Sometimes I’ll do a train/bicycle combo to and from work (although I’ve been lazy this past month.)  When I do I usually ride from the Westmont station.  All spring and summer I’d noticed a storefront with signs promising the coming of a new homebrew shop.  Look’s like its open!  When I saw they were in business I had to pop in and check it out on my way to the station.  I still get a nostalgic sort of excitement when I walk into a homebrew shop.  It reminds me of the days when I’d visit George and Nancy at  Home Sweet Homebrew to grab the ingredients for my next creation.

I met Brett, the owner of Brew Your Own Bottle.  I like the concept of his shop.  They seem set up to provide a pretty wide array of ingredients for the experienced homebrewer, but they also seem willing and able to help newbies get started.  The shop offers classes for beginning homebrewers and even a brew on premesis option for people who don’t want to invest in equipment or mess their kitchens up!

If you’re at all interested in getting started with homebrewing, pop your head in and say Hi to Brett.  (Oh, and for those of you with poorer taste, he sells wine-making supplies too.)

Cheers,

Chris

Last month I told the staff that I was dedicated to always having some type of IPA on tap, whether it be traditional, American, black, Belgian, Imperial etc.  Then I released Rising Sun, it sold out about twice as quickly as I’d expected, and I promptly broke my promise.  Well I’m working to catch up.  I’ve got India Black Ale in the tank and firkens now and we’re brewing another batch of Rising Sun on Wednesday.  The good news is that I’ve got 1/4 keg each of the Rising Sun and #100 squirreled away and I’m going to put them on tap on Wednesday at 5:00 when I tap those firkins of India Black Ale.  So for a brief (possibly very brief) while we’ll have three IPAs on tap.  I saved just a little bit of the #100 and Rising Sun in the hopes that I’d be sending one of them out to the GABF, but alas Bob’s Hopilicious from Media beat me out.  (Every year we do a blind tasting of a few styles that we’re entering for competititon to see which location gets to represent the company in Denver.)  That’s OK, Hoplicious deserves to go and this way there’s less for the judges, more for us!

Cheers,

Chris

Since we don’t normally name beers after people, a lot of people have been asking who Pete is.  Chris figured it was appropriate for me to explain why I named this Belgian Quad “Pete’s Celebration”.

I’ve known Pete since I was born.  My mother was pregnant with my older brother Brian while Pete’s mother was pregnant with him.  They were born within a couple of weeks of each other.  Since then our families have always spent time together over the holidays, and during these get-togethers I always got to try Pete’s homebrews. During my junior year in college I decided I wanted to “make something” for a living and more specifically I wanted a career making one of my two favorite beverages, beer or tea.  Obviously beer won out.  With that decision made, I sent Pete an e-mail expressing my interest in homebrewing.  The next day I recieved an extensive e-mail about everything from what equipment was needed to details about the steps in a partial mash brew day. 

A year after I graduated from Kenyon College, I went back to Ohio to visit my friends who would be on campus.  The last day of my visit I stayed with Pete in Columbus and met Ellyn, his present day fiance.  That night, after Pete and I enjoyed a few yards of Avery, he told me that he planned on proposing to Ellyn and half-jokingly asked me to brew him a beer, either at work or home for his wedding.  Shortly after my return from Ohio I was offered the job at Iron Hill.

A few months ago I returned from Siebel with some malt samples from Briess Malting in Wisconson.  Chris asked me what I wanted to do with them and I suggested a Belgian Quadrupel.  I formulated the grain bill for the following Monday’s brew.  Chris told me since it was my beer I had to name it too and to think about it over the next few days.  Coincidentally, over the weekend preceding the brew day I found out that Pete had proposed.  So there it is, my first beer at Iron Hill is dedicated to the guy who got me into homebrewing and his bride to be.  We’ll be tapping Pete’s Celebration on Wednesday September 8th at 5 pm.  See you then.

