About 2 weeks ago our Head Chef Dave Foster and Mug Club member Jason Uhl joined me in brewing “Rojo Grande”.  Rojo Grande is an Imperial Red Ale that weighs in at 7.5 % alcohol, is medium bodied and has fresh citrus and perfume aromas and flavors.  Simply put, this is a big hoppy beer.  On Friday the 18th at 5 pm Dave, Jason and I will tap Rojo Grande and also a special cask of Rojo Grande that was fermented with wildflower honey. 

 Now, on to the good cause part.  If you bring a toy in between 5-9 pm and donate it to Toys For Tots, I will personally buy your first glass of either version of Rojo Grande.  You know the deal, they only accept new and unwrapped toys.  I’ll make Dave wear a Santa hat and we can take pictures with him, it will be great. 

Today in the brewery we learned about sharing. Jason (left), Dave (right).

Your Brewer,

Vince

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So for the past 3 years I have hollowed out a pumpkin, filled it with beer and hammered a tap into its side.  I am always afraid that the pumpkin is going to crack and beer will spill everywhere.  I present exhibit A.  While tapping last years pumpkin (which weighed in at 168 lbs.)  I asked the crowd to back up because I wasn’t paying for shoes if the pumpkin cracked.

After seeing how much fun everybody has had the last couple years, I am finally hosting a Tapping of the Pumpkins party.  Pumpkins, plural.  I am tapping TWO GIANT PUMPKINS this year.  Along with the tapping of the pumpkins we are having a costume contests for guests, and one for all the Iron Hill employees.  The kitchen didn’t want to be left out so our Head Chef Dave Foster-a.k.a. Rojo Grande is going to make a bunch of pumpkin flavored goodies, last year his pumpkin cookies were AMAZING.  I know he has more planned for this year as well.  As if that wasn’t enough, we are also handing out a bunch of prizes for the best costumes!  So plan on getting dressed up.  We do have one other thing going on.  Actually 7 more things going on, the 7 pumpkin beers we are putting on tap and having a separate sampler for.  So for those of you keeping score at home that is 7 pumpkin beers for the sampler and two secret beers pouring out of BIG pumpkins.

We have 4 beers from Iron Hill – Ichabod Imperial Pumpkin Ale, Pumpkin Berliner Weisse, Pumpkin Ale, and the http://www.zoowithroy.com/ sanctioned Doctoberfest.  The Doctoberfest is one of the fastest moving beers I have ever made.  I had to set a keg aside about 3 weeks ago just for this event because every time I put a keg on tap Donkey Nation showed up in full effect and it was gone in a matter of minutes.

One beer from The Cambridge Brewing Co. – The Great Pumpkin Ale

Two beers from The Elysian Brewing Co. – Pk-47, and Dark O’ The Moon Stout.  I am still shocked that we have two beers from these guys.  They are amazing.  I can’t wait to drink them myself.

Pumpkins being tapped, costume contest, pumpkin goodies from the kitchen, and 9 pumpkin beers to choose from.  Beat that!  The fun starts at 5 p.m. and when a beer kicks, it kicks so get here early.

Your Brewer,

Vince

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It never ceases to surprise me that Pumpkin Ales are so popular.  I’m pretty sure that is how I got my Dad into craft beer.  I would hear “Hey, if you are coming up to visit can you bring some of your Pumpkin Ale with you?”…..in February.  I would have to explain to my Dad for the 20th time that we only have Pumpkin Ale on tap in the Fall. I would say that I think it adds a nice to touch to the season and gets everybody in the mood for the upcoming change in weather and scenery.  He already knew all of that of course, but it is his way of saying “Vince, make some more pumpkin ale.”

Well Dad, here you go (Happy early Birthday).  Today we tap Pumpkin Ale and through the month of October we will have 11 different variations of Pumpkin Ale on tap.  Some from Iron Hill and some from our friends.  Here is the lineup. 

9/23-5pm-We tap Pumpkin Ale.

9/27-5pm-We tap Doctoberfest, a playoff beer in honor of Roy “Doc” Halladay.  Oktoberfest blended with pumpkin spices!  Hi WWW.ZOOWITHROY.COM, word has it that if you wear a ZWR shirt, you get a free piece of pumpkin pie!

