Wonderful Flanders Red Ale collects brettanomyces barnyard funk for vinous white wine souring, dry sherry tartness, balsamic raspberry rasp and oaken cherry pucker. Candied apple remnant, lemon-dropped cranberry pucker and wispy vanilla bean bittering add depth to slow sippin’ sour ale.  

On tap at Pocono’s Log Cabin Bar, approachable German-styled session beer brings orange-nipped lemon spritz to grassy Hallertau-hopped bittering. Buttery crystal malt base softly underlines citric crispness.

On tap at Poconos’ Log Cabin Bar, stylistically robust and well balanced pale ale lavishes sharp perfumed hops onto viscous lacquered fruiting. Spicy lemon-peeled orange, peach and grapefruit tones casually decorate doughy biscuit-like backdrop. A fine crossover to stronger IPA styling.

Engaging ‘cherry-inspired’ cream ale makes for fine fruity malt beverage with its fizzy soda-like pop and sinewy corn syruping. Sweet and sour red cherry ripens fig-spiced apple, cranberry, raspberry, blueberry and strawberry illusions, settling into champagne-like Chambord liqueur slumber. Beneath, crayon-like plasticity seeps into astringent saison yeast profile.

Multi-dimensional British barleywine aged in apple brandy barrels picks up candied coughdrop sweetness over rich cherry pureed whiskey boozing and chewy caramel malting. Candied apple finish gains sugary overload.

Vacillating Belgian knockoff wavers between brisk lemon-peeled effervescence and herbaceous tea-like seduction. Dry pepper-spiced grassy hop prickle reinforces remedial citric-soured hard candy coating, tart baked apple warmth and red-wined nashi pear graining. Musty earthen barnyard minerality brings puckering bettanomyces-like funk to latent ester-y grape murk.

Iffy ruddy-browned barleywine stylistically closer to an Imperial IPA with its aggressive hop-oiled fruiting. A delicate sherry insistence coats ripe pineapple, grapefruit, apricot and peach illusions above creamy cocoa-sugared crystal malting. Caramelized vanilla buttering pleats ancillary raisin-breaded niche and dainty floral bouquet.  

On tap at Shepherd & Knucklehead, improved updated version of Gordon (now listed as an Imperial Red/ Imperial IPA hybrid) got christened G’Knight in 2012. Orange-bruised cherry-berry ripeness infiltrates sugary malt sweetness to helles bock-like biscuit-y Graham Cracker spine. Sharp hop bite deepens fruity assertion.

BLOOMSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA

In a rustic rural outpost two miles from downtown Bloomsburg (home of Marley’s Brewery & Grille) just off Route 80′s Exit 236 lies TURKEY HILL BREWING COMPANY, a freestanding A-framed watering hole affiliated with The Inn at Turkey Hill and opened for business April 2011. Visited July 2012, this natural weathered wood stable “sitting atop the footprint of an English barn originally erected in 1839″ served a diverse range of brews and worthy food items to nearby Bloomsburg University students and a host of…

SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA

January ’04, superb Cooper’s Seafood House in rustic Scranton offered wide selection of tap and bottled beers plus fabulous lobster bisque, crab cakes, and clams. Bought three Barley Creek brews while quaffing chocolate-y Stegmaier Porter. Due Southeast six miles in tiny Eynon lies huge ‘distributor of micro and specialty brews,’ Ace Beverage, where I found middling Straub.