Beer Friday: #1

Ha! You were maybe expecting "Foamy Friday"?

I don't do that crap. Beer deserves a bit more r-e-s-p-e-c-t.



Feel free to fire Aretha up while you're reading the reviews. I did while I was writing them, and it made the beer taste better, just like drinking your beer from expensive, hand-blown, wildly-accurate-designed-by-pseudoscientific-principles beer glasses that are "pretentious as shit"!!!

Aw...no, it didn't, not really. But I did enjoy the process more that way. Speaking of the process, here's how I'm going to do this. Unless otherwise noted, these beers are samples sent from the brewery, chilled to proper temperature, and sampled from a sleeve pint glass (because I'm an ornery bastard). I will also be trying to include one draft beer each week.

On to the reviews.


Yuengling IPL, 5.0%

Got some fresh at the brewery on Monday, so you bet I'm gonna review it. They want to see this go year-round; does it have the stuff?

It pours pretty, dark gold with a bright white head. Aroma is fresh lager (fresh-moist white bread, tiniest hint of sulfur!) and piney-grassy hop. Not a hint of skunk; IPL comes in brown bottles, thank you! The mouth is a relatively light lager with that bit of extra body you can expect from Yuengling, and an amount of hop flavor (pine, grapefruit zest, and something fruity...melon?) and bitterness that is definitely more than you expect from Yuengling. At 60 IBU, this is twice as bitter as their long-time hoppiest brew, Lord Chesterfield. The bitterness kicks in about a second after entry, gripping in the back, and turning it up in the finish. It's like a subtly spiced curry; the bitterness builds as you get through the bottle. The first gulp doesn't impress, but by the fourth, you can feel the hop every time you breathe; interesting effect.

This is a hard one to pin down. It seems simple, and you could drink it quickly and say it's simple...but it's not. There's a nice little twist here, and I'm not sure if most of us will catch it. I'd like more malt here, the body lets me down, and I'd like more hop aroma from something calling itself India Pale Lager. That's the problem here: expectations. After Yuengling absolutely nailed it with last summer's weissbier, I figured this one would be bolder. And even though the hop continues to breath-mint me on every inhalation... Damn. This beer is not giving up. A 4-ounce and done sample would not do it justice. The further I get into the bottle, the more I like it. It's no Prima Pils, but it's not meant to be. It's not a killer, but it's no baby bottle either.

I still want more, but it's better than I thought on first look. I'd like it sharpened up, I'd like more body, but it's not going to get "Flawed" for being not up to the expectations engendered by the name.

I'm going to encourage Yuengling IPL to be pleased to walk away with "Yawn," because that's not really that bad. Maybe tweak this before the next seasonal release? Maybe a bit more body? Maybe a bit more aroma hopping? Maybe then you'll have a killer on your hands.

Verdict: Okay...with potential


Allagash Interlude, 9.5%

I've been thinking to myself lately, 'You know, I don't like sours, don't like Brett beers, don't like funk.' But damn it, I know it's not true! Because I liked sours and Bretts and lambics 30 years ago, liked them right up through about 2008, when I went off them for a while after full lambic immersion in Belgium. When I tried some new ones...damn. No. But now, drinking my first Interlude in years, it's coming back to me.

This is almost too complex to describe. First, it's a coppery color, with very little foam. The nose is sharp, acidic; there are barnyard aromas and it's a bit reeky, but there are these sharp fruity notes, even some sweet candy flitting around. The beer's thick at first sip, then thins across the tongue: Brett funk and woody dryness blend with punk-sweet fruit and sour honey. It's like tasting some wild fruit I've never had before. A bit thick, a bit sweet, but mostly beautifully buggy.

And it drinks better and better as it warms (served WAY too cold, unfortunately). Wow. it gets even more friendly as it gets toward room temp. This is the funk I remember. This is the funk I desire. (Served on draft at Manny Brown's in Newtown: $7 for a big goblet)

Verdict: Stellar


Hamburg Hoppenstance, 8.0%

Hamburg Brewing is a small outfit south of Buffalo that opened in 2013. I hadn't heard of it before December 26th, when my brother-in-law Chris gave me this four-pack of Hoppenstance double IPA for Christmas. Happy to dive in; let's have a look.

Pine floats above the surface with a speckling of fruits tickling the nose. Very clean aromas, and the beer's clean too: bright gold, paper-white head. Take a great sip; and it's bitter but balanced, with a solid slice of hop bitterness backed with a table of malt. It's a well-built beer, nothing wrong with it, but I'm looking for something to make it stand out, and it's not there. There's nothing wrong with it: a small brewery making a solid, local double IPA. I'd love to try it in Hamburg at the brewery tap, nice and fresh.

Verdict: Okay

Philly Loves Lagers: hello, Philly Bierfest!

Gearing up for the second annual Philly Bierfest on February 23rd (1-5), and I'm starting to get a lager Stiffe. The German Society of Philadelphia is hosting the event, along with Brauhaus Schmitz and the Philly Roller Girls (that's right: women-owned and operated roller derby!).

You know I love me some smooth, cold-matured lager loveliness, and there's no place like Pennsylvania to get great fresh examples; er, outside of Germany, that is! For your $45 ticket (or $60 VIP), you'll get lagers and weizens from fantastic Pennsylvania breweries like this: 

Appalachian Brewing Co.          Berwick Brewing Co.
Lancaster Brewing Co.             The Lion Brewery
Pennsylvania Brewing Co.         Philadelphia Brewing Co.
Manayunk Brewing Co.            Neshaminy Creek Brewing Co.
Nodding Head Brewery             Round Guys Brewing Co.
Sly Fox Brewing Co.                Stoudts Brewing Co.
Straub Brewery                       Susquehanna Brewing Co.
Victory Brewing Co.                Yuengling and Sons Brewery

Meanwhile, down in the Ratskellar, the beer-loving folks from The Foodery will be pouring beers from German breweries like Ayinger, Jever, Trauenstein, and a number of smaller, less-familiar (and delish) brewers, including one possible surprise they're still working on; keep your fingers crossed that this famous doublebock makes it in!

Why am I plugging this? What, a guy can't like lagers? Okay, okay: I'm plugging it because I'm in it, a member of the Brewer’s Discussion Panel on ‘Lager-Love and the Resurgence of Session Styles’ (I swear, I had nothing to do with the title!) at 4 pm in the Society's historic Horner Memorial Library.