- Jeff

Just wanted to give you a preview of what we’re putting on tomorrow night at 5 pm.  Don’t worry if you can’t make it in, these are all full batches of beer that will be on tap for a while.  It’s just not often we throw four new beers on tap at the same time.  These are all beers I’m sending to the Great American Beer Festival, so I worked the brew schedule so that each beer would be at its peak when we sent it off to Denver for judging.  As a result we’ve got a bunch of fun beers premiering on the same day.  Two of these are gold medal winning recipes that we’ve never brewed at this location before. (They’re slow stubborn styles that I didn’t have tank space/time for before the delivery of F8).  So come out to have a beer with Jeff and I and wish us luck in Denver! 

Here’s the lineup;

The Cannibal – Named for cycling legend Eddy Merckx, this beer is also strong and Belgian.  Golden ale with a complex yeast character reminiscent of tropical fruit with a balancing bitterness and dry spicy finish.  7.9% abv 2005 GABF gold medal, 2006 WBC Silver medal

Saison - Belgian-style farmhouse ale.  Unfiltered, bright and light bodied, yet with a yeast character that is at once earthy, fruity, and spicy.  7.0% abv 2008 GABF gold medal

Caprice – Our tribute to Belgium’s tributes to American hops.  Classic Belgian (Orval) yeast marries with the fruity characters of American hops.  Dry sessionable and refreshing.  5.4% abv

Hopfenweizen - Another Euro-American hybrid.  Banana and clove notes from Bavarian wheat beer yeast mingle with the fruity characters of American Citra hops.  5.0% abv

Cheers,

Chris

That’s not a typo, the beer that won this year’s Iron Brewer competition was a collaborative effort of Jim Carruthers and Scott Davi.  Several months ago I posted about the wort giveaway and subsequent competition we do every year.  It’s a tradition I started years ago in our West Chester location and it’s always been a lot of fun. Don Russel (Joe Sixpack) wrote an article about it a while back that summed up the spirit of the whole thing pretty nicely.  Anyhow, we finally got around to judging the beers that resulted and I have to say there was some great stuff!  So what did the guys win?  They’ll get to come in and brew their own recipe in our brewery, name the beer (within the confines of good taste gentlemen!) and take home a 1/4 barrel of it.  The original plan was to brew the winning recipe, but the beer they won with happened to be an American Pale Ale and we didn’t want Ironbound to get jealous.  So they agreed to brew a different style.  They brewed a Coffee Stout a while back that they’re pretty proud of so we’re going to scale up that recipe and brew it here.  Once I get back from the GABF in Denver we’ll get it in the tanks.  You should be seeing a release party sometime in November.  I’ll keep you posted.

Cheers,

Chris

I meant to put something up on my blog about this months and months ago.  I ran into the winners of the 2010 Off Centered Film competition at the Sly Fox goat races and I told them I wanted to post the winning film on my blog.  Of course I got busy and it slipped away from me.  Well I was just up in Cooperstown for “Belgium Comes to Cooperstown” and I ran into Brian and Robert (that’s with an accent aigu, which I haven’t figured out how to do in wordpress) again and thought “hmmm, I never posted that.”  Well here it is.  Good stuff.

Our first year anniversary / mug club renewal party was a huge success.  Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate with us.  Check out the ice sculpture!  That was done by Richard Glodowski, one of our very own chefs.  He’s got his own ice sculpting business.  Check out the photo gallery on his site, there’s some really impressive work showcased.  We always knew he was talented in the kitchen, but wow!   Below the ice sculpture pics, I’m also posting some photos of  happy guests and staff at the party.  Check them out.

Thanks again for coming,

Chris

Founders Kevin and Mark, with Brewers Chris and Jeff.  Photo courtesy of Jeff Linkous of Beer Stained Letter.

Mug club members get their shot in front of the sculpture.

Mark and Kevin cutting the cake.  I was waiting for them to feed it to each other.

That’s me!  Tapping a pin of Bourbon Quadfather

Asst General Manager Pim loves the camera.

MMMMMM Beer!

Cheers!

Just wanted to remind everyone that tomorrow is our one year anniversary party!  Hard to believe it, time flies. 

