I started a little tradition when I was brewing in West Chester and I’ve brought it with me to Maple Shade.  Once a year we make a special, unique and tiny batch of beer just for our staff and we give it out around the holidays.  The beer is called Appreciation and that’s what it’s all about; showing the rest of our restaurant how much we appreciate all of the hard work they’ve given us over the past year.

I always say that the staff is what makes Iron Hill what it is.  We make great beer here, don’t get me wrong.  But we live and work in a part of the country that is just teeming with excellent local beer.  I have a lot of very talented contemporaries that keep me humble.  When it comes to what happens outside of the brewery though, I don’t feel the need to be humble.  I can’t think of another brewery restaurant operation that can boast a staff that knows as much about beer as ours.  They’re passionate and knowlegable and you don’t find that everywhere.  I’ve drank in a lot of brewpubs all over the country and I have to say that our crew is what really sets us apart.

The Appreciation is different every year.  It’s made in a one keg batch on the same equipment that the owners homebrewed on before Iron Hill existed.  It’s usually designed by the assistant brewer who uses some crazy ingredients that might be too daring or expensive to make a whole batch of.  Most importantly its only for the staff.  Appreciation can’t be bought anywhere.

There’s a picture of it here but you can’t really read the text on it.  Here’s what it says.

We love our jobs.  There aren’t many people that make a living doing what some choose to do as a hobby.  We know that we wouldn’t have this job if it weren’t for the person holding this bottle.  You sell the beer we make, craft the food it pairs with or otherwise make this place work.  The ber in this bottle is a small token of our APPRECIATION.  Appreciation was brewed and hand bottled by us for you, the staff of Iron Hill, Maple Shade.  This year’s appreciation was brewed with golden raisens, rosemary, honey, Belgian yeast and of course lots of love.  We hope ou enjoy it because you deserve to.  We also hope you enjoy whatever holiday you celebrate this season.  Just make sure you celebrate something.  Thanks again and Happy Holidays. 

Chris and Jeff

Cheers,

Chris

When I was working at the Iron Hill in West Chester, one of my favorite nights of the year was that of  the Old Fashioned Family Christmas.  There was a parade, a tree lighting, hot cider on the sidewalks and cold beer in the restaurant.  It was also one of a few nights on which the Cartoon Christmas Trio played in Iron Hill.  Well it seems as though I’ve already missed Maple Shade’s town festivities, but I’ll at least get to see the Trio.  I love these guys.  They’re made up of three year-round professional musicians that get together every year around the holidays to play holiday music.  They play a range of jazz influenced holiday tunes, but they focus in particular on the music of the Peanuts and Vince Guaraldi.  I don’t know about you but it only takes a few bars of “Skating” or “Linus and Lucy” to get me in the spirit.  I’ll be hanging out to watch the band and drink a Winter Warmer or two.  I’ll also be tapping a firken of our “Charlie Brown Ale“.  The band starts at 7:00 pm, come by and have a beer with me.  Who knows, maybe the band will throw you one of their famous “No L” pins that Jack Curtin is such a fan of.

Belgian Pale on tap. Copper, medium bodied and sessionable. Fruity yeast character balanced by a healthy dose of Styrian Goldings. 5.4% abv

During the construction of the brewery I dedicated a post to McMaster-Carr, the king of catalogues.  These guys really made my life much easier during the project.  Many of you have only started reading this since the restaurant opened.  If you want to go back and read the post, here it is.  Anyhow one of my favorite styles of beer to brew is Wee Heavy or Strong Scotch Ale.   I was dreaming up names for it and it only made sense to name it in tribute to McMaster-Carr.  A measly blog post just didn’t do them justice.  (After all, a lot more people drink my beer than read my blog).  McMaster is strong, not just in alcohol (8%), but also in flavor and body.  We made sure there was plenty of residual sugar in this beer.  (The finishing gravity of this beer was the same as the original gravity of our Light Lager for all of you beer geeks out there).  It’s rich and malty-sweet, with just a touch of roast.  SOAP BOX ALERT -ed. In case you’re wondering, there is no peated malt or smoky character in this beer.  Peated malt belongs in Scottish Whisky, not Scottish beer.  Years ago some homebrewer decided to throw some peated malt into his beer, things got out of hand, and now some people actually expect it.  But I maintain that putting peated malt into Scotch Ale, just because it has the word “Scotch” in it is like putting cumin in an IPA just because it has the word “Indian” in it.   (Of course Brian Finn disagrees and he’s got a few GABF and World Beer Cup medals for the style to back him up.  Maybe I should keep my mouth shut).   What can I say, I’m a purist.  Anyhow I’m off to the bar to enjoy one and rant about peated malt to whichever poor sap sits next to me.