Other members of the panel? Artie Tafoya, of Appalachian Brewing (and a past-master of hefe-brewing), Bill Covaleski of Victory Brewing (where they've been known to brew a lager or ten), and German beer importer Lars Dahlhaus. It's moderated by Marnie Old, Philly's best-known sommelier...who is also a fierce proponent of beers, especially lagers. We'll have a few good things to talk about.

I hope you can remember to come hear us, after three hours of lager, weissbier, great German eats from Brauhaus Schmitz (snacks for freesies, more substantial -- and the Germans do know "substantial" -- eats for additional bucks), and the bluegrass picking of the Keystone Mountain Boys. 

What do you get for that extra $15 for the VIP ticket? You get a bigger cup...and if that's not enough, you also get in at noon for a tutored tasting on German beer styles by Marnie. Trust me, there are more German beer styles than most people know. It's more than just light lager/dark lager/strong lager/wheat!

Oh, and the Roller Girls. Don't you worry about them, you'll understand that soon enough. So...check it out here, and I'll see you there!

The German Society -- 611 Spring Garden St.  Philadelphia, PA  19123

Susquehanna Brewing knocks me out

Susquehanna Brewing is open and running, has been for a few months, and I always like to give a brewery a few months before trying the beer...but this was getting ridiculous: two good friends were on the brewing side -- Jaime Jurado and Guy Hagner -- and I hadn't made the time to get up the road two hours to see this operation? That I knew was amazing? Seriously, the technical side of it is off the hook...but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We went on vacation in the Poconos in late July, just about a month ago, and I contacted Jaime and Guy to see if there was any place I could try their beers as we were on our way up, then stop by the brewery or a distributor and pick up a sixtel for the cabin. Jaime graciously invited me to come tour the brewery, and said he'd get me some beer. So my mother and I went up that Saturday afternoon, and Guy gave us a tour.

Wow. First eye-opener was the mill, where the barley husks are largely separated from the grist before wetting in the mash tun, what Jaime called endosperm mashing integration. The husk is sent to a 'husk case' above the lauter tun, and dropped in "only immediately prior to...being required for its important role in refining mash." Jaime said SBC is the 7th brewery in the world to do this (they also do it at Trumer in Berkeley, which Jaime oversaw in his role with Gambrinus).

The 50 bbl. BrauKon brewhouse includes a dedicated decoction kettle (used to make the Goldencold). But the big deal is that the main brew kettle uses...well, as Guy said, you've seen a calandria, right? And the external calandria, like Victory has? This is something different. "This" is the PDX system, which circulates the wort outside of the kettle and injects live, high-pressure food-grade steam into the flow. It actually goes supersonic, which is a key part of the whole thing: the turbulence created by that gets the heat into the wort in an amazingly efficient way. The PDX saves a ton of energy (along with the cool, super-efficient smart boiler Jaime spec'd for the brewery (the same kind Flying Fish has in their new brewery, BTW, and don't you ever believe that Casey Hughes isn't a very bright boy)), and, well, it sounds really cool, too; "Like a jet plane taking off," Guy described it. Susquehanna was the first brewery in the world to have it designed into a new brewhouse from day one (Shepherd Neame in the UK were the pioneers on retrofitting it; SABMiller's using one in their big brewhouse in South Africa, Radeburger has one, and Miller is also testing one on their pilot brewery.

Truth is, Jaime put an incredible amount of energy and material-saving tweaks and equipment into this brewery. He told me that he realized that he wouldn't get too many more chances to completely design a brewery with this kind of freedom in his career, so he wanted to make this one right...and the energy savings and carbon footprint were very important to him. That's why the brewery has the short bottles, not longnecks, for instance: they weigh 1.4 oz. less, and have a 20% smaller carbon footprint. The labels are 30% recycled paper (post-consumer), will soon be 50%, and that should increase every year.

It's not all about energy, though. Guy showed us an incredibly complex Moravek BC-30 Carbonator, the thing that puts the CO2 into the beer as it's packaged, and it measures the temperature and gravity of the beer to precisely match the pressure to the job to have it consistent...but I loved what Jaime said about why he got it: "I selected the BC-30 carbonator/nitrogenator because it produces beer with superior bubbles...strange but true." Extremism in the defense of superior beer is no vice, Jaime. He also put in a massive hopjack (BrauKon's second), it looks like something from the powerplant of a nuclear sub.

Okay, so all that...how was the beer? Pretty frickin' awesome. The walkaround bottles of Goldencold that Guy gave us for the tour (yes, my mother, too, and she asked for another!) reminded me of something Travels with Barley author Ken Wells said: “One thing you can say about lagers: the good ones don't make you work very hard to like them." This was one of the best American-brewed hellesbiers I've had, which is amazing considering how new the brewery is...and not amazing, considering how much experience Jaime and Guy have between them. Yes, Guy, because Jaime gives Guy full credit for formulation on this one.

That's Guy Hagner, meself, and Jaime Jurado.

The sample of 6th Generation Stock Ale we got? Not so good, flat, a bit harsh...but that got better. After some more chatting, Guy told me to pull my car (heavy-laden with vacation crap) into the loading bay, and put three cases of Goldencold and a low-fill sixtel of Stock into it. Yeep. "You get samples, right? These are samples!" I'll be honest, I was looking at that sixtel of Stock and thinking...I'd just as soon have more lager and skip the Stock, but, okay, I'll smile. So we thanked him, and drove off to the north.

Once we got to the cabin, I stocked the fridge with a case of lager, and iced down the keg of Stock Ale...and tapped it. Much better. (Jaime told me later that the keg in the brewery was tapped for at least 3 weeks...I suspect a new regimen of beer care has since been instituted.) The stock was sweet, bitter, floral and citrusy, and had a wonderfully fresh/bready character to it. We did serious damage to it and finished it off Thursday night.

So about two weeks later, Jaime emailed me: they're having their first beer dinner at Lucky's Sportshouse...in Wilkes-Barre...would we like to come? Well, it is almost 2 hours' drive, but Cathy's been wanting to meet Jaime for years, and wanted to see Guy again, so yeah, we went. It wasn't just Susquehanna's first beer dinner, it was Lucky's, too. I wasn't optimistic.

Boy, was I wrong. Lucky's is definitely a sports bar, lots of screens and a high ceiling and open floor plan, but the food was quite a notch above sports bar: all prepared on-site, freshly-made food. But again, I'm ahead of myself: we got glasses of the new SBC Oktoberfest. Very nice, dry malt character (not the caramel sweetness you get in too many American fests), and quite enjoyable indeed. Clearly these guys know their way around a lager.

