Monday night was the First Annual Annual R5 Pub Crawl! Now you may remember that the R5 IS the train that caught fire a few years back. We didn’t have anything to do with that but we are located very near that particular SEPTA regional rail line. The R5 is basically the Main Line train from Philadelphia along route 30 to Downingtown. It was pointed out to me not too long ago that some of my favorite beer bars in the ‘burbs are within walking distance of train stations along that route. Nice. I do enjoy Adult Style Craft Beers…and I prefer not to tangle with ‘The Man’ so taking the train to drink seems fun AND responsible. How often does that happen? In any case, I mentioned the idea to some of the crew here at IHB and they pretty much just decided it was on. The only bit of real planning we did other than the date was to determine that you can ride SEPTA all day long for $10 with an Independence Fun Pass!!! I will be using that little tid bit of info in the future for sure. It’s cheaper than a round trip ticket from my house to the city! How long before they catch onto THAT I wonder? anyway….
Here’s how it went down: We rallied at Victory Brewing Company in Downingtown for a quick beer, headed to the Station Taproom right across from the train in D-town for another quick beer, rode to Malvern for a beer at the Flying Pig, hopped back on for the short trip to Paoli and TJs Everyday (Sasion Dupont on draft. nice.) Re-boared for Wayne where we finally landed at Teresa’s Next Door for dinner. It was still pretty early and real trouble was avoided as there are more bars further in…
R5 Redux is already in the works. Anyone know of R5 bars we’ve missed???
Today Jean and I will be hanging out at the bar for a little Mug Club Happy our action! Come by for complimentary beer and cheese tastings. I love cheese, I love beer, I love beer and cheese together. nice.
If you plan on stopping by the brewery over the course of the next week, you may notice something a bit unusual. No, no… I’m not referring to the cask conditioned Sorachi Ace APA (that IS supposed to taste lemony and cedary)! Sadly, what you will notice is the absence of your friendly local brewers! Fear not, this is all for the best. You see, for the past two days myself, Kevin (assistant brewer Media), and Kyle (assistant brewer NW) have been on the road, headed to Chicago by way of Pittsburgh for the annual Craft Brewers Convention (Larry flew out over the weekend. This man knows how to travel!).
The relativley short journey to Pittsburgh from Philly was a breeze; good weather, great tunes, and some seriousley killer beers waiting for us upon our arrival. After anchoring the car at a friends house, we reenergized at Artillery Park with some fresh baked bread, cheese, and a bottle of our tripel (it’s amazing the things that hitch a ride with you on trips like these… who knew 4 bottles were hiding under my passenger seat 
). After a little bit of frisbe throwin’, we headed of to our first beery destination, Church Brew Works. Wow. What a cool space. If you’ve never been, the brew pub is actually housed in an old church, and from the outside it still retains all of it’s church-y charms (So much so that Kyle actually thought that we were playing a trick on him as we entered the building looking for beer and not forgiveness). We met up with Jason and Matt, brewers extroadinare, and drank some of their beautifully fresh Czech Pils and Belgian Black Ale. After checking out their brew house and bottling line (6 head Meheen, same one I operated at my old brewery… I feel your pain guys!!!) we headed across town to Susquehanna Street, where we found a big red run down looking warehouse space. No windows, and a few unmarked doors… that’s pretty much it. After snooping around a bit, a spray-painted stencil on the last door on the warehouse indicated that we had found what we came to see; East End Brewing Co. Pittsburg’s self proclaimed “microest” brewery! East End produces some well crafted beer for the fine local folk of P- Town. Their Blabber and smoke session ale was killer and paired super well with the take out pizza that was had at our gracious host’s house in the pm. A little Wii bowling and some East End big hop sent me off to dreamland.
Today we make the sojourn to ChiTown for the conference!
-Jean
Hey Gang! Thursday from 5:00pm until 7:00pm (ish). I’ll be hanging out at the bar for a little mug club happy hour action. We’ll put out a few apps and tap our new Funky Beer: Dr. Drie. In addition we will be doing a beer and cheese tasting so you should come by and check it out. In addition I plan to dig into my secret stash of R.O.S. and pour super secret beer too (I’ve got a couple of 3 liter bottles of beer-you-can’t-get-beer).
This pairing is one of my favorites: Cypress Grove Humbolt Fog and our award winning Saison du Hill
It is April fools day, I know…but this is a real deal event! In honor of the day of pranks come beer it up.
Here is the official Dr. Drie description:
Dr. Drie
The second in a series of 100% Brettanomyces fermented amber ale. A tribute to Armand Debelder master blender and former master brewer of beautiful Lambic style beers at Drie Fonteinen. Armand’s family has been offering stunning products since 1953. In 2009 he announced that they would no longer be brewing but only blending. A sad day indeed since Armand’s artful touch in the brew house allowed him to make beers worthy of Heaven. We’ve managed to lay our hands on a very special strain of Brettanomyces that seems to be found only in the family brewery at Fonteinen. We used it to barrel ferment this beer.
