Join me in a celebration of me brewing and you drinking 100 batches of beer in Maple Shade.  Our hundreth batch will hit the taps at 5:30 tomorrow and I’ll be there drinking one.   See you here!

Once a quarter or so Greg (our GM and designated driver) and I take a hand selected group of our staff out for a couple of beers to show our appreciation for what they’ve done for us over the past few months.  They’re often winners of performance contests we have in the restaurant, individuals who have gotten great feedback from our guests, or who have otherwise really excelled at their job.  Of course these field trips are always to places that have strong beer culture.  In addition to being a reward, its also meant to be an educational experience.  The first trip we took was to a few of my favorite beer destinations in Philadelphia (Tria, Monk’s and Good Dog).  The last one we did was a trip out to Victory Brewing Company.  Our staff has all had a tour of our brewery (some of them give tours) and have passed a test on the brewing process.  But I thought it would be fun for them to see how a bigger, more production-oriented brewery did things.  We had a great tour then sat down in Victory’s restaurant for some German cuisine.  On the way back to Maple Shade, we stopped by Varga bar and Swift Half for some quick nightcaps before crossing the bridge.  We plan to take our next field trip to Triumph up in Princeton.  I’ll put up some pictures of that one in a few months!

Thanks to all of you that came out for Monky Business, our most recent mug club event.  Lots of people showed up to drink our 8 Abbey style beers we had on tap, then stuck around to watch the Flyer’s game.  (What a great way to follow up a great beer event.)  As a matter of fact the game was going on while I was up on the bar getting ready for the raffle so I was able to let myself believe that people were cheering for me instead of what was going on on the big TV behind me!  Of course the raffle was something to cheer about, we sent lots of happy people home with shirts, hats, glassware, and gift cards.  The grand prize was a dinner for two to our August beer dinner.  In addition to the complimentary dinner the lucky couple won’t have to make reservations.  That’s almost a prize in itself as these things usually sell out in just over a day.  Another highlight was the Jereboam of  Oud Bruin that I brewed over four years ago.  There was only enough for a few ounces each but man has it aged nicely.  Thanks again for coming out and I look forward to sharing a beer with you at our one year anniversary party.  (more on that later!)

Chris

Not this kind…

This kind!

This Saturday, May 22nd between 1:00 and 5:00 pm we’ll be putting every Abbey style beer we’ve ever served in Maple Shade on tap!  That’s 8 styles in all including some rare barrel-aged and Brett variations.  If you want to try all of them we’ll be offering a sampler with four ounces each of seven of the styles.  One of the styles is a very limited release  and will only be available briefly.  At 3:00 pm we’ll be tapping a single pin of our Bourbon-aged Quadfather.  Below is a complete list with descriptions.  See you Saturday!

Chris

Abbey Single

OG: 1.038 Color: 16 IBU: 15 ABV: 3.9%

Monk’s table beer.  Light to medium bodied chestnut colored ale balancing specialty malts with the fruity and spicy notes of Westmalle yeast.

Abbey Dubbel

OG: 1.075 Color: 16 IBU: 25 ABV: 7.3%

Brewed in the style of a Belgian Trappist, it has a distinct aroma of plum and pear.  The flavor has the sweetness of dark Belgian candi sugar paired with nuances of fruit and spice. 

Belgian Tripel

OG: 1.083 Color: 4 IBU: 25 ABV: 9.0%

Traditional high gravity Belgian-style golden ale, complex aroma and flavor of plums, spice and bananas with a refreshing balanced bitterness.

American Tripel

OG: 1.083 Color: 4 IBU: 40 ABV: 9.0%

Belgian yeast marries with American hops for a nose and palate full of fruity characters.

Brett Tripel

OG: 1.083 Color: 4 IBU: 35 ABV: 9.0%

Our Tripel that has undergone a secondary fermentation in wood spiked with Brettanomyces L.  The Brett adds sour notes and complex leathery, earthy and barnyard characters.

 The Quadfather

OG: 1.099 Color: 18 IBU: 50 ABV: 9.5%

A truly full-bodied beer, Quadrupel is rich, malty and very complex.  Deep brown in color, this beer uses Belgian Abbey yeast, dark candi sugar and a huge assortment of specialty malts, providing layers of complex fruity aromas and flavors with a warming alcohol finish.

Bourbon Quad limited (one pin) serving at 3:00 pm

OG: 1.099 Color: 18 IBU: 50 ABV: 10.5%

The Quadfather aged in a used Four Roses Bourbon barrel.  The bourbon and oak notes add yet another layer to this already complex elixir.

Brett Quad

OG: 1.099 Color: 18 IBU: 50 ABV: 9.5%

The Quadfather after a secondary fermentation in wood spiked with Brettanomyces L.  The Brett adds a hint of sourness and a spicy funkiness.