They know how to have some fun, too. That extremely red beer you see here is a blend of Ofest and Goldencold, dosed with coffee, peaches, raspberries, and orange oil. It was dry, fruity -- the orange oil really made the other fruit aromas burst out of the glass -- with notes of coffee and dry cocoa. Very nice, and startlingly red.

So, about the food. The plate you see above was the main course: two "honking big pieces of meat" (as Uncle Jack always describes the main courses of the dinners at Monk's Cafe) in the form of perfectly done pork schnitzel, with broccolini and a bed of mild sauerkraut (and a dressing of deliciously caramelized onions). The pork was done through, juicy, with a crisp, thin coating that wasn't oily/gross...very nice, especially given the number of plates -- about 50 -- that they were serving. (Two of those 50 were Chip The Beer Guy and his girl (fiance!) Diane, who Cathy also got to meet; good times as always, Chip!) That was actually one of the things we noted, and Chip said it first: the food all came out on time, simultaneously, and it was all hot and ready to go. Nice coordination for their first beer dinner!

We'd started with passed pieces: battered cod bites, some green bean tempura-kind of thing (that was real good!), coconut shrimp, and...I can't remember the fourth thing. I DO remember the breads that came afterwards, because we all devoured them, great fresh-baked stuff, and Cathy took some home. We got a beer cheese soup next, and it had little bits of ham in it, nicely done, and not too gruel-like; I hate that.

Last was the bananas foster you see above: great whipped cream with that, too. The whole dinner was excellent, easily the best food I've ever had at a sports bar. I'm hoping that Susquehanna comes to Philly soon (I know Memphis Taproom got some samples), because we're just about out of Goldencold...

Bring it on, Jack me boy!

If you aren't thirsty...don't bother coming.

Uncle Jack and I were contacted by John "Latent Homebrewer" Trogner and Ed "Music Man" Yashinsky at Tröegs. 'Look,' they said, 'you guys are always snarling at each other. Why not settle it with a Scratch Beer showdown? Both of you come up to the brewery, sit down with our brewers, and we'll brew what you come up with for a head-to-head grudge match during Philly Beer Week?' Kind of like the Royal Stumble, only with just the two of us, mano a mano (the tap-working hand, that is).

So we did, and we invite you to come out to Standard Tap for the fun, 1st Sunday of Philly Beer Week, and enjoy the hell out of my Zwickel Licker, an unfiltered Dortmunder Export lager! You can get a sample taste of Jack's biere de vieux petard, too. It's all PAYG, and we'll see you there!

German Society Bierfest next Saturday

Hey, Philly, if that Victory story got your mouth whetted for pils...here's a chance to wet your whistle! The German Society of Philadelphia is hosting their first annual Bierfest next Saturday, February 25th, from 1-5 at the Society building (611 Spring Garden Street, Philadelphia). I wanted to be part of this, but had a previous engagement; it's going to be a great day of food, music, and beer.

Wine and beer expert Marnie Old put this together (with the German Society; she's been doing beer events with them for years, and the Philly Roller Girls roller derby team), so I'll let her describe it:

 I am thrilled to announce an event that's been years in the making. In partnership with the Philly Roller Girls and The German Society of Pennsylvania, I am launching the first annual Bierfest - Celebrating PA's German Brewing Heritage. We'll have it all:

• 12 PA brewers from across the state pouring their German-style brews such as lagers, pilsners, weizens, rauchbiers, kolsches, altbiers and bocks 
• A rotating selection of German imports offered at a 'German Beer Bar' poured by Philly's favorite bottle shop, The Foodery in Northern Liberties 
• Discussion Panel on PA's Leadership in German-Style Brewing and Craft Lager featuring the brewmasters of Victory, Yuengling, and Troegs moderated by PA's only Master Sommelier 
• VIP Seminar on Pennsylvania's German-Inspired Beer History led by yours truly, along with live bluegrass music, an on-site brewing demonstration and Philly Roller Girls pouring beer. 

Pennsylvania's craft brewers bow to none when it comes to lager beers. Get your tickets here: $38 for general admission, $53 for admission plus VIP seminars, or $25 for seminars only.

Sleepless in Pittsburgh

Got an invite to come out and be a "guest lecturer" at Penn Brewing's "Brew U" -- a day-long beer appreciation/brewery tour/beer cooking demo in January again, and sure, any excuse for a paid trip to Pittsburgh, I'm on it. Oh, wait...I have to drive out the morning after a bourbon tasting for the firehall guys in Somers Point, NJ with my buddy (and New Jersey Breweries co-author) Mark Haynie? Ummm...okay! So yeah, we tried 14 whiskeys, had some beers and a monster good dinner, and I got up around 6 AM, grabbed a great diner breakfast, drove home and changed, and...headed west.

Despite multiple coffees, didn't have to stop once on the 300+ mile trip -- I had a full tank of diesel -- and ran into no traffic...until I got off onto the Parkway east of Pittsburgh. Things turned to crap rapidly, so I got off -- shoulda been on top of the traffic and just hit the Pour House in Monroeville, but I was flying on intuition -- and twisted my way through some back streets to D's. Well, yeah, that's better. A glass of something before I dive deeper into the traffic...Troegs T2? Perfect! Great hops, slidey malt, brisk edge to it...and that doesn't do it justice. A thoroughly enjoyable beer, and if my hotel were around the block, I'd have a couple more, but...Onward.

Now it's decision time. I'm early, after that no-hassle run across the state, so I've got time before I meet Penn Sales Mahoff Eric Heinauer for dinner at the brewery. Hit the Church? Tempting. East End? I already know Scott's not there. Maybe Piper's...no, the traffic will kill that. Then I got a text from my man Sam Komlenic, copy editor for Whisky Advocate, essentially telling me that if I were in Pittsburgh and didn't get to Wigle Whiskey, I wasn't a man. Normally, this kind of pronouncement has zero effect on me, but in this case, Sam was right. I aimed the Jetta for The Strip, and started cursing rush hour traffic. Got there in time for a quick lookaround, and Eric Meyer was, luckily, sticking around to meet a guy who wanted to have a bachelor party there. We shook hands, and he gave me a quick tour.

Wigle is clean and sharp, and ready for guests (you can book tours now, and starting in March, when the new law about distillery sampling and sales goes into effect, they'll be having regular visiting hours). They're making wheat and rye whiskey (of course!) with locally-grown organic grain, which is pretty damned cool. What's even better is that the spirit's off to a good start -- nice clean white dog, with appealing fruity notes -- and they're aging in large barrels; they hope to have aged spirit available late in 2012. Good time, and Eric was a friendly, informed host...but I had to run, now.

