General Lafayette closed, to change hands; brewing continues

Just got this press release direct from Chris Leonard at the General Lafayette Inn:

The General Lafayette Inn & Brewery in Lafayette Hill, PA is ceasing its restaurant and guest house operations effective immediately. A sale has been pending for close to a year. During the continued sale negotiations, the current brewers will continue to operate the brewing facilities to produce craft beer for wholesale distribution. Once the buyer is able to complete the purchase, the current brewers will retain operating rights to the brewery and resume providing General Lafayette beer for on-site consumption via the Copper Crow Beer Company (Crow). The Crow shall also begin wholesale production at an alternate site in North Wales, sometime in October. (emphases added)

After rumors of the General closing over the past months, rumors that intensified over the past week, it's good to get some kind of resolution, even if only a confirmation of the intentions. I hope things work out the way Chris lays them out here. Never had a problem with his beer at the General at all.

Uncle Jack has more here.

Bits & Pieces

Still really busy writing PA Breweries 4th, but I wanted to tell you a few things I came across.

• Nodding Head has a 10th anniversary version of 3C out called 4C, because it adds Columbus hops to the Cascades, Chinook, and Centennial hops that are in 3C...and turns it up to 11...percent, that is, not as brewed by Nigel Tufnel. It tastes so damned fresh-hoppy that it's like licking the inside of a hops bale wrapper. "We're generally less bitter," says Gordon Grubb, "but we use more hops."
• Bube's Brewery has a pretty damned nice 6% Nut Brown Ale on right now, and one of their two brewers' names really is Bryan Teets, which I can only guess has earned him a couple rations of crap. 
•  Crabby Larry owner Larry Jones got bit by the brewing bug; found it so interesting that he's doing most of the brewing now, and has exchanged his oversized tanks for smaller ones: the beers are the better for it, fresher, less oxidized. His Irish stout's pretty nice right now, and the fish -- as always -- is worth the trip.
• Doug Marchakatus is tweaking and adding beers at Manayunk: "It's a constantly evolving brewery," he said. Manyunk's beer is like an archeological dig: you can still see evidence of each of the prior brewers, all the way back to Tom Cizauskas. Doug's St. Alpha Belgo-IPA has a beguiling aroma of apricots.
• I finally got to Shank's Tavern in Marietta, after trying to hit it when it's open for years (really. Years.), and it was worth the wait: neat old bar, good fresh beers (decent assortment of local crafts on tap and bottle) and an excellent bowl of chili that really hit the spot on a cold afternoon before the snow started falling. Walked down to McCleary's Pub, too, ridiculously close in this tiny town, and had one of the shortest, tastiest pub crawls I remember.
• Talked to Bill Moore at Lancaster Brewing and got the important nub of the recent management shift (Christian Heim and John Frantz were fired on Dec. 30): plans for a production facility are on hold, but "I wouldn't say it's completely off the table." With all their bottles currently being done at The Lion, and Bill working his long-time wholesaler connections to build sales, a production facility could fit in Lanc's future nicely...just sayin'.
• Paul Rutherford is doing some beastly good lagers at Iron Hill Lancaster; had his brand-new helles yesterday, and it was bread-fresh, spot-on accurate.
• Spring House's Planet Bean Coffee Stout has a huge amount of coffee flavor without the bottom-of-the-pot bean bitterness you get in some coffee beers. Nicely done.
• Swashbuckler brewer Mark Braunwirth has a hellish good kölsch on, and their pub (right beside the...pirate ship) is open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday through April. Good chance to try Mark's truly good beers without the whole RenFaire thing...
• Tom Baker at Earth, Bread + Brewery ("Please don't call it "Earth Bread"", said Peggy. "It sounds like bread made of dirt.") told me he'd made his 48th beer since opening, "and none of them were the same." So that's one plan that's working...
• Carol Stoudt told me the Stoudt's Gold has been picking up strongly in sales lately; anecdotal evidence of something I expect to see: people who don't normally drink "craft beer" discovering that "craft beer" doesn't necessarily mean "hoppy, strong, and dark."
• Kutztown Tavern is running 11 beers these days. "We've found our niche," said brewer Bob Sica (a NJ guy who thought he was going to be a musician and started brewing on the side...and now does an acoustic set at the brewery every Saturday night...he found his niche, too). "We hustled for outside accounts for a while, but I couldn't do 11 taps here if I still was." They've got a bottle shop out front with a good craft selection...and the biggest selection of cheap-ass beers and malt liquors I've ever seen. Hey, college town, right?
• The General Lafayette is still open, and Chris Leonard is getting by on what sounds like about 8 hours of sleep a week. He's finally given in, and is brewing a new line of beers: Copper Crow, starting with an IPA.
• Holy crap: the big Sam Adams brewery (I call it that because there's a big Sam Adams sign over the entrance) up outside of Allentown (you know; the former Schaeffer/Stroh/Pabst brewery/Diageo malt drink mixer-uppery) is rocking: 30,000 pounds of malt per batch, crazy amount of tank space, and all Boston Beer production now in-house. No longer a contract brewer. Wow. A seismic shift.
• Tried four beers at Dock Street, and they were uniformly excellent; Rosemarie poured me a glass of the Boho Pils that was simply beer porn, looked good enough to lick; I took a picture and posted it on Facebook.  

