Big Hop Harvest

Ok I mentioned this semi retail event thing that happened a little while ago. While I had some of the Chicory Red the real star of this show was the Big Hop Harvest.

Big Hop Harvest is a limited edition brew much like the Chicory red, however unlike it this one comes around once a year. The reason this is a limited release is our friends at East End Brewery have a short window of time where they can drive up to New York to pick up a batch of fresh, undried, wet hops.

The brewmaster himself took the drive up to the farm and filled his wife's Scion xB with 385lbs of fresh wet hops and updated us all over Facebook with his progress on his 12 hour trip. That's dedication, or maybe just love of the craft. I know I would love the smell inside of that car, grassy and citrusy, just wonderful. Come to think of it he recently mentioned her car still smells like wet hops.

I sat at that keg and downed about half a dozen small glasses of this wondrous brew. The flavor is a nice APA blended with a red ale, nice and toasty carmel with this great citrus grassy hop note. This dink is so well balanced, and it just dances on your tounge like a party of angels throwing a rager. Ok that's a little extreme, but I have to say it is indeed something to look forward to next season.

East End Chicory Red

Today I worked a semi retail event for my employer. This isn't terribly exciting, however the fact his brother volunteers at East End Brewery therefore he has a contact there is.
Tonight on our beer menu we had their latest session beer.  East End's sessions are normally one shot brews that you have to snag before they are gone.or else you will always have to wonder what could have been.
East End's Chicory Red has a wonderful smoothness about it. The roasted malt flavor coats your tongue just long enough till the chicory flavor hits the back of your tongue and you get this slightly spicy aftertaste that warms you up a little, just in time for fall.
That is if fall wasn't such a muggy prospect in Pittsburgh right now.  I love to sing the prases of a finely crafted brew I do have to speak of it's, um well I guess seasonality is the best way to put it. Upon starting the process of crafting this beer the brewmeister had no way of knowing that the beginning of September would feel like the middle of summer. This is a shame, because in the right atmosphere this beer would be just as comforting as a nice recliner, a tailored jacket, or even a well loved blankie.
No I don't have an awesome blankie, but sometimes I wish I did.

Tailgating Frenzy

I'm going to take this post in a slightly different direction as some of my others, I do this because I am partnering up with "Cooking for Regular Assholes" (http://cook4you.livejournal.com/) a blog written by a contemporary of mine who works in the food industry. While I write about the beers I enjoy he enjoys some success as someone who creates the dishes we regular assholes are normally served.

As a "Stillers" fan and part time "Yinzer" I feel it is my duty to my city to alert the world to the tradition of the Steerers Tailgate.

"Tailgating, you say? I've tailgated before, this isn't a Pittsburgh thing."

Ah but tailgating for a Steelers game is! Let me tell you a short story, My friend Marc is a diehard "Yinzer" (Pittsburgher is you want to be politically correct about it) who is holed up in FL currently with about 75% of our septuagenarians. Marc sprung for some primo seats to a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game. I may have to mention that the Steelers were in town as well. Upon entering the venue he was greeted by some fellow black and gold devotees. "We've been counting Buccs fans since we got here." "How many have you counted?" "27."

Now what does this tell us? Tampa Bay doesn't care about football? Not really i mean they put up the cash to start a team and get a stadium, right? No this tells us about the fanaticism of Steelers fans and just how nuts we get about football. You thought your college or high school was really pumped about their games, now lets imagine half a state like that. now you know why it's called the Steeler's nation.

Tailgating as a yinzer is one hell of an experience, there is food games and most of all beer. Marc may try and steal my thunder here about the focus of a tailgate, but we all know it's just once hell of an excuse to drink all day long. As a beer blogger I often joke about being an alcoholic, but to be honest, the tailgate has been the only thing that has ever gotten me drinking before noon.

In Pittsburgh when you tailgate you often see some standard faire like Coors Light and Miller Light, but quite honestly the real fans out there are drinking local brews, two to be exact IC Light and Penn Pils.

IC Light, for those of you in the know who enjoy fine beer you may cringe or laugh knowing that it is your yearly dose of Ohio river water. As well all know it's that Ohio river water that give all of us yinzers our pahers ¹. IC Light or as it's label states Iron City light, is brewed by the Iron city Brewing Company. The Iron City Brewing company has had it's ups and downs, to pittsburghers mainly downs, however if you view it from outside the city you begin to realize all of the innovations it produced, like most recently the aluminum bottle, and less recently the first snap top can. They also pioneered the use of the twist off cap and "Malt Cooler" known as Hop-N-Gator, you are welcome Smirnoff. IC light is your typical american lager, however it is not your typical light beer. While many light beers are produced as regular beers then simply watered down IC light is designed to have less calories. It;s brewing doesn't require it to be watered down and results in a fuller, less flat, taste. Though at about $20 for a 30 rack, you can't expect it to rival the Micros and Imports I usually cover. I must say however IC light has a certian Je Ne Sais Qua about it, i'm not sure what about this beer grabs me and keeps me returning to this when I need something cheap. My guess opiates.

Penn Pilsner, now I have talked about the Penn Brewery before on my review of Penn Dark. Penn Pils is the flagship product of the Penn Brewing family. Despite it's name it resembles a vienna lager more closely then a pils. However i have heard this beer described as the quintessential american pilsner, the pils that all other American pils are based off of. If this is true then they have quite a bit to stand up against. Penn Pils may not be the greatest beer under the sun, however it has a flavor that calls back the old days. All of Penn's products are brewed in accordance to the Reinheitsgebot, or German Beer Purity Laws. This means when you are tasting a Penn Brewing product you taste a little bit of history, and you get to taste a fine brew with absolutely no adulterants or filler grain. Truly a craft brew Penn Pils is my first reach at a tailgate.