Dr. Drie is un-endingly complex, explosively fruity with aromas of caramel, sour cherry, and oak. The finish is dry with a touch of vanilla. Much like a certain master rapper, Dr.Drie is East Cost G-Funk for sure. Sur lees
OG: 1.054 Color: 11 IBU: 25 Alc by Vol: 5.0%
It was great to see all of the Muggers here over the weekend. What a awesine party! Thanks to everyone who came out to enjoy a few beers with us. Highlights included draft Russian Imperial and vintage Biere de Mars just for mug clubbers, two super secret 3 Liter bottle conditioned beers: Cherry Russian Imperial Stout and some HopfvenWeiss from the summer. I hope you got some of each because they were INCREDIBLE.We gave away a ton of loot raffel style. Chef Dan did it up as usual with a pile of great food. Most everyone who came in either signed up or renewed. Just a reminder that if you missed the party for whatever reason can renew any time that’s convenient for you. We’ve got a few things coming up you should start thinking about: The spring beer dinner is on the scheduled for Friday April 23rd. Also, we are doing a beer appreciation series with the Chester County Historical Society. Info on that soon. Here are some candid photos for you to enjoy! cheers
Hey Gang,
Just so you know, we are putting our award winning Cherry Dubbel on tap in celebration of the Valentine’s holiday. Stop in for a pour and a little complimentary chocolate pairing! In addition, Saison AND Harvey’s Sunshine Pils will both be on tap tonight. I love Friday!
This year’s Belgium Comes to West Chester was a record breaker! By of time snow-nami was finished we had over two feet of the white and fluffy here at the brewery (record number one). I counted up the draft list right as the event began and we had over 40 beers on tap. That’s more draft than ever before in the history of an Iron Hill event (record number2). Nice.
The snow didn’t stop the beer crazies, including myself, from having a full on Belgo style throw down. I knew the event was going to be packed when the first few revelers came to the front door on snow shoes and cross country skis! I grew up in the snow belt. You know, the upper mid-west. Most of the weather there comes across the great lakes, and during the winter snow just dumps. I mean like two and three feet at a time. You can see why I really didn’t think a little snow was that big of a deal. The T.V. news crews seemed to think otherwise. You’ll get a kick out of this one: I accidently made an appearance on Fox News early Saturday when I pulled up in front of the brewery to unload the last few kegs for the event. I was pretty annoyed to find an entire news team parked right in front of my door. I had no idea, but they were ‘live on the scene’ for the corner of Gay and High. I was unloading when I heard the reporter say, “Looks like there’s someone here trying to do a little self promotion.” I piped up that I wasn’t actually trying to get press, I was trying to work and they were totally in the way! She went on to report that that there was no one on the road….except for the people on the road. Kids today, I’ll tell ya’.
Plenty of hearty folks walked, skied, and drove to the event, and I am pleasantly surprised to report that all of the guest beers were consumed by about 6:30p.m. Not sure if that’s a record…but it ought to be. Highlights include our 3 x 10 beer samplers, plenty of guest brewers, and of course a couple of snowballs. The samplers were killer and were made much easier to carry around thanks to the tray they were served on. Hope you all liked that. Bryan Kolesar of the Brew Lounge played host to our own Brew Lounge where we put a few super secret beers on tap. These were located in the brewery and provided a preview of the upcoming barrel aged and fermented love we’re going to start having on tap full time. More on that later. Check out his site for some photos and details.
Special thanks to the people who traveled long distances over icy roads to bring their rare beers in for our enjoyment: Jason Oliver from Devil’s backbone, Drew from Harpoon (although the rest of his crew lamed out and spent the night drinking in the city…including their own beer apparently ‘cause it didn’t make it out here for the event) It was missed for sure. Hey, I’m on fire for any beer named after a donkey. Insert Tijuana joke here. Also thanks to Jeff from Ithica who drove down the day of with his KILLER LaBlue, and anyone else I’ve forgotten.
See you next year!
Hey Gang,
Make sure to mark your calendar for Belgium Comes to West Chester. This year’s date will be Saturday Febuary 6th 2:00 p.m. OhhhhYeah! Here’s a post about last years event.
Mashing in the Deviant. So begins the odyssey…
Stay tuned for more info.
Here in West Chester, we are conveniently situated a mere 10.5 miles
from one of Pennsylvania’s finest (not to mention largest) Wineries.
Chaddsford Winery has been producing fine fermented grape juice for
nearly 40 years now, and we are very lucky brewers to be that close to
so much good wood. Allow me to explain.
As you all know, we have been aging beer in barrels at Iron HIll for
some time now. For the most part, most of the barrel aging has been
conducted in bourbon barrels. This, of course, has its exceptions.
Bob in Media and Brian in Wilmington make killer, world-class,
medal-winning, lambic bier in used wine barrels. For the past couple
years in West Chester and now in Maple Shade, Chris has perpetuated
his “Heywood” series (various beers aged in a funkified used wine
barrel).
Well, let’s just say that Larry and I began to get really antsy for a
serious barrel aging project here in West Chester, and about two
months ago, we began to contact local wine makers. We needed about a
dozen freshly used wine barrels, and we needed them soon. What seemed
to be a daunting task was made infinitely easier with a simple e-mail
to Chaddsford Winery. Cellarmaster, Jim Osborn, returned my initial
e-mail with a simple response, “I’m your man”, it read, “let me know
how many you need”. What a relief! Given their proximity to the
brewery, we were able to pick up all 18 barrels (Paul in Lancaster got
6 of ‘em) in less than half a day. Beats the heck out of paying
shipping charges to get them sent from California!
A whole 10bbl batch of lambic is on the horizon for sure, as is a new batch of GABF 2008 silver-medal winning, Cherry Dubbel. We also
plan on picking and choosing specific types of wood (we have
Hungarian, French, and Western Pa oak) for aging specific beers. The
Hungarian seem to be the heaviest toast, and according to Jim, it
imparts spicy caramel notes. Sounds like a great candidate for some
porter aging, eh?
Do any of you, our loyal readers, have barrel aging ideas?
-Jean
Here’s a pic of the cellar at Chaddsford!