Iron Hill Turns 100….. (batches of beer out)

This is why I'm a brewer and not a caligrapher

This morning Jeff and I brewed Iron Hill, Maple Shade’s 100th batch of beer.  We’re pretty excited, I don’t know if any of our locations have hit batch number 100 in such a short period of time.  You guys drink a lot of beer!  We thought since we were celebrating our hundreth batch, we’d make a 100-themed beer.  So it doesn’t really fit into a style, the recipe all revolved around a number.  Here it is;

100# Pilsner Malt

100# 2-Row Harrington

100# Maris Otter

100# Munich Malt

100# Vienna Malt

100# Carahelles

100# Malted Rye

100# Malted Wheat

100# Corn

100% Centennial hops (100 BU’s worth in the boil and 100 ounces for finishing hops)

Boiled at 100 degrees Celcius (actually that’s all of our beers, but hey…)

Should be out in around 3 weeks.  I’ll let you know when for sure!

Cheers,

Chris

I had a short video of the big brew day on my last post.  But if you want to see something way more professional with a few interviews, check out what Jeff from Beer Stained Letter put together.

As I’ve mentioned before, we at Iron Hill have strong ties to the homebrew world.  We all started out as homebrewers and we still do whatever we can to support the craft and community.  So when I learned that a group of homebrewers had lost their spot for Big Brew Day I thought “hmmmm, we’ve got a parking lot…”

May 7th is National Homebrew Day.  Every year homebrewers across the country celebrate the legalization of homebrewing on the first Saturday in May by…   Well how else would they celebrate it?  They get together and brew a ton of beer (and drink one or two while they do it)!

This past Saturday the Iron Hill parking lot saw 14 homebrewers (mostly from the newly formed “Barley Legal Homebrewers” club)  brew 16 batches of beer for a total of 135 gallons.

I had a wedding to go to that day so I wasn’t able to join them and make my own batch, but I did have time to help them set up, enjoy a couple of samples and check out the operation.  I was pretty amazed at how much was going on out behind the restaurant.  I was also pretty amazed at how high-tech some of the systems were.  Some of this equipment actually made me jealous!  You can click here or on any one of the pictures to see a short video that gives you an idea of just how much was going on that day.

I love Iron Hill’s Burgers.  The Blue Cheese Burger is my favorite (not just the cheese, but the mushroom duxelle).  I love them so much that I have to force a self-imposed limit of one burger per week.  Otherwise I might eat them every day.  I may have to lift that  limit next month.  You see May is National Burger Month and Iron Hill plans to celebrate!  We’re doing “A Burger a Day in the Month of May”.  That’s right, a different burger every day available at both lunch and dinner.  We’ve got a very talented culinary staff and I’m really looking forward to some of these creations.  I’ve looked at the list and I can’t wait for the Sumo Burger or Luau Burger to name a couple.  I think I’ll probably take the day off for the Onion Lover’s.  The only onion I can handle is the satirical publication.  I’m setting up a Twitter account just for Burger month (BurgeraDay) so you can see what each day’s burger is.  All I can say is I’m glad they finished the work on the Maple Shade Bridge so I can return to riding my bike to work.  I’ll need it!

Chris

Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant took the “Best Large Brewpub of the Year” title Saturday night at the World Beer Cup.  The distinction is determined by the amount and level of medals won by a company.  This year Bob “The Medal Machine” Barrar took two Golds and a Bronze for the Media location and Justin snagged a Silver and Bronze for Newark.  Nice job guys!  As you can imagine getting up for our flight on Sunday morning wasn’t exactly easy!  Congratualtions also to Yards, Troeg’s, Nodding Head and Weyerbacher for their wins.  Affirmation once again that we live in one of the best parts of the country for drinking beer.

Just wanted to share some photos of the pre and post celebrations of our victory.  Every year Mark takes us all out for a nice steak dinner the night before the results are read.  That way we get a celebration in regardless of how we actually do at the competition.  Mark gave a nice toast about how lucky we were to be in this industry and how “no matter what happens tomorrow” we’re one of the best brewing companies in the world.  It turns out that “no matter what” wasn’t necesarry.  Yep, there’s  a lot of wine in that photo.  Unfortunately most steak houses have awful beer lists, but the boys like their steak.  So once in a while we have to slum it and drink wine.  We ended the night with Bob devouring about a one pound ice cream wedge covered in just about every kind of sweet and gooey accompanyment you can imagine.  We’re a supersitious bunch, when we do something and then win a bunch of medals afterward we feel like we have to do it every year.  So I guess in 2012 Bob will have to eat another pound of ice-cream.  Something tells me he will embrace the obligation. 

Once we got to the awards dinner things got a little tenser.  We went through about half of the ceremony without winning anything.  And we had beers in a few of the categories that we’d gone through.  It wasn’t looking good for a bit, but once they called our name for the first time, the medals just kept on coming.  We won a total of 5, two golds, one silver and two bronzes.  The cherry on top came when they announced that we had taken the title of  Best Large Brewpub for 2010 and 2011.  As you can imagine a lot of celebration followed.  In Chicago the bars are open almost all night so it took a lot of discipline to get home in time for even a little bit of sleep before the flight back!