I buzzed over to the Priory Hotel (Penn puts me up there when I do events for them (yes, I was paid for my speech at Penn, and my room was paid for), and I've taken to staying there whenever I'm in Pittsburgh: real nice, and an easy walk to the brewery (and a couple other places, like Max's Allegheny and the Park House)), checked in, dropped off my stuff, put some electronics on the charger, and walked to the Brewery...I've been through this drill too many times to drive.

After a brisk trot to the brewery, I was quickly seated with Eric, and got my nose into my first glass of Penn Dark in way too long. Then I had another. Then we had some food -- pierogies, soft pretzels -- and I had a Kaiser Pils. And then a Märzen.

Now...I don't tell you that in such rapid-fire order to either impress you with my speed-drinking abilities (it took place over about 90 minutes, actually), or to cause you concern about my intake (it took place over about 90 minutes...and I did say I was walking). I note them bang-bang-bang like that (okay, there was a Jägermeister shot in there before the Märzen, too...hey, we're German, okay? It was the right thing to do after sauerbraten!) because the thing that leapt out at me was a perceived improvement in quality in all of these beers, and all of it circling round the qualities that make them lagers. They all seemed better-integrated, the Märzen had a richer body and luscious malt character, the Kaiser was not just hoppy but properly bitter, and the Dark was smoothly drinkable without the slightly husky catch that used to be the slight imperfection that always bugged my otherwise complete enjoyment of this beer. I was running these taps, because I wanted to see if they were working on one beer or on their brewing...and I was liking the answer.

But we wanted to wander a bit, so we headed out to the Teutonia Männerchor club, a couple blocks away. Eric's a member (though he had to get caught up on his dues before we could get served; oh, that never happens at PA clubs...), and we dutifully had one bottle each of Penn Pilsner (long the flagship, and still over half of brewery sales, its proportion slipping (though total sales are going right up), and it's probably because craft beer drinkers are getting more savvy and more demanding)). Then we switched to Spaten Pils, and I bought us a round of Jameson (because I was pumped about Irish whiskey that week), and we talked...but hey, that's just stuff. I went back to the Priory, and went to bed...

...and woke up at 5:30. And couldn't get back to sleep. What the hell! Sigh. So I got up, got dressed, did a little set-up work on the computer...and headed across the river to The Strip for breakfast and some shopping. If you've been reading this blog for a year or more, you know I love to go to Pamela's P&G on 21st for breakfast...but they weren't open this early.

So I took a Facebook friend's recommendation and went to DeLuca's. Well, baby! Where you been all my breakfast-eating life?! Dropped at the counter, got a cup of joe going (and damned good coffee, too), and checked the menu. The prices looked a bit...high, truly, but okay, I ordered the breakfast burrito with choice of meat: I took kielbasi. It was ten bucks. Grumble, grumble -- Holy CRAP! It should have been delivered by overhead crane; a foot or more long, about 4" wide, and easily 2" high, stuffed bulging full with eggs, onions, kielbasi (a LOT of it, too), and fried spuds, with "spanish sauce" and a slice of American cheese on top, decorated with one more chunk of kielbasi. Great recommendation, and please, forget everything I said about this monster meal being pricey. Woof.

Three cups of coffee later, I walked next door to Prestogeorge, a reassuringly old-timey coffee roaster, and after some conversation, picked up a pound of Sumatra (which is what we're running through the machine now, BTW, and it's just delish). Wandered around a bit, then moved the Jetta up to 21st and went into La Prima...for more coffee. I had a cup of espresso, and got a pound of Fair Trade Mexico Chiapas, for old time's sake.

Buzzing by now, I decided to head over to the Market and wait for East End's Growler Shop to open in another 45 minutes. Naturally, I decided to have more coffee. I dropped anchor one more time, and went into 21st Street Coffee and Tea, and -- eventually -- got a cup of Bolivian coffee. 21st is unabashedly elitist about your coffee; they very carefully made me a fresh single cup and just as carefully let me know that if I put cream or sugar in it, they'd mock me. Okay, I can play that game; I tried it straight up -- me, a cream no sugar guy -- and it was quite good, easily good enough to drink that way, which made all of us reasonably happy. It was very good coffee. And the wifi and bathroom were clean and efficient, and the other customers were nice.

But you know, it was just another caffeinated waystation on the road to beer -- and by now, I needed a glass to tamp down all this jitter! Doors opened, I was in, and first in line, followed Big Daddy Steve down to the shop. Scan the taps...Session: Fermette Rouge. Try one? Sure! Spicy, hoppy, refreshing, dry finish -- let's do it. Growler in hand, I headed back to the Priory to get showered and dressed for my teaching gig.

Parked the Jetta, grabbed my notes, and headed up to the "classroom"...and got a glass of Penn Gold. Seemed like the right beer for 10:15 AM, and it was: that same extra-glassy smoothness, teasingly delicate malt character...yeah. Made a conscious decision that I'd have to have a talk with the caffeine and not drink too fast. Luckily, people started to wander in, and we got conversing -- great people at these things! -- and there was no problem.

I talked about lagers, how they get so little respect, and how I hoped people would take advantage of the great stuff Penn laid down. They were, no fear! We wrapped up, people were happy, and...it was time to go. Actually, it was earlier than I'd thought, so on the way out of town, I slipped over to Piper's Pub (missed it on the way in, right?) and got a pint of Helltown Insidious IPA on cask -- natch, that's why I went to Piper's, for their great cask ale! Got into a whisky conversation with the folks next to me, had a great dish of curry for the road (hadn't had anything to eat since DeLuca's...didn't need anything!), tried samples of two meads from Laurel Highlands (Bochet and Traditional)...I just don't think I'm a mead guy, like I'm not a tequila guy (or, I'm starting to think, a pinot noir guy). They were okay, but didn't really set me on fire. The Insidious did, by the way: quite tasty and snappy, and in beautiful condition.

That was it. Had a smooth run home (stopped at Sly Fox for one quick O'Reilly's Stout with some friends), and went to bed.

Next up: finally, the Tettnanger Terroir story from Victory, just in time for their 16th birthday this week! (I'd have had it sooner, because it was substantially cool as balls, but...I misplaced my notebook. Got it, and we'll roll that.)

Guinness Black Lager

What do you expect when Guinness, the world's biggest brewer of stout, the classic 'black beer,' a dark, dark ale...comes out with a beer called "Guinness Black Lager"? Well, I didn't know what to expect, so I was quite curious when I popped the top on this sample.

First, like the "black beer" itself, it isn't really black. It's a very, very, very dark brown, and when you hold it to the light, you can see that around the edges. A quibble.

