"A Temple to Breakfast"

We walked across the parking lot of our motel to Walker Brothers' Original House of Pancakes. Wow. I can't say much about this place because it just blew us away. We like going out for breakfast, and we're not easily impressed. These were the best pancakes I've had since the late, lamented Lena's Lunch of White River Junction, VT. Cathy had an apple pancake, which looked like an egg foo yung pancake the size of a metal plate cover, only steaming with fresh apple and Sinkiang cinnamon. It's a signature dish, along with the Dutch Baby. I had the 49ers Flapjacks, three thin, custardy, egg-heavy pancakes that were just crazy delicious. The coffee was excellent, the bacon meaty and delish, and the service perfectly on-pitch.

The building itself? Our host for the weekend, the father of the bride, the renowned Dr. J. George Sarmiento, asked me if we'd got to Walker Brothers, and what did we think? "George, it's a temple to breakfast, the place is a freakin' temple to breakfast!" It was fantastic. I love this area. Chicago still does so many things the east coast has stopped doing out of stupid self-conciousness. Sad. And well worth an annual pilgrimage to Chicagoland. Great to be here, sorry we're leaving tomorrow.

Yard House: first visit

Look, you guys probably know by now that I don't like chain restaurants. I just don't. They take up space and money and share of mind/belly/wallet that could be used by unique local places that are the vision of individuals. I could go on, and I really believe it. But...

I visited a Yard House in Glenview, Illinois today. And I enjoyed it. I had a glass of Goose Island Honker's Ale that was perhaps the best, cleanest glass of Honker's I've ever had, and I loved it. Cathy got a pint of Guinness, and it was as good as in any Irish pub -- as in, Irish pub in Ireland or here. And the service was good, and the music wasn't too loud, and...it was good.

(I've got an article on draft maintenance coming out soon in Nightclub & Bar magazine -- my first piece for them -- that talks quite a bit about Yard House's draft line cleaning processes. Can't go into details before publication, but I was not surprised by the quality of the draft beers we got in Glenview.)

Penn Stays Open!

Good news first: Penn Brewery has signed a five year lease to stay in their current building. As reported in the Post-Gazette today, that much is sure. More details are promised tomorrow. The details I'm sure everyone is interested in? What about the actual brewery, which is currently listed for sale? (The bottling line's already been sold.)

Until I know about that, I'm reserving judgment.

Chicagoland afternoon: Flatlander's and The Firkin

I had made plans to meet up with Steve Herberger -- a long-time commenter here, a long-time supporter of non-mainstream beer -- this afternoon at Flatlander's. It was an easy run up Milwaukee Avenue, maybe four minutes from our hotel. As you can maybe tell from Cathy's face, it was quite cold, and breezy. We hustled inside.

Steve was easy to find: the only guy at the bar. We got right to work on the beers as we got caught up for the first time -- this was one of those 'met on the Internet, now meet face-to-face' moments -- and I got the Bitter, Cathy got the Winter Warmer.

Well, they were disappointing. The Winter Warmer had a very disagreeable odor/flavor that reminded me of the smell in a tire warehouse: musty rubber. My bitter was okay, but maybe a bit over-attenuated, maybe a bit tannic, maybe a little astringent...and maybe I'm going easy on it because I really wanted to like it. Then I got a Belgian Golden, and it was thin, and a bit edgy/tart. (As Steve has since pointed out, the pale ale, an American-style, was good, with no issues.) And to be honest, the service wasn't great, particularly for being the only folks at the bar.

So we left. I talked Steve into heading up the road into Libertyville to visit The Firkin. It didn't take much to convince him, and once we got there, I could see why. We weren't there five minutes before Cathy and I started our perennial complaint: "Why isn't this bar near us?"

Don't get me wrong: we have good bars nearby. Well, actually, we have two: Isaac Newton's and the Hulmeville Inn. But The Firkin isn't just the 25 taps and 2 hand-pumps of good beers (click on the last photo to get a look). It's a great-looking place, with character, it's some damned good food that doesn't taste like everybody else's, and snappy servers who know the beer (although the first guy we got didn't know squat; still, he was friendly, and quick to hand out a sample).

