Founders KBS

I got a sample of Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout two months ago, and finally got to it last night. It was one of those "on the deck in the dark" nights, and the KBS made it a good one.

Black as the night around me, and densely opaque as a good heavy pumpernickel.

Richly aromatic, even when cold, and almost explosive as it warms up: dark, oily coffee; roughly sensual chocolate/cocoa; oaky-sweet bourbon.

Rolling heavy in the mouth, full but easily teased into separate chocolate/vanilla/coffee notes, the bourbon/wood rolling around everything. Surprisingly light finish, didn't hang unctuously in the mouth.

Drank so easy I was shocked to see I'd finished it.

I Love You Too, Wawa

Check the awesome power of Seen Through A Glass.

Last October I publicly dissed Wawa's disappointing treatment of their coffee. I urged them to dump the Bunn Coffee Burners and put their otherwise decent coffee in thermal carafes. There seemed to be some motion in that direction in January.

Then last night, Yards Brewing's Steven J. Mashington sent me this picture of fellow Yardser Steve Welsh tapping himself a fresh cuppa thermally-coddled Wawa Coffeetopia, at the 21st & Hamilton Wawa (where, by the way, they'll be celebrating the Wawaversary on September 21, which includes...free coffee all day!). That's looking like success, baby.

So, Wawa. A couple things. First, thanks for listening. Second, no charge. Really. Third, Trevose, dammit, Trevose!

Oh. And I'm still waiting for diesel. Cuz I got two of 'em now. Good coffee, and diesel. I know you can do it.

Vote in PLCB poll, Sunday only!

Just saw a poll in the Lehigh Valley Express-Times:

Should Pennsylvania sell the state liquor control system to balance the budget?

Can I get a big Hell Yeah!

Go register your opinion right now!

Can't find the results today...but late last night "Sell it!" was running over 80%. Like to see a real statewide poll done by an impartial agent.

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.

KegWorks and Mr. Fizz continue to please me

I told you that I finally gave in and ordered a CO2 tap, the Mr. Fizz from Leland, after years of fiddling with a handpump picnic tap. It was a huge and fantastic difference: almost zero wasted beer, no frustration with juggling pressure -- it's a set-and-forget beauty -- and maybe best of all, we didn't have to drink a whole keg in one day or have the remainder go flat. I love the thing.

But we've got a party coming up: the first of eight nephews/nieces/son & daughter graduated from high school (congratulations, Matt! GREAT job, and accepted an Echols Scholar at UVA!) and I offered to bring the tap. And then realized I had no gas. Yikes! Scramble, and find that KegWorks has the best price/shipping combo...but can't guarantee delivery before we have to leave. Gamble, order six cartridges (about $10 each, and worth it).

Lo and behold, they showed up today, three days before the earliest estimated delivery date. Bravo KegWorks! We'll have perfect beer for the party.

Folks, I get no freebies and no remuneration from either of these two companies; they don't know me from Adam. I just love the products and service, and cheerfully recommend them to you. Now, if you'll excuse me...it's Beer O'Clock.

"FSA 2/09"? Update: mystery solved!

Someone -- I'm not sure who -- gave me two unlabeled bottles of beer a while back. The plain bottlecaps bear the only clue to what's in them: black marker, spelling out "FSA 2/09". I wasn't even sure what "FSA" was, until I opened one last night: Flemish Sour Ale! And a good one, too. Pale gold, lots of white foam, and a clean tart flavor, not touched by heavy acetone or solvent aromas or overdone with body. In short, a very nice beer...if only I could remember who gave it to me. I'm thinking it might have been one of the Iron Hill brewers, but I'm not sure. Anyone know?

(6/26: mystery solved. Greg Ouellette, the brewer at Martha's Exchange, gave them to me back in May when we met for drinks in Philly. Here's what he said on Facebook:

Lew. That's mine. Gave it to you at Triumph when I saw you in early May. Glad to see you enjoyed it. Not homebrew. but brewpub brew. 2 years in the making. Blended with a golden ale cuz the straight sour was waaay too sour. Cheers.)

Very low blogging rate this week, I know. I've been working on a story for Mass Beverage Biz, doing Malt Advocate editing, and setting up Thomas's first college visit trip. Busy week. I'll try to squeeze a few more in before the end of the month.

More Saints at the Grey Lodge

I whimpered a bit to Scoats that while he was celebrating saint's days -- St. Patrick's Day (of course), St. George's Day, and St. Andrew's Day -- he was missing -- in this very Welsh region -- St. David's Day. There are Welsh beers available, after all, and the Welsh whisky -- excuse me, wisgi -- Penderyn. (Which is an excuse to run a picture of my good Welsh boy.)