Second, I was, I guess, expecting something more in the way of aroma, but all I really got was a bit of wet bread and an earthy note.

But get stuck into it, and -- well, not a lot, actually. The mouthfeel's maybe the best part of it, and it does roll around nicely; there's a decent uptick of bitterness at the end, though not anything you'd pucker over. Otherwise? A bland sweetness tempered with a wisp of coffee, a breath of burnt-grain bitterness...and it's gone, leaving only a faintly pleasant sweetness behind.

I can't help thinking that this is a signifying beer, something for the guys who can't handle Guinness (!) but want something black in their jar. I don't see a lot of future here. Sorry.

Okay, but it's still the dumbest-looking growler I've ever seen

I had a pretty good Coors beer tonight, Batch 19. I got the sample a few weeks ago: the embossed bottle nestled in excelsior in a shoebox-sized wooden crate...and the goofy-looking growler you see to the right. That's how it came: big mouth, and no cap. No lid at all. WTF? I Googled some Batch 19 press and event reports, and these dopey boogers apparently think a "growler" is a half-gallon pitcher. Bejayzus.

Anyway...The beer itself is actually pretty good. That's the real color, it's got real body, and there's an honest to God bitterness to it. The malt/"adjunct" character is the star, though, and it's pretty tasty. I had it with steamed shrimp and corn on the cob, and I'd definitely do it again. Put me in the mind of a Dortmunder Export. 

As it happens, I interviewed Coors brewer Keith Villa (the creator of Blue Moon) about Batch 19 about a year ago, and since that article's been paid for a long time, I'll put it up here.

Why “Batch 19?”

Back in 2004 we had a small flood in the archives of the Coors brewery. They were in the basement. I stumbled on a box with the old brewer’s logbooks. The earliest was October of 1913, and they went right up to Prohibition in 1919. The early logbook, right before Prohibition, the beer was heavier, and had less adjunct, about 20%. When Prohibition was repealed, it went up to 33%. It was rice at the time. 

They noted that they were using “Chevalier” malt. It’s a variety that was considered a high quality variety in the 1800s; it’s no longer available [geek excitement over Maris Otter and Golden Promise notwithstanding, barley varieties tend to come and go pretty quickly]. The hops were only noted as “imported” and “domestic.” Whoever took the notes had handwriting that was exquisite; it was easy to read all the numbers. The temperatures were all in Roehm degrees; I had to convert all of those. Little problems at first, got over them and made the beer. 

“Batch 19” was inspired by that recipe. We literally can’t get the same ingredients. The only constant ingredient is the water; we’re still drawing from the same wells, drawing from the same alluvium. Adolph Coors was pulling from that, and he wasn’t pulling much, it was a spring. The big brewery is pulling it up now. Nowadays we technically have to call it Rocky Mountain well water! That’s the only consistent thing. The water is a little bit softer now, but it’s pretty close to what they were using back then. 

Hops, we didn’t know what they were using. They didn’t note the variety of hops until the 1940s. Hops weren’t as afflicted by diseases and pests then, they were pretty hardy, and they stuck with the ‘noble’ varieties. So that’s what I did; I chose for the main hops Herrsbrucker, and Strisselspalt. It’s close to Herrsbrucker, but it has these notes of black currant; very hoppy with a bit a fruitiness. I stuck in a little bit of Cascade to round out the fruitiness. There’s a little Mt. Hood, and some Hallertauer Select. They added hops at the beginning, towards the end of the boil, and right before the end of the boil. 

They didn’t measure the color of the beer back then, but I guess that it was a nice golden color. They used pale malt. If it wasn’t dark enough, they’d add a touch of caramel malt to darken it up a bit. I used the Moravian malt that we have, the Coors strain. We have a barley breeding program up in Idaho; they improve it every year. Then I put just a tiny bit of European cara-malt. It maintains the color of the beer, and adds a slightly more complex character to the beer. It’s fermented with the classic Coors yeast. 

It’s fairly close… If there’s a bullseye out there to designate what beer was being drunk by people back in 1914 as Coors beer, we probably didn’t hit it, because the ingredients are different. But my guess is that we’re just outside that bullseye. I did a lot of investigative historical work to formulate it as close as possible to what they would have tasted back then.

It’s got a lot of hop character, a good lager character, and it’s a bright, clear beer. It’s not pasteurized, it’s cold-filtered. It’s a real nice lager, a pre-Prohibition lager. In 2008 it won a GABF silver medal. We just released it in 5 cities: Chicago, Milwaukee, DC, SF, and San Jose. We’ll see how it does. If it does well, we’ll expand it.

The stuff I’m doing and putting into the archives, I’m thinking they’ll be pulling them out in 100 years.

Why now?

We’d played around with the recipes for a few years. The flood of 2004…it was minor, but it could have wiped out the records and we’d have had nothing. Let’s get serious. We served it in the private bar here for employees, and people loved it. We called it pre-Pro. The marketing people found out about it, and loved it: it was a real story. It’s been fun making it. It’s a historic beer, and I like the taste. If people want to look at the logbook, it’s right there. It had always been there, but no one’s ever brewed those beers for over 50 years. There’s other stuff there, too. They made a bock beer, and they made an export version, a stronger version of Batch 19.

One more love note to Victory Brewing...

Some of you probably know I had some input on Victory's Baltic Thunder...in an extended way, a lot of the reason that beer exists is because of an e-mail I wrote to Tom Baker quite a few years ago, a mash note on Baltic Porters that led to Perkuno's Hammer, and then Ron Barchet and I talked Baltics when Victory picked up the beer from him. Strictly an inspiration.

But I also helped -- a very little! -- to inspire Victory's Dark Lager, just a little conversation Ron and I had in the lagering room way back. And yesterday I heard from Bill Covaleski that the Dark Lager (which is on tap at the pub and a few other places right now) is really one of their few sales failures. It doesn't really sell enough to keep making it...but they do anyway. Because they, and a few others of us, just love that beer. It's just so craft beer...

So I wanted to take this opportunity to say "Thank you," to Ron and Bill and the crew at Victory Brewing. Thanks for making Dark Lager despite low sales, thanks for continuing to make great session beers like Milltown and Uncle Teddy's (and Dark Lager, at 4.2%!), thanks for everything. And the rest of you guys...time to drink up!