9/30-I will be in Denver attending the Great American Beer Festival, so no we won’t tap anything new.  I don’t want to miss out on the Pumpkin fun either you know!

10/7-5pm-We tap a cask of Pumpkin Ale.

10/14-5pm-We tap a cask of Pumpkin Ale aged with raw honeycombs.

10/21-5pm-We will have a cask challenge VS. our Media location and Head Brewer Robert Barrar.  North Wales will tap a cask of Pumpkin Ale aged with Madagascar Vanilla beans.  Media will tap a cask of Rye IPA blended with Pumpkin Spices.  The first cask to kick wins!

10/28-The tapping of the Pumpkins-Starting at 5 pm we will have 7 Pumpkin beers on tap!  We will also have a costume contest for guests with prizes being awarded AND we will be tapping 2 real pumpkins this year.  Last year the Pumpkin was 168 lbs and filled with Imperial Pumpkin Porter.  This year, it’s a surprise!  Here is the lineup.

ON TAP FROM THE ELYSIAN BREWING CO.

 pk 47 pumpkin malt liquor

 dark o’ the moon pumpkin stout

ON TAP FROM THE CAMBRIDGE BREWING CO. 

One of our most popular beers is Oktoberfest.  It’s a traditional German festival beer.  It’s a  full-bodied deep amber lager and has a wonderful malty and bready aroma and a firm malt flavor, balanced with mild bitterness and a clean dry finish.  I’m shocked every morning after we put it on tap because the level of beer in the Serving Tank has dropped so much. 

We will tap our first batch(yep, we made 2 batches! WooHoo000!) of Oktoberfest, Saturday Sept. 17th @ 5 p.m. 

Saturday is also a Mug Club Appreciation event where you get double Mug Club points for your entire check.  We will also have traditional German fare available.  The fun starts at 5 p.m.  If you wear Lederhosen, you win.  Not sure what, but you win.

Drink up!

Vince

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Part of being a Brewer is dealing with things breaking.  We push our equipment pretty hard and things break.  You make the best of it and keep brewing until your parts/technicians show up and things get back to normal.  We had one of these issues a couple of months ago when our boiler shut down on us in the middle of a brew.  Without a well-timed boil, I had no way of measuring if the hops were utilized or not.  We had two choices; 1.  dump the product we had so far and start over. Or, 2.  experiment. 

We chose to experiment by adding 3 varieties of hops that you don’t usually see in any beer style.  Sorachi Ace hops from Japan have a lemony and coconut character to them, East Kent Golding hops have a floral and perfumy flavor and aroma, while Citra hops from the U.S. have an intense citrus flavor and aroma.  We quickly named it North Wales Pale Ale because it is uniquely local and fell in love with its flavor.

We re-created NWPA recently by shutting the boiler off midway through the brew.  Friday the 5th at 5 p.m. we will tap the recreated version.   We also tap a cask of NWPA aged with Vanilla beans for First Friday. 2 versions, 1 night.

Drink UP!

V

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8 Seats left as of this morning!!!!  Call for a reservation 267-708-2000.

I know, it sounds like a dream come true.  This Friday, the 10th at 5 p.m. So Cuttered Hoppy Wheat will be tapped.  If you aren’t familiar with being “Cuttered”, I suggest taking a look at this as a reminder (thank you The Reds).  So Cuttered is a joint production between myself and zoowithroy.com, in honor of the best pitcher on the planet Roy Halladay.  So Cuttered is a 6.5% alcohol hefeweizen that was brewed with an  American hop named Citra.  It will have spicy, citrus, banana, and clove characters to it.  To complete the ballpark feel, we will have the following Phillie’s inspired hot dogs for everyone to munch on.