Cathy played it safe with a Beamish, I went local and funky with a Goose Island Matilda (delicious), and Steve went even localer (?) with the Emmett's McCarthy's Red, a cask red from a small local brewpub chain. It was damned near the pick of the litter: just tasting fresh as bejayzus, hoppy but not crazy. The sip Steve gave me convinced me to get a full one. Steve, on the other hand, got a Dynamo Copper Lager. Never heard of it? Neither had we. It's from Metropolitan Brewing, a new all-lager production brewery in Chicago.

That's right, I said "all-lager production brewery." Steve and I were geeking out: a new brewery! A new craft brewery that makes all lagers! And the beer wasn't bad. Needs to be cleaned up a little, but it had a good full body, some hop to it, and tasted pretty good. So that was pretty cool. That was about it for us, though: we had to get back in time to get dressed for the rehearsal dinner.

Except we didn't go. We got all dressed up, but Cathy didn't look good. By the time we got to the parking lot of Pete Miller's, she was sweating and shaking. I took her home and put her to bed, and I've been reading a new Spenser book ever since. And blogging. She's feeling better already, so I think we'll be okay tomorrow.

Down on the Ground in Chicagoland

Just checked into our hotel, about to head out for beers at Flatlander's. After that, headed for the rehearsal dinner. Nice room, beers for sale in the lobby -- we're not in PA anymore!

Ash Wednesday Thoughts

Maybe it's just the fast talking but...

• Do any of you other Catholics start thinking, "Man, my forehead's itchy..." and reach up and scratch most of their ashes off before they realize what they're doing?
• Does how much you're "allowed" to eat vary between dioceses?
• If the diocese across the river lets me have half a sammich for lunch, can I go there?
• Beer doesn't count, right?
• Where can I get more doublebock real quick?
• I actually feel smarter without eating. If I put one of those Breathe-Right strips on my nose and start getting more oxygen, too, maybe I can solve this mortgage problem.
• Do dog biscuits count?
• I really love fish. I do. I love it like a brother. A brother that I'm going to grill up and eat with fingerling potatoes and mixed greens tonight.

Pittsburgh Hofbräuhaus: or, maybe not

The Pittsburgh Hofbräuhaus has pushed back their opening date again, now calling for a soft opening on March 10. This is from the WPXI website (thanks to a reader for the link):

A German-style beer hall set to open on Tuesday will once again delay its opening. The Hofbrauhaus at the South Side Works was originally scheduled to open a month ago. However, beer lovers will have to continue to be patient. A soft opening for the new $4 million beer hall is scheduled for March 10.
The beer hall is just one of three locations throughout the United States. It will seat 450 people indoors, and another 600 outside. A grand opening for the Hofbrauhaus has not yet been set.

You weren't holding your breath, were you?

Meantime, Penn Brewery will probably -- almost certainly -- shut down at the end of the week (the actual brewery operation; the beer will continue to be made under contract at The Lion). Dammit. Thank God for the Church.

Southern Tier Unearthly IIPA

Picked up a bomber of this a few weeks ago for a project I'm working on. Did that earlier tonight -- a mixing thing -- and now I'm drinking the rest of the bottle straight. When I first poured it -- and again, if I swirl it up for a fresh airing -- there's a crisp, clean dairy smell; not milk, or cream, but that clean smell of scrubbed concrete and rock of the collection room. That fades into a smell of fruit, pine, and resiny plastic.

The beer itself seems underattenuated, thick and sweet, and the bitterness, surprisingly, isn't enough to clean up the end, which is a bit sticky. There's not that much bitterness here, really, a hot flash of it up front, and some stringing through the middle, but not that lingering bitterness you get from some much smaller IPAs. Plenty of hop flavor, but it's struggling to punch through that clog of sweetness.