Cape Ann Fisherman's Brew

While Thomas and Cathy were touring Vassar College last Monday, Nora and I ran some errands. We went and got some copies made of my mother-in-law's house keys, we picked up some fresh-made Italian sausage for dinner (amazing, what you can find using a Garmin GPS), and we stopped at Half Time Beverage for some beer to take with. (We were staying at the mom-in-law's, and cooking dinner; she don't stock beer.) I got some Smuttynose IPA and a sixer of Cape Ann Fisherman's Brew.

I first had Cape Ann when I ran into Jeremy Goldberg at Barcade, in Brooklyn, not long after he'd opened. He just happened to be there, as did I, and I enjoyed his beer. I was happy to see it again. Fisherman's Brew is a deep amber lager, and could easily sneak into a group of Oktoberfests: plenty of malt, just enough hop (maybe a little more than "just" enough, but what the hell, it's American; and next to the Smutty, it wasn't noticeable!), and a great finish that's sweet without being cloying. A very fresh-tasting beer, and to tell the truth, I was very surprised to find one still in the cooler when we got home, because I was sure I'd polished them off. Real nice beer, and if you're not in a hophead frame of mind -- or have a pot of cabbage soup simmering on the stove -- it's gonna do you right.

Full Sail Session Black Lager

You folks know I love the session beers, mm-hmm. So when Full Sail put out word that they were making a Dark version of their successful Session Lager, I got in touch and asked 'em for a sample. They sent three 11 oz. stubbies, and I'm getting into them tonight.

Lemme tell you a little story first, about why Full Sail decided to brew Session Lager -- about as "macro" a beer as you'll find from a "micro" -- in the first place. Got this from Jamie Emmerson at Full Sail (from an article I did for American Brewer).

“We had some guys working on the house,” Jamie recalled, “and Friday afternoon we brought some Full Sail out for them. But they said ‘No thanks, no thanks.’ Then we see them a few weeks later, and they’re drinking Tecate. So it’s not that they’re cheap. We asked them, ‘Why not Full Sail,’ and they tell us that it’s too heavy, it’s too bitter.

“So I said to Irene,” he said, as the light went on, “we could make a craft lager that could go up against those beers, and it’s the thing to put in that bottle. We worked up a pre-Prohibition pilsner. It’s 5.1% ABV, mostly pale malt, a little bit of wheat, 20 IBU. That took a lot to get dialed in. It was a fine line on how dry the beer had to finish. If you think Heineken is dry, but Corona is sweet, that’s a fine line. It’s all attenuation and mashing.”

Best of all, it’s working. “The response has been great,” he said. “My dad, an old school beer drinker, says it’s just good beer. If you enjoy micro, there’s enough flavor and character; if you don’t, you’re not put off by the color or flavor. The Germans have a saying that the first beer calls for the third. That’s what this beer is about.”

Yeah, it is. A little on the large side for my session beer definition -- 4.5% and under, and this is 5.4% (or 5.3...accounts vary) -- but definitely drink-o-matic. The dark malt actually gives it a slightly tart/burnt edge that cleans it up, a little smoke/roast thing, but not much. With the stubby bottle -- 11 oz., weird, but that's the old Olympia size -- it reminds me of Yuengling Porter.

Great little bottle, I miss steinies. I'd drink quite a few of these. I'm really curious to find out what market they land in. Will local-homer macro-lovers drink a dark beer with this much flavor? Time will tell. I'm going to have another, myself.

A Whole Lot Of Lager

I've been pretty much off the air for five days. Hey, it was a holiday weekend! We dropped off the Corgis at a nice kennel and drove south to bro-in-law Carl's house south of Richmond for a family celebration: Carl's son Matthew graduated from high school this year, the first of the next generation of Cathy's family. He'd done very well in high school and was accepted as an Echols Scholar at the University of Virginia.

So we celebrated: way too much food, loud music (world music, Matt's studying a variety of languages and makes the cultures part of his study), and a 50 liter keg of Blue & Gray Classic Lager. Which was quite tasty, particularly since with the brewery's recent move, the only way they could sell Carl a keg -- Carl being a fairly regular customer -- was to give him unfiltered beer. Very tasty indeed, although when we had to move the last three gallons or so last night, it got real cloudy; lots of yeast in those last glasses!

We had some cans of Sly Fox Phoenix Pale Ale, too, and a Pike Place Monk's Uncle Triple (very nice golden color, pleasantly dry malt presentation (too many sappy tripels out there), with some great spicy notes -- quite a good beer, and I recommend it to you), and I got a bit sappy myself drinking some Old Charter 101, but mostly...we drank Lager. Mostly Carl and I drank Lager, although his brothers Chris and Curt helped. (Don't anyone's parents come to graduation parties any more?) We worked some of it off with a hike around the pond at Pocahontas State Park (that's Carl in the hat and Curt in the...skin).

Most of the family went home Sunday morning. We had breakfast with them before they left, then went to 11 AM mass, and took the rest of the day pretty darned easy as it rained almost all day. More Lager, of course.

Monday Cathy and Thomas and I toured University of Richmond and William & Mary, part of the reason for the trip. We're doing college visits this month. It was not as grueling as we'd feared: the weather was simply wonderful, high 80s with hardly any humidity. Of course, we were touring two beautiful campuses, which didn't hurt. We took the Johnstown-Scotland ferry back across the James River on the way back from Williamsburg, which was smooth, cool, and very pretty, then joined Carl and family for one last dinner (pizza and salad...and Lager).

Today was grueling. We left Carl's at 8:30, drove down I-85 and had breakfast at Brian's Steakhouse in South Hills, VA (excellent), then struck west on VA Rt. 58, a fun and gorgeous drive I've done in the past, and enjoyed again today. But...it was 1:15 by the time we made Wake Forest, and today was hotter (thank God for the breeze). After the talk and the tour (another nice campus, Thomas pulls a face when he notices me taking a picture), we toddled down to Little Richard's Bar-B-Que on Country Club Road.

Holy crap, it was good. I got the coarse-chopped tray with slaw, hush puppies, and fries (why do these places insist on deep-frying 'krinkle-kut' "fries"? Make some damned fresh-cuts, willya?), and tossed the meat up with Little Richard's "dip," the Lexington-style sauce that is just hypnotic to the tongue. Yum-damnit-yum, and the hushpuppies were plentiful and crisp, the slaw diced with dip, and the meat...well, I'm very glad that Little Richard's actually smokes their 'que. 'Nuff said. The side of beans was disappointing: if they weren't lightly doctored canned beans, they were putting too much effort into making something that tasted just like lightly doctored canned beans.