The Chili Chooch Dog-beef and bean chili, cheez whiz and onions

The Roy OsBrat-grilled bratwurst, sauerkraut, sautéed onions and stone ground mustard sauce

The Wiz Kid-garlic sausage, sautéed peppers and onions and cheez whiz

The Roy HallaDog-Bbq onions, sharp cheddar and jalapeno

The Flyin Hawaiian Dog-pineapple chutney, bacon, red onions and swiss cheese

The J-Roll Dog-creamy coleslaw and bacon

The Ryan HowDog-American cheese, onions, relish and good ol’ yellow mustard

Now what you were all waiting for, the free beer.  If you wear a Zoo With Roy t-shirt, any Iron Hill gear or any type of Phillies gear, I will personally buy you a pint of So Cuttered Hoppy Wheat during the game!!!!  A pint, not 12 pints Donkey Nation.  All you have to do is support the only team in baseball, The Phillies.  The world’s foremost bolg about wanting to go to the zoo with Roy Halladay, zoowithroy.com, and your favorite brewery Iron Hill Brewery.  Just ask for me (Vince) tomorrow during the game and show me how you are supporting one or all three of the institutions I just mentioned and that you aren’t wearing any Red Sox gear and I’ll buy you a beer. Settle down “Baston” fans, it’s a joke.

See you Friday,

V

Check out Iron Hill Maple Shade’s blog written by its Head Brewer, Chris Lapierre.  He posted a great explanation as to why we are doing an 8 course beer with the Good Dog Bar and Restaurant.  I’ve had the pleasure of having some drinks with Dave and Heather and they are great people as well as supporters of really good beer.  How cool is it that they are shutting the bar down for the night so they can host a beer dinner, and with Iron Hill beer none the less.  All 8 Iron Hill brewery locations have sent a beer for the dinner.  My entry for the dinner is “The Grand Inquisitor”.  The Grand Inquisitor is a Russian Imperial Stout that I aged in a Bourbon Barrel for 6 months, this is the first time that anybody outside of the brewery has tasted it.  I can’t wait!

Well, it is finally happening.  The years of training, all the festivals I have had the pleasure of attending, all of the beers……oh the delicious beers.  It looks like my brewing career is about to hit EPIC proportions. 

As some of you know, I am a HUGE Phillies fan (I know, aren’t they the best?!).  What you may not know is that I am also a HUGE fan of Zoo With Roy.  So much of a fan that I wanted an official ZWR beer.  If you haven’t been to ZWR’s website, I HIGHLY suggest setting aside Eleventy-Three hours to culture yourself on Penguins, The Phillies, ZWR T-Shirts in the wild, Roy Halladays devastating cutter (So Cuttered), breaking faces and Picasso-like paintings of Jamie Moyer’s arm falling off .  I promise it is worth your time, and has your brewer ever steered your wrong before?! 

       Now that you have checked out ZWR and understand why I love it, here is the big announcement;  The genius behind the ZWR hilarity is joining me on an undisclosed day(he is kind of like Batman, nobody knows who he really is) to brew the first ever “Official Zoo With Roy Beer” aptly named So Cuttered Hoppy Wheat.  A hoppy version of a Hefeweizen.  Check out Zoo With Roy for even more details about our unofficial tail gate release party and for pictures of  Harry The Penguin (pictured below) on his recent visit to North Wales.  This one’s for you Donkey Nation!

Join us on Saturday, May 7th at 6:30 p.m.  as we celebrate the tapping of German Maibock.  Maibock is medium bodied, bright golden Lager.  Maibock means “May Bock”, and it signals that Spring is on its way with its assertive and spicy fresh hop character.  With that in mind, i wanted to have a Maibock Festival.  No Maibock festival would be complete without some food and live music, so here is what we have lined up;

German dinner specials all night long in the restaurant.  Including Jaeger Schnitzel, Black Forest Salad, Salmon Gravlax, Sauteed Rainbow Trout and Linzer Torte for dessert.

The most exciting part of the festival will HANDS DOWN be the highly anticipated return of Legendary Lil’ Andy.  Rumors had been swirling for months that we were able to get Legendary Lil’ Andy (I’m contractually obligated to refer to our musical guest by his full name) to play at our Maibock festival.  Those rumors are true.  For those of you who might not be familiar with Legendary Lil’ Andy’s work, here is a refresher;  Stairway To Heaven-Legendary Lil’ Andy, Ring of Fire-Legendary Lil’ Andy, The theme to the A-Team-Legendary Lil’ Andy.  Legend has it that one day an angel was sent from the heavens with one mission, play the best damn accordion the humans have ever heard.  That angel Ladies and Gentleman………is the Legendary Lil’ Andy. 

Great Beer-check.

Great Food-check.

A golden voiced, heaven-sent accordion player, playing in the brewery while we celebrate the upcoming Spring season…….CHECK!

I can’t wait!

Cheers,

V