So apparently Bob and Kevin have dyed their hair and beards BLONDE for the Smokin’ Blonde Ale Release party tonight in Media. Man….how the heck do we keep up with THAT!

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???

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Check me out on WC Dish!

Summer is on it’s way for sure now. to that end we are rolling out the first of our Super Special summer beers: Mahalo, Apollo! (Welcome, Sun God). Here’s a short description “A wheat ale for summer spiced with Honey, Lemongrass, Grains of Paradise, and Amarillo Hops.” This beer totally rocks and is a staff favorite. Come and get it tonight!

In case you’re interested here’s the full jilt:

In early history spices were a luxury item and, consequently, one of the world’s most valuable trade goods. Until Hops became the dominant spice in beer, brewers (like us) would throw just about anything they could get their hands on into the kettle! Beer was commonly made with an ever changing mixture of herbs and spices know a Gruit to help preserve it, and to add bitterness and flavor until about the 13^th century. Brewers started using hops and stopped using gruit for a couple of reasons: 1) hops helped to preserve the beer better and 2) in France King Louis the 9^th threatened to cut off their heads if they didn’t buy his hops! In any case, consumers preferred the flavor of beer brewed with hops, and with a few exceptions spiced beers more or less died.

Mahallo, Apollo is a Summer Beer that blends traditions of European summer beer cultures into a product that is uniquely American. It’s a wheat beer. It’s strong. It’s flavored with Lemongrass from India and the West African spice Grains of Paradise. Lemongrass is a grass the smells like fresh cut lemon rind and Grains of Paradise is a ginger like seed that has a zesty flavor reminiscent of pepper, with hints of flowers, coriander and cardamom. The beer contains unpasteurized honey, and has been hopped with Amarillo adding to the peachy citrus nose. It was fermented with a Belgian yeast strain which enhances the complex flavor.  This unfiltered ale is crisp, refreshing, and food-friendly. Welcome Summer! 6.9% ABV 20 IBUs

Deep into the Judging

The Iron Brewer was judged Thursday night! This year we had exactly 20 entries, which is a record I think. All 20 beers were presented blind and judged to style in a ‘Best of Show’ type round. If you’ve never seen a beer comp judged I can tell you that it’s a lot of deep thinking, drinking, and politicing. Everyone works their way throught the HUGE flight of beers (you try and taste 20 beers and make notes in a timely fashion) and then we slowly narrowed the field to 3 winners. There were tons of very well made beers in many different style categories on the table. Picking winners was extremely difficult. It took us almost 3 hours to come to a consensus. Thanks to Chris Claire who did all of the leg work on the competition and to the B.U.Z.Z. crew for making some really outstanding beer. Special thanks to the special guest  judges: Mrs. Larry (aka Whitney Thompson from Victory Brewing Company), Gerard Olson from McKenzie’s Brew House, and Paul McGinnis. Keep in mind, the original wort was for a Belgian Tripel.

Drum roll Please…..and the winners are:

3rd Place  Brian Parker – Hopped Belgian Tripel

2nd Place  Mike Hamara – Imperial Java Milk Stout

 and the winner who will get to brew their beer here at Iron Hill…

Dave Houseman – Groundhog Baltic Porter

Congratulations to Brian, Mike and Dave.  Prizes, trophies and glory will come at a later date.  Also, the official tapping of Dave’s winning Baltic Porter will occur during a special event at Philly Beer Week. Friday June 11th 2010 we will have a ceremonial tapping and release party. We will also be awarding the IRON BREWER trophy on the day as well. Watch for more details.

My boss just had an article published in DRAFT mag about where to drink in Phily. Nice work…check it out.

Welcome to Brewery Stadium! Every year we team up the BUZZ homebrew club to host a very special one of a kind homebrew competition. Jean and I brew a batch of Tripel and rack of 5 gallons of the strong unhopped wort for worthy contestants to take home and use as the base of a beer. We are ready for the hops and barley to start flying as brewers battle head to head to see who can make the best beer. Just like the Food Network’s Iron Chef, brewers will declare a style, formulate a recipe and ‘throw down’ with wort from right here at Iron Hill Brewery. Cash, prizes and pride are all on the line as we intend to brew the winning style to be released during beer week at a very special Iron Brewer Awards Presentation (Friday June 11^th, 2010). The contest is under way and we’ve been tracking some of the Brewer Warriors on their quest. Notes from the Battle:

From John J. Bossong, III

“It was a dark and stormy night, the wind was whipping up a storm, but damn the torpedoes I was brewing, an Iron brewer am I! Ok, In past years I have usually brewed once a month but I have two young boys, between soccer, basket ball and scouts the Darbarian and Sons kettle has sat and gathered dust since last August. Upon hearing of the wort gathering date I announced to my family, actually asked my wife, that the 6th of March is brew day! Recipe in hand I went on a relentless search for the elusive ingredients of hops, yeast, grains, and malt. The search took me to our trusty homebrew shop Artisan where Mike and I gathered the elements for creating a brew worthy of being called THE IRON BREWER, duh duh duh dummm…..
Mike painstakingly ground the grains, found the exact yeast strain requested and packaged the hops in a air tight sealed bag that would help it weather the elements on the long ride back to the epicenter of brewing in West Bradford twp, Darbarian and Sons.”

Game on!

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.

Cue the music “We are the Champions….” We had a GREAT week in Chicago sharpening the saw and learning new things about brewing. Oh, yeah…..WE WON WORLD BEER CUP LARGE BREWPUB OF THE YEAR 2010!!!! I still can’t talk. My voice is totally shot from screaming. I’ll have a full story soon, including late night craziness but you can read the press release here and see the full winners list here. Nice

So we had dinner at a Cuisine de la biere spot last night called The Publican with one of my new favorite people Chad Yakobson (more about him later). If you are in Chicago GET TO THIS PLACE! It’s a beer and food spot designed for the workshop of all things pork. Their salt cured meat is magical…pork and beer together should be just plain illegal! First off the place is set sort of like a German beer hall with big family style tables. This is one of my favorite seating styles as if forces you to interact with the fok around you. The room was packed with beer conference goers so the company was great. What was really great though were the complementary house made Spick Pork rinds. I don’t think I’ll be able to eat a pork rind from a bag ever again…they have officially spoiled that for me. The waiters were all dressed in Kobis (Jackob) style waist coats like you would see in a pub in Koln and they swarmed around the room delivering meat and beers from the very well thought out menus. The beer menu was not exhaustive…but it was very well thought out. Round one finished!