Somehow we managed to realize that dessert -- banana pudding! -- would just not have been -- chocolate pie! -- a good idea, and hit the road at 5:15...for Charlottesville. Argh. The Jetta's nice, don't get me wrong, but four people in it for eight hours? We got a little snarky at times. The driving was fabulous (once we got off I-40 onto Rt. 29 North); hills, practically deserted four lane highway, beautiful vistas of forests, even the waves of kudzu looked good. We got to Ch'ville at 9, and dossed down in our hotel room. Know how grueling all that driving was? I didn't have the energy to drive into town to take in the excellent beers at South Street. I feel like I've let you down, but I was just not getting back in that car again till tomorrow morning!

Tomorrow we tour UVA, probably grab lunch at either Michael's or the Mellow Mushroom (fast good pizza, one pint for the road), then drop in to take a look at the Dickinson College campus before picking up the Corgis and going home. In other words...we're looking at another six and a half hours in the car. Although the last hour and a half will be in both cars, with the Corgis, which will be much better. Talk to you later!

Brauhaus Schmitz soft opening

Cathy and I went down to the soft opening at Brauhaus Schmitz tonight...ah, Germanness. Teutonicity. It's a nice space, and yes, that's wood at the entrance, right on South Street (there's a nice little concrete fresco on the sidewalk as you enter, too).

We were greeted by Doug Hager, clearly overjoyed to finally be open. He welcomed us, told us to sit anywhere, but we took the opportunity to walk around a bit: the bar, the taps, the interesting 2nd floor with its low ceiling (like a rathskellar on the 2nd floor) and balcony overlooking the bar. Then we sat in the front, and Jess and Amy, our dirndl'd waitresses, took care of us.

I had a Schlenkerla Helles (draft, beautiful), Cathy a crisp glass of Jever. (The beers are not cheap, the 0.5 liter helles was $7.50, but look, you're on South Street, and Philly's not cheap any more; besides, at least it's an honest half liter instead of a 13 oz. shaker "pint.") We got obatzda (cheese butter with caraway and rye bread, done quite well and with enough bread for the spread) and potato pancakes (crisp, light, not oily).

There was also a bread plate, and God bless Doug and Kelly for that: I think it is one of the Crimes of Food that German bread is not fawned over like French bread. Germans have almost as many breads as they have sausages, and it's great. Go, get bread (remember: soft pretzels are bread, and every city's pretzels are different).

Entrees: Cathy got the Gemüsespatzele, spatzele with asparagus and cheese (and other stuff, don't press me), simply delicious. I had the Zigeuenerschnitzel, a crisp yet tender schnitzel with a pepper and onion sauce; sides were rotkohl (maybe a bit too flavorful) and potato salad (where was the speck?). Very good, even better with our second round of beers: a bottle of Augustiner Maximator for Cathy and a liter of Brauhaus Hausbrau (Stoudt's Gold) for me. We split an apple strudel, and groaned as we left.

Overall? 8 out of 10. A couple of small things could be improved, and we told Doug about them. But the space? Great. The menu? True German. The beers? Excellent, draft and bottle. The location? A bit weird when we left, like walking out of Munich into South Street.

I'd suggest doing what we did: toddling around the corner and down 7th St. to Chick's. Walked right into the bar, and said to Phoebe: we have time for one cocktail, what should it be? She rose to the occasion, asked a few questions, and made one, right on the spot, with Laird's Apple Brandy, Grand Marnier, Canton ginger liqueur, and her own Phoebe's Heart of Darkness bitters (strawberries, cacao nibs, and orange peel). Very nice, not sweet (which was one of the things we determined in the cocktail interview), and for a bespoke cocktail...very reasonably priced.

But...it was also quite hefty, and it quickly became apparent to me that it would be best if Cathy drove home.

Brauhaus Schmitz (and Chick's) are going to be on My List. Schmitz won't be open tomorrow, but keep an ear out; they'll be open for good soon, Monday or Tuesday. Go. Drink. Eat. Enjoy.

Highball!

I put in about four and a half hours with the new pressure washer today, and it was surprisingly tiring. I've never really used a powerful one before, and being two stories up a ladder with that bucking thing trying to push you over backwards...damn! But the house looks much better -- the mold/moss build-up on white siding is nasty -- and I trimmed the shrubs away from the house to get at the siding, too. But I'm bushed.

So...I made a highball. Took my Sly Fox Pikeland Pils willibecker glass, filled it with ice, poured in about an inch of Rittenhouse Rye, and topped it up with Stewart's Ginger Beer. Damn me, that was good. The ginger beer is so spicy my lips were tingling a bit (Stewart's isn't Blenheim, but it's good), the rye punched it up good, and it was cold and refreshing. I love a rye and ginger in the summer -- and it's finally summer, sunlight for a change!

Ah...a little bit of cheese and bread, a little writing (blogging for a friend's magazine site on Bill Gates' patent app for an amazing new cooler device; I'll link when it's up), and tonight Cathy and I are going to drop by the eagerly awaited soft opening at Brauhaus Schmitz. Mmmm, German beers. Dirndls. Cathy. And I've gotta cantor at the 7:45 mass tomorrow morning. Yeesh.

For the Love of Lager

Only two tickets left for my next Tria Fermentation School event: For the Love of Lager, set for June 10th. I'll have lots of great lagers for you, plus appearances by some great local lager brewers (Bill Covaleski of Victory and John Trogner from Tröegs will be there to harrass me and entertain you) and the usual tasty snack-bites.

Whoops, sold out. Thanks!

The Session #25 -- Love Lager

It's The Session, beer blogging on a common topic, and this month John Duffy of The Beer Nut asks: "I want to know what's so great about [plain, yellow, fizzy lagers] and what's awful. Are we talking just lawnmowers, barbecues and sun holidays here, or is there a time for some thoughtful considered sipping of a cold fizzy lager?" See it all here, shortly.

There are going to be a lot of folks reminiscing about when they drank fizzy lager this month, I'm guessing. I put plenty of them down my steaming craw back in the day, God knows (and some of them came back up). There's going to be people "giving them a fair chance" and deciding that yeah, they really do suck. There's probably even going to be some "screw you, I'm not drinking those." As I said: I'm guessing.

I'm not going to do that, even though I'd planned to. My first beer, icy Rolling Rocks with the band, all that jazz. But screw it. Philly Beer Week calls, and I've got to get ready and get down to it. So I'm just going to pre-game a little with a tallboy (that's a pint can, for you Euro-styles) of Narragansett.

Is that good? Pre-gaming isn't, really, but on the other hand, it's been a long, crazy day, frantic e-mail as I get caught up going into the weekend full-tilt, like street-luging down Negley Ave. in Pittsburgh...and I could use a beer, just to slow down a little. Grainy, a little sticky, fizzy (and that's where most of the bitterness comes from, the fizz), and...not much else, really.