We’ll have some very special beers on tap from 1-5 pm.  Below is  a list.  Hopefully you’ll be here to celebrate with me and the rest of the crew.

Cheers,

Chris

Dark Situation (Cask Conditioned)
We set a couple of firkins of this aside after The Situation’s release party and this is the last one left.  It’s a blend of The Situation (golden barleywine) and Russian Imperial Stout.  The result is a complex marriage of rich, sweet specialty malt character and lots of American hop bitterness and aroma to balance it.  9.8% abv

Christmas in July
When the holidays were in full swing we filled a used bourbon barrel with our Winter Warmer (a strong dark ale finished with winter spices).  It’s been sitting in there soaking up bourbony deliciousness since then.  Jeff is kegging it off as we speak.  7.2% abv

Vintage English Strong Ale
Bold, rich, dark and malty, brewed with molasses and demerara sugar. 7.2% abv

Flemish Red Ale
Deep red to brown in color, this beer starts off malty, with a bit of caramel character and subtle chocolate notes, then finishes with a refreshing tartness. 5.0% abv

LIMITED TAPPING!!!  Bourbon Quadfather
This one will be tapped at 3 pm, and probably gone by 3:15.
Our dark Belgian Strong Ale aged in a used bourbon barrel for four months.  Strong, complex malt flavors and yeast fruitiness are complimented by distinct bourbon and vanilla notes, served on nitrogen. 10.2% abv

As I’ve mentioned earlier, you folks have been drinking enough beer here in Maple Shade for me to convince my bosses to give me another tank.   We just installed it last week and the next day we brewed up our Anniversary Ale for our one year anniversary party on July 24th.  I shot a bunch of video of the install for anyone who’s wondering how we get something that big into the brewery.  For most of you these clips will be as boring as watching yeast multiply.  But for those of you that have a fetish for heavy equipment and construction, just click on the pictures below.  I’m pretty excited to have this fermenter, now I get to make more of those beers that take up a lot of time in the tank.  I haven’t been able to do many specialty lagers in the ‘Shade.  I just couldn’t tie a tank up for that long.  Also, as luck would have it, my only gold medal winning beers are both styles that tie tanks up for as long as 60 days!  That’s why you haven’t seen any of The Cannibal or my Saison yet. That, my friends, has been remedied.  We brewed The Cannibal a couple of weeks ago, and the Saison last week!  Look for those in a month or two.

Cheers,

Chris

I’m not predicting the outcome of Sunday’s match.  I’m just looking at our beer list. I just adjusted our beer sign wall and realized that our beer list was looking particularly teutonic.  Not planned per se, just had a bunch of serendipitous  occurences that lead to us having four German seasonals on tap.  Paul, our brewer in Lancaster, sent me an e-mail last month letting me know he had a culture of Düsseldorf yeast if I wanted it.  I couldn’t resist the temptation to brew an Altbier.  It’s one of my favorite styles and I think it’s hugely under represented in the US.  Then I figured since we had the yeast in house I should put it to use in a Kölsch.  Of course its summertime, so I’ve got a Hefe on tap.  Then there’s that keg of German Pilsner I’d been saving for our beer dinner that’s now free to put on tap.  So we’re looking at a lot of German selections.  German beer, by the way, is one of the reasons I love being a beer lover in the Philadelphia area.  The east coast has always been ahead of the rest of the country in lager brewing.  Even brewing hubs such as California and Colorado tend to stick to their IPAs, Porters, Hefes, and more recently Belgians.  Philly had Dock Street brewing lagers 24 years ago, when it was nearly unheard of in a brewpub.  Stoudt’s made their name with traditional German beers, and we’ve also got breweries such as Troeg’s and Sly Fox turning out some world class German styles.  Maybe the fact that America’s first lager was brewed right in Northern Liberties may have something to do with all of that.  The Pils may not make it ’till Sunday, but by then we’ll still have 3 German brews on tap.  And don’t worry England fans, Pig Iron Porter is on tap year round.