I like some IIPA/DIPAs (don't tell the Session Beer Project). I don't like them all. This one ranges too high on the ABV scale and doesn't pull it off. If you're going to go this big, you've got to get a yeast that's big enough to eat it. This is reminding me of 120 Minute IPA, and not in a good way. If I want this kind of big malty sweetness, I'd rather have it without the half-hearted hopping: what we used to call barleywine.

Bill Brand Died This Morning

San Francisco-area beer writer -- and journalist, and father, and husband -- Bill Brand died this morning from injuries in an accident two weeks ago. I never met Bill, though we had corresponded, but his writing was a mixture of passion and professionalism -- tempered with an adamantine intolerance for bullshit -- that shone through the midden of "beer writing" like a streak of gold. We'll miss him. My deep sympathies to his family, and commiseration with the beer community. Raise a glass tonight, folks.

Pittsburgh Hofbräuhaus: the latest

The Pittsburgh Hofbräuhaus opening continues to be the most common search term that leads people to STAG, after my own name, and I've been trying to keep up to date on it. That led me to call Nick Ellison, managing member of the franchise team at Pittsbugh HB, and talk to him today. It turned out to be a fortuitous choice of schedule: Today marked the first brew at Pittsburgh HB! (That's brewer Eckhart Kurbjuhn starting things up.)

I did a short interview with him, but I'll tell you the important thing right now: Nick said they're now setting March 3rd as the soft opening date. Here's the rest of what we talked about.

When are you opening?

We’re doing our soft opening on March 3rd, unless something bad happens. Last week we had a control box burn out on the boiler, or as the Germans put it, the steam generator. That soft opening’s just opening the doors, turning on the lights. We’ll have an invitational grand opening celebration, which will also be the keg-tapping of our Maibock, on April 29th.

Why all the delays?

It took a long time for the developer to work out arrangements with the City of Pittsburgh. We also had problems with the ability of HB to issue us a franchise – the franchise rules had changed, that kind of stuff, paperwork. I tend to forget that kind of stuff happened, now I’m worried about control boxes burning out!

Why did you decide to build there?

It’s got a lot going on around it. It’s a first-class development, great tenants: Cheesecake Factory, McCormick & Schmick's, Ann Taylor. That’s where we wanted to be. We’re in walking distance of eight universities, too, and we sell beer, you know.

When does brewing actually start?

We started today, our first beer. We’re brewing the Lager. (See more about the beers here.) That won’t be finished for the opening, of course, we’re bringing in beer from Germany.

How much of the beer will be brewed on-site?

Most of the beer will be brewed on site. We will have four beers all the time: Lager, Hefeweizen, Light, and Dunkel. We will import the Maibock and Oktoberfest. The Oktoberfest will be the same beer served in the Hofbräuhaus tent at Oktoberfest. There are regulations that the Oktoberfest can only be brewed in Munich. Of course, the rules don’t really apply here, but we wanted to do it right, so we’re bringing that in. We’ll have twelve seasonals all together.

I saw you’re going to do a tapping of the seasonal on the first Wednesday of every month, is that right?

Yes, and the Oktoberfest won’t be in October. You tap Oktoberfest in September.

Outstanding! I’ve heard a number of different numbers on seating: how many can you seat?

About 1,100 seating, about half of it inside. The beer garden seats 376, and a vorgarten that seats 46. That’s where you go for vorplay!

It’s all very much outside, the gartens, if it rains you get wet?

Oh, yeah! An indoor beer garden wouldn’t be right.

Your menu’s online, right?

Menu’s up online (PDF warning), there may be a few changes. We’ll have pretzels served tableside by pretzel girls, the rest of the food will be waitress-order. It’s pretty traditional Bavarian. We’ve strived to make about a third of the menu traditional Bavarian food: schweinshaxe, sauerbraten, those kind of things. One-third German-American stuff: bratwurst, mettwurst, schnitzel. And about one-third is right out of Applebee’s, American food. You can get what you want; just because it’s German, you don’t have to eat German. We want everyone to feel comfortable.


Thanks to Bob Batz of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for graciously providing Nick's contact info. First beer's on me, Bob...I think I owe you a couple!