This past weekend Suzanne and I headed down to Baltimore for Max’s 72 Hour Belgian Beer Fest.  One of the nice things about dating a beer writer is you can bring her to a beer fest for Valentine’s Day and she won’t think there’s anything wrong with that.  We actually went last year too and at this point it looks like a tradition.

Despite what you see on The WIre, Baltimore is actually a great town to spend some time in.  It’s close enough to get to in a short train ride but it’s far enough away that you can feel like you’re on vacation while you’re there. 

The first time we went down it was just to get away.  We went on a little pub crawl based on this web page.  It was a great guide and it brought us to a couple of places that we wouldn’t have gone to otherwise including McHaffey’s and One Eyed Mike’s (not a beer place at all but a the bartenders and patrons make it a very good time).

On that trip we stopped into Max’s and at first glance I wasn’t impressed.  I saw a big place with lots of neon, big screen TVs and sixty something beers on tap.  My experience with bars with matching descriptions in Philly and Boston wasn’t a good one.  Those places weren’t about the beer.  Max’s is.  I had a short conversation with Casey Hard who runs Max’s and learned he really really cares about beer.  He had spent the previous night in Max’s cleaning the beer lines and staging the kegs.  He started at last call and was just finishing up hourse before the event.  Casey keeps the tap list interesting and works hard to make sure everything is fresh.  He also pointed out that having good beer didn’t mean you weren’t allowed to cater to sports fans too.  Touche.  Something for everyone here.

So on Friday morning we take the train down to Charm City, drop our bags of at the hotel and head to Broadway to wait for Max’s to open.  It’s 10:45 AM and the street is packed with people waiting for Max’s to open. Don’t you people have jobs? The doors opened at 11:00 and everyone flooded in.  We were there 15 minutes before opening and we still didn’t get a seat at the bar or a table!  We grabbed some drink rail and started sampling.

This is a very well run event.  They offer full or 6 ounce pours of every beer on tap.  They’re well organized and appropriately staffed.  They even have one bartender dedicated to a window where people can line up and wait for service.  If you’re like me and not the type of person that likes to shoulder your way up to a 3 deep bar, wave your money over your head and shout “hey buddy” at the bartender this is a nice option.

As for the list, I’ll let you see for yourself.  The list they give out on Friday morning is the initial line-up.  On Saturday and Sunday they issue ammendments with what has kicked and what has replaced those beers.  There were one-offs, vintage beers and U.S. premiers on the list.  Lots of good stuff.  Make sure you put it one your calander for next year.  See you there!

That’s what I plan to do.  You won’t have me to kick around in West Chester any more!  It’s official, I’ll be leaving you this spring to go and open up our newest location in Maple Shade, NJ.  I actually grew up in south Jersey, about 13 miles from where I’ll be working.  So it will feel a little bit like going home.  I’m wondering how many people from high school I’ll wind up seeing sitting at the bar drinking my beers!

I live in center city, so the move is mostly about the (MUCH) shorter commute.  I am, however excited about having a hand in building a brand new location and to bringing something that is sorely lacking to the neighborhood.  Living in Philly I find myself at a lot of beer events and in a lot of beer-centric bars in the city.  I’m constantly running across people who cross the bridge to come drink in the City of Brotherly Suds.  I know that there is a huge community of homebrewers and beer fans in southern New Jersey that are just waiting for a place to drink beer and I can’t wait to make it for them.

I am however going to miss West Chester.  I’ve always joked that I have the best office view in the company including any of the owners.  I look outside of my brewery and see cobblestone and brick sidewalks with lots of happy friendly people walking by.  I’m going to miss the Old Fashioned Family Christmas, Halloween Parade and Restaurant Fest.  I’m going to miss running into people from the bike club I helped found 5 years ago.  I’ll miss the Buzz Off, and Iron Hill Twilight Criterium, and Belgium Comes to West Chester (although you’ll probably still see me at all of those).

Hopefully some of you will miss me too.  You’ll be in good hands though.  Larry Horwitz from North Wales will be coming to take my place in West Chester.  He’ll be bringing is own personality and specialty beers and hopefully brew a couple of my old favorites too.

I hope to see a lot of you before leaving to start construction.  And hopefully some of you will cross the state line to visit me once I do.