Well, not only did Scoats agree that March 1 of next year would see a St. David's Day celebration at the Grey Lodge, he one-upped me. This Wednesday, June 24th, will be St. Jean-Baptiste Day (hell, I didn't know there was a Grey Lodge blog!) at the Grey Lodge, a celebration of the patron saint of Quebec.

There will be a bunch of Unibroue beers -- always cause for a celebration -- and authentic poutine: 'authentic' meaning the fries are the G-Lodge's fresh-cut double-cooked fries, the cheese curds are real cheese curds, and -- again, that one-upmanship! -- the brown gravy is made with Unibroue Don de Dieu. French-speaking gravy! If you thought the whole "freedom fries" thing was absolutely ridiculous, this is your chance to get some seriously French fries. No Montreal smoked meat, unfortunately -- next year, Scoats says -- but they will have smoked pork with maple onions, and pork and beans: homeboy Quebecois food, I guess.

Je me souviens! I will remember this, Scoats: see you in March, and maybe on Wednesday, too. Sante!

Last Day for Pittsburgh-brewed Iron City

The last Lawrenceville-brewed batch of Iron City beer will be made today. Production will be moved to the City Brewing (no connection) facility 40 miles away in Latrobe, the brewery that once made Rolling Rock...before that iconic Pennsylvania brand was bought by Anheuser-Busch and production was moved to Newark, NJ.

I don't see any way for Iron City to win this. They can't afford to keep brewing in Lawrenceville -- the brewery needs more improvements than sales will allow -- they won't do well as a contracted brew in Latrobe -- the only mainstream beer I know of that ever pulled that off is Pabst, and Pabst was already a national brand, and had to go through the fire before emerging as an unlikely success.

We've lost another pre-Prohibition brewery.

Yuengling boycott? What?

My Google Alert on Yuengling has suddenly started spitting out pieces about Yuengling "illegally" busting the Teamsters out of their plant, and a bunch of folks saying "Man, I gotta stop drinking Yuengling!" Huh?

So I read the stuff, mostly coming out of a Mike Elk post on Huffington, and wow, that Dick Yuengling, he's huffing and puffing and blowing the union down! Elk claims Dick "said that if they didn't vote to kick the union out, he would close the plant, and ship the work to a non-union facility in the South." Which sounds like total bullshit to me right there: if he closes the Pottsville plant, they're no longer America's Oldest Brewery, and the facility they have in the "South" is the old Stroh brewery in Tampa, which is where Yuengling got unionized in the first place. There is no "ship it south" option for Yuengling; which is when I got my first inkling that Elk might be rabble-rousing.

I'm getting a lot more skeptical these days, so I looked deeper into this. The first thing I see is that according the AP story on the issue, the National Labor Relations Board "could find no evidence that management pressured employees to leave Philadelphia-based Local 830 of the Teamsters." The NLRB ruled for the brewery. So where's Elk get his "Yuengling had illegally busted their union" line? If the NLRB rules for the brewery, and the last appeal by the union is denied -- which it was -- then it's not illegal. And it's not like the workers are being oppressed. Yuengling pays 100% of their employees' health care, and brewery workers make $20 an hour. Not so bad.

Then I took another look at the story: it's from May of 2007. What da hell? This is a two year old story! Why is it suddenly coming up now?

Keep looking in Elk's piece...and you find that what Elk is really doing is trying to put pressure on Arlen Specter to vote for the Employee Free Choice Act. Boycotting Yuengling, the all-too-obvious hope is, will cause Dick Yuengling to cry uncle to Arlen. Wow. To paraphrase Bugs Bunny, if this guy thinks he's going to get Dick Yuengling to cry uncle, he don't know him very well, do he?

Look, I'm not a big fan of the EFCA because of the no-secret-ballot provision. I am not anti-union -- used to be, but no longer -- but I think the EFCA, as written, needs work. What I'm really not a fan of is using, manipulating union workers for political reasons. And suddenly stirring the shit two years after the fact (particularly when the "fact" ain't even in your favor) for political gain all too clearly shows that you never gave a rat's ass about the union workers in the first place.

This is stupidly transparent. Think for yourself -- don't just blindly follow what I'm saying, go look at this stuff yourself -- but my advice? Keep drinking Lager if you feel like it.

No, no comments on this one. Just because.