Is that bad? Well...I guess, if I was looking for much more. But you know, I drink soft drinks, too, I like to drink, and if I drank beer everytime I drank, I'd be like people describe Winston Churchill, in a constant state of varyingly mild inebriation. So this fits in that. I'm in the moment. I'm not thinking about it, normally, though I am now, of course. But mostly I'm thinking about the music that's playing (Nick Lowe, I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass), the upcoming evening (train ride, opening tap of Philly Beer Week, seeing friends and brewers, maybe hanging around and hitting one other event), my son coming home, the dogs nosing around (bright-eyed little beauties)...life.

I can do that with a glass of Sierra Nevada Torpedo. But it demands more attention. This...I was going to say is mindless drinking, but that's not really right. It's effortless drinking.

Is that bad? I don't know. But I don't really care, either. This is beer for other times. Beer for old friends. It's social. Should I be upset when my friends offer me fizzy lager? I'm not, except for a fairly short period in the early 1990s. I got over that. I draw the line at light beer, but that's okay with almost any mainstream drinker; that doesn't challenge them. Beer isn't about beating people up, any more than food is. At least, not for me.

Well, I'm done. Been nice sitting with you, but I've got to go. It's been nice. We should do this again sometime.

I'm hosting The Session myself next month: Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em. Rauch it up. Be there.

Doing Anything This Saturday Afternoon?

As you may know, I'm real big on Rieker's Prime Meats, the German deli and butcher in Fox Chase, Northeast Philly. They make and smoke their own sausages, and they make fantastic hams and bacons, and their supply of authentic German candies, pickles, sauces, and so on is second to none. (I like to stop in there after donating platelets at the Red Cross's Northeast Donor Center, you know, to replenish my hemoglobin and such.)

So when the folks across the street at the Blue Ox Bistro contacted me and suggested that we do a Philly Beer Week event with Rieker's...I about wet myself. Sorry for that image, but...

So here's the deal. The event is this Saturday at 2:00 PM (an hour after my wheat beer breakfast at the Grey Lodge, feel free to join me), for a cover of $25: a steal for the event. We're going to match up the great German and German-type beers the Blue Ox is serving (really; if you haven't been back since the re-opening, you'll be pleased) with some of the delicious German-type meats you can find at Rieker's. We'll eat, we'll drool a bit, we'll talk beer and smoked meat.

Then we'll all walk across the street to Rieker's where you'll be able to shop for the stuff you just tasted, a food-beer home-restaurant cross-over you won't find too many places! I'll be right there with you, helping with suggestions, pointing out the sweets and delicacies (they do have smoked eel, just ask (and if you know what I'm talking about, you know me too well)), and translating to the best of my abilities. Then we'll head back across the street to the Blue Ox, and wind up at 5:00.

Here's the menu (we're still making beer pairings, but you'll get Spaten Maibock, Sly Fox Rauchbier, Tucher Hefeweizen, a Victory Braumeister Pils, and the "1809" Berliner Weisse)

• Assorted cheeses, Rieker's own landjaeger sausage, Rieker's rauchpeitschen "Smoked Whip" sausage (better than any damned Slim Jim!)
• Rieker’s Triple-Smoked Bacon, lettuce & tomato sandwich, potato salad with more triple-smoked bacon
• Rieker’s smoked Hungarian bratwurst, Rieker’s smoked pfefferwurst (my favorite post-platelet treat, a peppery, soft, smoked sausage), Rieker’s bockwurst
• Mussels in Tucher Hefeweizen sauce (not from Rieker's, but hey: hefeweizen mussels!)
• Egg Skillet with Reiker’s smoked Kielbasa & Radeberger Pilsner cheese sauce, Burger with Radeberger cheese sauce

If you like German beer, if you like German food, if you like shopping in a deli where the people behind the counter actually made most of the meats on display...join us on Saturday. We'll have a good time!

Return of The Blob('s Park)!

Ah, good news, my gemütlichkeit-loving friends: Blob's Park will be re-opening! Open since the 1930s, and holding an annual Oktoberfest since 1947, Blob's Park, the beloved German beerhall/garden in Jessup, Maryland, closed last New Year's Eve. It was a sad time. But now there's news that Max Blob's great-nephew, Max Eggrel, is renovating (about $250,000 worth), and hopes to be open by this New Year's Eve. That's some kind of oompah, brother.

Pinkus Jubilate

Just-arrived from importer Merchant du Vin: the first new Pinkus beer I've seen in a while. Jubilate is a dark lager, also organic, like their other beers. It's not the best dark lager I've ever had, but it's a fine beer: drinkable, full-flavored, no flaws. I had the Jubilate with a delicious dish of pasta Amatriciano, a dish with some heat and big flavors, and the Jubilate grabbed the sweetness, tamed the heat, a great foil for the food. It's a good choice for food, and not bad for just sitting back and drinking, either.

Pilsner Gala is now a LAGER Gala

We had some folks who wanted to play with us in the Pilsner Gala we have planned at Triumph for Philly Beer Week who didn't have what were quite exactly pilsners...but Jay decided we should let them in anyway. So here is the final list (er...probably final) of Lagers for the Gala at Triumph on March 13, 6-10 PM.

Triumph - German Pils, Dunkel, Kellerbier, Blonde Doppelbock, and Rauchbock (all from the Philly location)
Iron Hill - Vienna Lager (which, if you ain't had it yet, you should)
Victory - Braumeister Pils (Tettnanger?) and Prima
Sly Fox - Pikeland Pils, and a special amber Rauchbier
Ramstein - Vienna Lager
Appalachian - Zoigl Star Lager (unfiltered kellerbier-type)
Lancaster - Franklinfest (a change from Gold Star Pilsner)
Troegs - unfiltered Sunshine Pils
Stoudt's - Pils (this may be unfiltered; waiting to hear on that)

And if you're hungry, Jay is lining up serious German beerhall eats: smoked sausage, meat patties, pfefferwurst, sliders (okay, German-American), and lots of meat. There will probably be some vegetable stuff too. No, really!

This is all pay-as-you-go, most (but not all) breweries are sending people, and you will have an almost unprecedented opportunity to compare these local lagers side-by-side. I'm really looking forward to this, hope you can make it!

Addition: Lord, I was just looking at this line-up again...you'd be hard-pressed to find this many different non-mainstream lagers on in one bar/brewpub anywhere. It's gonna be better than Germany. Heresy.