Cheers,

Chris

Jean and I drowning in 26 pounds of whole-leaf Horizon and Galena hops

This Thursday at 5 pm we’ll be tapping the ’09 batch of our Golden Barleywine.  This beer by the way, isn’t a barleywine at all.  I just called it that because when I first brewed it I didn’t know what else you’d call a 10% alcohol hop bomb.  This was before the days when Double IPAs had their own category.  Also because I was inspired to brew this beer at a barleywine festival.

It was at the 1997 Split Thy Skull barleywine festival, then hosted by the now expatriated Jim Anderson.  I wasn’t even a professional brewer yet.  Just an eager homebrewer and a server at the original Dock St. who hassled the brewers daily to let him scrub the floors in the brewery for free.  I was diligently working my way through the list of rich, malty, high alcohol beers when I came across one I didn’t recognize.  It was from Big Hole Brewery in Montana.  Jim had a knack for getting beers at his events that weren’t normally available in our market.

I stepped up and ordered one and the bartender handed me a (what??) glass of bright golden liquid.  The beer geek in me scoffed at the breach of style guidelines.  Barleywines are supposed to be dark!  The one we brewed at Dock Street was black!  But what the hell, I’d already paid for it.  I raised the beer to my lips and it woke me up and set the groundwork for the beer I still brew 12 years later at Iron Hill.

This beer was dry and wonderfully bitter with a huge American hop aroma and flavor.  I remember thinking it was one of the best beers I’d ever tasted.  Looking back, it also may have just been the fact that it was incredibly refreshing to have something dry and bitter after a morning of drinking sweet chewy brews.  Either way it was the one beer that stood out to me that day.  Right then and there I thought “when I’m a professional brewer and I make a barleywine, its going to be golden and hoppy”.

I’ve never been to Big Hole Brewery and I haven’t had one of their products since that morning in a dive bar in the basement of an old Sugar Refinery.  I even did a little googling before writing this post and it doesn’t appear as though they have a website.  The label above was the only graphic I could find related to the brewery and I don’t think the beer it adorns has anything to do with what I tasted back then.  I did find a couple of Beer Advocate and Pub Crawler reviews though, so hopefully that means they’re still around and making great beer. 

So anyway I’ll be releasing this beer on Thursday for our Mug Club Renewal Party.  I’ll also be tapping a two year old firken of the same beer.  Should be an interesting comparison.

So if you’re in the mug club come out and renew.  If you’re not come out anyway and enjoy a Golden Barleywine (or whatever you want to call it).  By the way, if you come to Iron Hill with any sort of frequency and you’re not in the mug club you may be crazy.  Check it out.

The mug club renewal will begin at 5 pm.  We’ll be putting some appetizers out around 5:30 and raffling off some prizes at 7:30.  Mug club members will also be able to take home both their 2008 and 2009 mugs that evening.

I look forward to seeing all of you there!

Cheers,
Chris

Wow, it  felt like winter this morning.  Not just cold but snow.  Not just snow but storybook, tree lacing, car covering, snowman making snow.  Weather like this makes me want to drink winter beers.  Big, rich, chewy, malty boozy beers.  Bourbon aged beers.

Iron Hill has been doing Bourbon-aged beers for some time now.  We take and already great beer, preferably something strong, dark and malty and put it into a used bourbon barrel for several months.  It always comes out liquid gold.  Almost as much a dessert as a beverage.

In tha past the availability of these beers has been sporadic.  We only do about three kegs at a time (one barrel’s worth) so they go on and off tap quicker than you can say “whiskey”.  People would wait and wait for one to go on tap, then come in a few days later to find out they’d just missed it. 

We’ve fixed that.  We’ve been stockpiling our Bourbon stuff for a month long celebration of barrel aged brews.  For the entire month of February you’ll be able to stroll into any Iron Hill and find bourbon beer on tap, usually more than one style.

Currently here in West Chester we’ve got barrel aged versions of Winter Warmer (dark, strong and finished with winter spices) and Pig Iron Porter (our award winning porter, barrel aged with whole vanilla beans).  I’ve also got Wee Heavy, Russian Stout and barrel aged Cherry Baltic Porter in the pipeline.

So when you get done shoveling your walk and need to warm up, forget about the cocoa.  Treat yourself to a glass of Bourbony goodness!

Cheers,

Chris