And a bunch of other stuff...but I gotta get back to writing. Cheers!

Narragansett Porter -- Wow!

This is easily the most pleasant beer surprise I've had in a while. Well...beer tasting surprise; the Penn revival noted below was pretty damned pleasant (as was the Yuengling Porter discovery that I still have to write about). But this is about the flavor.

The first time I wrote about Narragansett was back in February. They sent me some samples of the Lager for a story I was writing (for American Brewer, about how they were reviving the brand, and doing a nice job of it). I wanted Porter then, because Narragansett Porter was the last 'Gansett beer I'd had, waaaaay back in the dawn of my beer-drinking days, and I wanted the cyclical part of it. They didn't have any. Humph.

Then I got an e-mail about a bit launch of Porter, so I said yes, I'd like some. And a sixer showed up. Well, as I'd posted on Facebook, my tasting table's kinda full, so it took a week or so to get around to chilling one, which I did Monday night.

Wow! This is great stuff! Cottrell Brewing's doing it for them under contract, and they're doing a nice job. It's plenty dark, with a great tan cap of foam, a chocolatey aroma that follows through in the mouth, with just enough roasty cut at the end to clean things up for the next swallow. I had it with our pork and onions favorite (recipe here, simple and delicious), and it was awesome. So I wanted another, and I had one, just now. Still great stuff. Wonder if I can get it here?

(Speaking of great stuff...I picked up Nora early at school today, and took her to lunch at the General Lafayette. I had a cask Pacific Pale Ale that was great, dry and hoppy, with a rare Steak Frites that was probably the very best food I've ever had at the General; great fries (salt and pepper'd fresh-cuts) and a very toothsome piece of beef, done just to my order. Nice work on the kitchen recovery, Chris!)

"The Report of my Death was an Exaggeration"*

Back in July, a bunch of us in the "Philly Beer Community" got an e-mail from Chris Leonard, owner-brewer of the General Lafayette Inn: things were not good, really not good, and he was putting together a last-ditch plan to rescue the place. Uncle Jack, bless his heart, posted it on his blog. I...did not. I meant to, but apparently I was paving the road to Hell that week, got busy (July was a thin month 'round here), and by the time I had time to do it, well, the moment had passed. I felt bad, and finally got my guts up last week and said something to Chris about it by way of an apology.

'No worries,' he said (I'm paraphrasing), 'things are better, and I'll send you an update.' He has, and here it is, in Chris's truly inimitable style.