¹ Yinzer pahers (powers) include the alcohol tolerance of John Belushi, the eyes of a seasoned referee, and the strategic mind of Napoleon Bonaparte (but only in football.) Oh i almost forgot, we can also make drunk calls to your sister.

Victory Wild Devil

It's not often that I get upset that I can't find a beer, generally I will just pick something else up since I like to try new beers all the time. This beer got to me though, I went searching far and wide in the city of Pittsburgh to find more. The inopportune holiday season pushed this fine product off the shelves and left me craving more. Feeling like a crack addict on hard times I actually wrote to Victory asking where my next fix was. I was quickly assured that demand was high and with the holidays many retailers had held back orders to fill their shelves with more seasonal fare.

So why does Wild Devil get me so flustered? What is it about a simple IPA that gets me all weak in the knees? One word "brettanomyces." I'm sure that has caused a few head scratches, but let me explain. Brettanomyces is a strain of yeast that is generally regarded as a plague to the brewing industry, causing off flavors that ruin the balance of a beer and show that the brewer was less then diligent in his sanitation regimen. In fact Brett is the reason for the name of this brew as Brett is a commonly occurring strain of wild yeast. Why do I love this yeast so much then? Well I think good ol' Brett has gotten a bad rap, Brett is also responsible for some of the flavors in lambics, Gueuze and Flanders ales and when a recipe is tailored to the, let's say unique, flavors Brett produces something wonderful occurs. Brett creates flavors that sound absolutely horrible when they are described like wet horse blanket, band-aid, and burnt plastic, but in actual practice they are quite delicious.

My first impression of this beer was, "Wow this is beautiful!" If you have read my other posts then you should know that I don't often describe the look of a beer, but this deserves a description. The color is somewhere between a gold and orange, a little light for my tastes but I was intrigued. The head was an off white, a stark contrast to the bright crisp white I am accustomed to. I generally don't care much about head retention or lacing but this beer is what changed that for me. As I drank the head barley dissipated at all and the lacing left behind was heavy to say the least, when I was done you could see the amount I drank with each sip, it was amazing. The smell and flavor are dominated mostly by the "funk" Brett produces, difficult to put into words but easy to put on the tongue. Next up was the hops, as Hop Devil's evil twin the hops take hold over much of the flavor as well, a nice citrusy bite with a little spicy burn as well. Biscuit and carmel malts dominate the hop profile balancing out this crazy concoction.

I applaud the brewmasters at Victory for making lemonade out of lemons here. They took what is widely considered a horrible plague and turned it into liquid gold.

Penn Dark

Ah Penn Brewery a microbrewery close to my heart... literally I live like 15 min away.

It opened in 1986 so it's pretty save to call it an adolescent as far as breweries go.  They produce the quintessential American style Pilsner, you guessed it Penn Pilsner.  not much to be said about this establishment other then they have a pretty B.A. German restaurant on site and they host a wicked microbrewery festival.

First time i had this brew was believe it or not at my great aunt's funeral.  My uncle was head chef at the restaurant where the wake was so typical Irish we are there was an open bar (funny I went for a German beer though.)  Right after the wake my father, three of my uncles and I moseyed on over to the Penn Brewery for the previously mentioned micro brewery festival.  

On to the beer.

Well the name does not disappoint this beer is nice and dark, about a quarter inch of foam on top (I'm drinking from a basic pilsner glass) other then that almost no light to be seen through there.  It's got a nice carmel toffee (general burnt sugar but in a good way) flavor to it with just a taste of hops in the after taste.  Very drinkable but nothing terribly special.  Great if you are going to a party and want to bring something good without alienating the miller and coors fans too much.  Which brings me to my next review...

Ol Red Cease And Desist

Erie Brewing a few years back presented us with "Red Ryder BIG BEER," this brew did fairly well until served with not 1 but count 'em 2 cease and desist letters from Red Ryder Enterprises (remember a Christmas Story?  "You'll shoot your eye out, you'll shoot your eye out!")

Anyway, after that fiasco Erie decided to have a little fun and gave this beer the official title of...

"Erie Brewing's Ol Red Cease And Desist, Inspired By The Long Arm Of The Law"

A mouthful am I right?

I first picked this up on the way to a friends house to go play some games at a small distributor in Imperial PA called the Essex beer distributor.  For those of you not familiar with the PA state liquor laws, a beer distributor sells cases of beer (malt beverages, wine coolers ect..) and kegs, nothing less no six-packs no singles or the likes.  I saw the box and thought "Oh well you only live twice." Went out to my car and on my way.

I get to my friend's place chill myself a pilsner glass and give it a nice vigorous pour.  I get a nice inch and a half head on it and I'm greeted with a really sweet aroma.  I sit down at the table and give it a sip, nice and sweet with something like a carmel brown sugar kinda flavor, something reminiscent of burnt sugar, but in a good way.  The after taste was very strong full of alcohol.  Unique for me at the time, I truly understood what they meant by the term Scotch Ale it made me imagine someone dropping a shot of scotch in a nice red ale.  I must say it took me quite a while to finish my first glass. But I was very pleased with the experience.  Over the next few weeks I was able to drink it more and more quickly until one day I was able to finish 4 of them and I was about to crack my fifth and realized... I was drunk.  This is odd for me I have a very strong tolerance for alcohol after all when you are drinking 8% ABV beers on a regular basis you kinda get used to it.  So when I say after four beers I was drunk I would like you to know how surprised I was.

I looked at that fifth bottle squinted a little and saw that nice small print saying 10.1% ABV

Explains a lot.

I have to say I'm rather glad to make my first review on a local, and I plan to do it fairly often, and I also plan on doing several Belgian reviews, and a few fun beer facts as well.