Cheers,

Chris

McMaster is on on tap. Strong Scotch Ale. Dark, sweet, rich and malty with a touch of roast to balance out the sweetness. 8% abv.

Five seats left for our December 2nd beer dinner. Email me if you want to see the menu. Chrisl@ironhillbrewery.com

Iron Hill beer will be featured at Michael Alan’s Barber shop tonight. Make an appointment for a shave and a beer. Michaelalansbarbers.com

Those of you who have met me know that I’m not a real big haircut kind of guy.  But a visit to Michael Alan’s could be what it takes to get me in the barber chair.  One of our bartenders (Jon) and my assistant Jeff have both paid visits to this shop in the past couple weeks and have both come back raving about it.  Now this isn’t your usual barber shop.  You can get a haircut there, but you can also shoot a game of pool, browse their humidor from an overstuffed leather chair, watch the game on directTV and have a complimentary coffee or beer while you wait for your straight-razor and hot-towel shave.  That’s right, beer with your haircut.  This Wednesday evening the beer just happens to be from Iron Hill.  They’ll be pouring growlers of our Pumpkin Ale, Vienna Lager and Ironbound Ale.  I’d suggest making an appointment.  These guys fill up fast.  Of course it wouldn’t hurt to just try walking in either.  Even if they’re full-up, the worst that would happen is you’d check the place out, have a great beer and leave with your locks intact.

Cheers,

Chris

India Black Ale returns. On tap tonight! Touch of roast to compliment an intense American hop nose and firm but pleasant bitterness. 7.6%

A couple of months ago Jeff and I caught wind of something called Triple Hops Brewing.  Since then we’ve been dying to try it but weren’t quite sure how we’d go about doing it.  There’s one brewery that has a unique triple hops brewing process but we were pretty sure they weren’t sharing their secrets.  Guess what?  All of their secrets are right there on their website!  Unbelievable!  Don’t these guys know that just about anyone with a computer can get on the world wide web and steal their secrets?  Well now we’re keen to their process.  Not so unique any more is it guys?  We’ve tried it in our Black IPA to see if we could make it taste “insanely great.”    We added two pounds of Columbus hops to create flavor and aroma (and we always thought aroma came from the last hops, DUH!), then we added five pounds of Chinook hops to develop balance and get the right amount of body, then we added another five pounds of Columbus to lock in the taste by enhancing the foamy head.  We even considered taking it a step further and using 26 pounds of whole leaf Horizons in the hop back and another two pounds of Centennial in the fermenter but we were afraid that might make the beer too filling.  It wasn’t easy going from our usual brew day to a 3-step brewing process but we’re hoping it will pay off. Well the beer will be on tap on Thursday night, so you can see for yourself how well we interpreted this groundbreaking process.  If you like it maybe you’ll drink it Thursday, Friday, and every day for the rest of your naturally born life!  Ok, enough blogging for me.  I’ve got to do some more internet research and see if I can increase the drinkability of my beer too!

SARCASM ALERT!!!!! (We did not steal proprietary information from Miller or any other megabrewery.  We are not forging headlong into the future with a cutting edge brewing technique.  This is how micro brewers and home brewers have been making beer since we’ve been brewing beer.)

Cheers,

Chris