"Better Days Ahead

Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. Just ask my mother-in-law. Much to her chagrin, The General Lafayette Inn soldiers on with renewed vigor, promise, and excitement for the season that lies ahead. Despite rumors that the General is up for sheriff sale (NOT true) and that we are “out of business” (hardly), we are very much in the early stages of a mini-renaissance, if you will, at the old Inn and Brewery.

Are things easy? Of course not. But nothing worth earning ever is. I was fortunate enough to welcome some new blood on the ownership side of things here. It has helped energize us. That, along with an entire new menu concept (mussels, flatbreads, pretzels, incredible burgers, all house made – simple, fresh, and delicious), has opened up some new opportunities here. Heck, we even have digital HD television now.

Look for us to expand our bar area into our (mostly) empty dining room, creating a warm, comforting, atmosphere with booths, tvs, and, hopefully, a second bar. Hard wood floors are the next addition and we hope to see more folks returning for casual meals, great beer, and good times. Damn, this sounds like a commercial. [Yes...] So, I’ll wrap it up.

I just wanted everyone to know that I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. After many phone calls, I finally got a return call from a woman who had paid a deposit to host her rehearsal dinner here tomorrow night. We had not heard from her and needed her menu. She told me, “We were under the impression that you were going out of business, so we found another place.”

Well, you can imagine how deflating that can be. True, I brought these rumors on myself by making a public request for help. Well, we did get some. Now, I must quash the backlash of that unconventional approach and get this thing back on track.

If the Phillies hold up their end [and they have, and they are!], we’ll have Philadelphia Philsner [which Chris described as "the first red pilsner." What's a red pilsner, I asked. I don't know either, he replied, but we're making one!] on tap in time for the NLCS. Fugazi Lager is pouring now, with Octoberfest on-deck. The Phils are battling and so are we. Please don’t think we’ve given up and are anything but going strong!

Cheers!"

And that's the news from Lafayette Hill. Good news, because I'd truly hate to lose the General: the historic spot (the building dates from 1741), the closeness to my daughter's school (awfully convenient), and Chris and Russ Czajka's excellent, award-winning beers. So...come on out and support your local brewpubs -- yes, all of them -- but if you usually overlook the General, or you're pissed about something that happened to you there five years ago, make a special effort. It's really too great a potential treasure to lose.

*Before any of you jump on it, this is the original Twain quote, not "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." You can see an image of the hand-written original here. For every Wikipedia screw-up, the Internet brings us a correction to years of misinformation. Well...maybe for every 50 Wiki-screw-ups...and yes, obviously, reports of the death of Seen Through A Glass were an exaggeration as well. I've been gone for a week, a very busy week, but I'm back, and I may even post to the PLCB and Session Beer Project blogs. And San Francisco WhiskyFest is this Friday, so...fun, fun, fun!

The Session Beer Project hits The Tiedhouse

The Tiedhouse, the Philly outpost of the General Lafayette Inn brewpub (20th and Hamilton), has invited me to host a session beer event Monday night, March 9th (tomorrow...). I first mentioned that here, and now I have more details from Chris Leonard.

It all starts at 6 PM. There's a $5 cover, and the session beers will then be available by the flight or full pint. I'll be there with Chris's brewer, Russ Czajka for an exploration of these full-flavored, low alcohol beers. We will discuss history, styles, brewing techniques and nuances that make these beers so appealing.

Beers we have on-line so far include:

• General Lafayette’s The Economizer (a new, very hoppy 3.5%er from the General)
• Earth Bread + Brewery Stout (part of 'Philly Weak Beer' at EB+B)
• Philadelphia Brewing Company Kenzinger (crisp, refreshing)
• Yards Brawler (the surprise hit from the new Yards)
• Uerige Alt (that's right, from Düsseldorf, and only 4.5%)
• Sly Fox Seamus Irish Red (rolling with fruity esters)
• Conniston Bluebird Bitter (a classic)

With more to be added! Possibly the largest selection of session beers Philly has ever seen, all at The Tiedhouse tomorrow. Hope to see you there.