 liter glasses,” the bartender in an Irish pub told us, “and the locals got mad because they were too big.”

You see, traditionally, Kolsch is served in .2 liter glasses (6.7 fluid ounces). When you finish one, the server doesn’t even ask; he or she simply fills another one and marks it on your coaster. You have to tell them to stop. Because the beers are so small, it takes an army of servers, all running around with their special Kolsch-carrier trays, to keep up with demand.

This beer gave me a complex

On the positive side, with such small, regular doses, it’s certainly easier to control your buzz, which is something I had absolutely no interest in doing.

My second Peters Kolsch of the evening

Kolsch is only brewed in Cologne, and several principal brewers vie for market share. Gaffel Kolsch is the biggest, and probably the only brand you’ll find in the USA. There’s also Sion, which is better, Frueh, which is better still, and Peters, which tastes the best. Each of these breweries has a beer hall on premises, where you can eat traditional meat-oriented German food to buffer yourself from the onslaught of beer shots.

Lumps of meat aside, I still woke up with a hangover.

Next post: Belgium Comes to Cooperstown

Back from Belgium and Germany

We just stepped across our threshold after two and a half ours of taxiing around JFK airport’s tarmac. I’ve got lots to post (including the definitive best kriek) but I’m too tired to do so now. Tune in tomorrow!

-Mark

Boston again

I just got back from another trip to Boston, where I hung with some friends and enjoyed the sunshine. Not much to report beer-wise; the best thing I had was Harpoon IPA.

At least I had a lot of it.

I’m going to Belgium next Thursday, and there’s a definite beery slant to the trip. Stay tuned, good readers, as Mark frolics among the Trappists.

How to slaughter a Monday

I love my job.

The ability to create my own weekly schedule (as can Bruce and our buddy Carl; we all work for the same company) allows the opportunity to gt the best out of the worst day of the week. Instead of spending Mondy toiling for “The Man,” the three of us hopped in the Element and headed to Syracuse for a quick pub crawl to Clark’s Ale House and The Blue Tusk.

Aside from the incredibly irritating crazy Lady babbling away inside Clark’s, we had so good a time that we were able to forget it took place in Syracuse. Middle Ages Wizard’s Winter Ale, Stone Smoked Porter, and Young’s Double Chocolate Stout more than made up for the insanity of the moment.

It amazes me, not only that two of the country’s best beer bars are in a crummy town like Sorrycuse, but also that they’re within a block of each other. I dunno, it just seems like an odd distribution. At any rate, they can have my Mondays any day of the week.

-Mark

Boston Redux

What better way to spend a three-day weekend than by travelling to the nation’s most historic city - a city saturated with culture and academia - and swilling a bunch of beer?

That’s how I roll.

We spent a pleasant evening last night in John Harvard’s Brew House. It’s not the best microbrew I’ve had, but it’s pretty good, and the oatmeal stout was pretty on-style and had a tantalizing oak-aged flavor, the source of which I know not.

Who knows what tonight shall bring. On my last trip, the Beer Works was a pleasant surprise, so perhaps another visit to Landsdowne Street is in order. Since you’re undoubtedly on the edge of your seat, I’ll keep you posted.

Oh, and I bought a new car. It may be funny-looking, but it’s perfectly suited for travelling to far-flung destinations and bringing home case upon case of interesting beer.

-Mark