On tap at Taphouse 15, mild herbal grain musk picks up floral perfume-daubed orange spritz for worthily sessionable pilsner-Vienna malted moderation.
All posts by John Fortunato
FIFTH HAMMER HAELSTORM
On tap at Ambulance, soft-toned cream fluff hits the tongue before mineral-grained pilsner malting and grassy Saaz hop musk bedeck cleanly fruited Nordic Kviek yeast esters, latently contrasting mild lemon rind bittering with spicy tangerine sweetness above bread crusted base.
MC ALLISTER BREWING COMPANY
NORTH WALES, PENNSYLVANIA
Completely redesigning and renovating the same blush pink-fronted commercial industrial space defunct brewery, Prism, previously occupied, MC ALLISTER BREWING COMPANY (since 2025 located at a nearby Carriage House) crafts some of the most expressive beers in Pennsylvania. Re-creating a loosely defined Speakeasy feel, this tidy North Wales pub came to fruition December 2018.
Dedicatedly detailed co-owners Mike and Kate Mc Allister got inspired to open their own small brewery during a honeymoon trip to Denver’s Great American Beer Fest. College friend, Seth Montz (a former military man) then joined the married couple (a cop and nurse) on their nostalgic zymurgic venture, niftily capturing the spirit of yore.
A rustic warehouse turned into a Prohibition Era saloon, this nifty watering hole features a sidewinding 20-seat mid-space mahogany bar with twelve-plus draught handles. Its snazzy original wood floor, reupholstered wood booths, olden red brick walls, exposed ceiling pipes and four front tables retain a certain antiquity.
When the weather’s fare, there’s a roomy metal-furnished front deck with siding for extra seating. A small billiard-centered game room’s to the right upon entering and the brew tanks are behind the bar.
My wife and I chow some beer-cheesed pretzels while dabbling with a dozen dandy delectables early February, ’22.
Judiciously combining stylish orange-peeled coriander spicing with tangy peach zest and banana pureed clove sweetness, fulsome witbier, Movin’ To The Country, heightened its fruitful fortitude with spritzy red cherry, pineapple, pink grapefruit and strawberry illusions plus random cucumber-humidified watermelon rind snip. Highly recommended.
Dewily soft-toned yellow-cleared German pilsner, Gras Mahen, let dry perfumed citrus musk seep into lightly spiced cereal graining.
Dryly citric-spiced Winter Lager plied its sharp orange-peeled cinnamon stick adjunct and nutty cocoa tones to subtle woody Chinook/Simcoe-hopped bittering.
Bubbly orange-juiced champagne spritz pervaded Mimosa knockoff, Baller Beermosa, a Citra-hopped moderation with an Orangina soda twist.
Tart blood orange adjunct gathered citric-derived tangerine, clementine and mandarin juicing for Hindsight, a sugary pale malted NEIPA.
Sharp grapefruit-peeled orange rind bittering and dry wood tones informed Shovel Buddy, a briskly moderate Citra-Apollo-hopped New England IPA.
Packing a punch while retaining a mild mouthfeel, multi-hopped Imperial IPA, Blackthorn, mingled waxy grapefruit-peeled tangerine, mandarin orange and tangelo oiling with resinous dank wood tones and musky grains.
Nutty mocha and sour dried fruiting saddled mossy First Love Brown Ale, allowing black grape, fig and prune desiccation to flourish below the surface.
Confectionery sweet-toothed brown ale, Campfire S’More, loaded yummy vanilla-sugared marshmallow, toffee and butterscotch above its honeyed Graham Cracker base.
Dry cocoa-beaned dark chocolate syrup draped Porter’s Porter, leaving coffee-burnt vanilla tannins on its bitter back end.
Buttery Chardonnay wining, creamy banana liqueur and burnt orange murk grazed tripel-like malt liquor, Clown Puncher, a Scotch-licked, corn-liquored 9% ABV strong ale.
For an early nightcap, rich bourbon vanilla-creamed brown chocolate sweetness anchored Sir Fuzzy Pants, a burgundy-licked bourbon-aged Imperial Stout with hazelnut-glazed pecan, almond, praline and coconut niceties.
PERKIOMEN VALLEY BREWERY
GREEN LANE, PENNSYLVANIA
Renegade spousal-owned multifaceted nanobrewery, PERKIOMEN VALLEY BREWERY, honors the local pre-prohibition brewhouse that served 20,000 yearly barrels at its 1919 peak while celebrating the antique artifacts PVB’s former drive-thru bank left behind. A comfortable family-friendly tap room embracing individuals with mobility and sensory issues, owners Kelly and Tom Weiss have raised two autistic sons who now ably assist this idiosyncratic community haven.
Opened June 21, 2019, the Weiss family’s already crafted 115 sundry brews since inception as of my one-hour visit, early February ’22. An experienced gardener, Kelly’s specialty is foraging for natural ingredients and harvesting botanical herbage for the uniquely eccentric homemade brews emulating from the basement fermentation tanks and the original pilot system situated in the main pub area.
Inspired by John Troegner (Troegs Brewing founder) while on an exploratory brewpub journey, PVB also took inspiration from Illinois’ fabulous farmhouse brewery, Scratch. Two of their best selling flagships include Sadie’s Dandelion Amber Ale and Honeysuckle Golden Ale – both way more offbeat, involving and creative than their staid amber-golden stylistic design.
Wanting an exterior feel, there are LED lights on the blue-grey ceiling, a patio-like porcelain tile floor, sensory room kiosk and fireplace dotting the eight-seat bar. My wife and I conversed with Kelly at one of the cozy outdoor tables while downing nine diversified offerings.
Foraged hickory bark toasting and brown-sugared molasses sweetness paced Shagbark Old English Ale, an interestingly offbeat and stylistically advanced Extra Special Bitter with toffee-spiced marshmallow snips lacing dewy Marris Otter malts.
Another distinctively divergent ESB, Bees Knees, a lactic ‘bee-balm’ botanical brew, saddled English tea earthiness with frankincense, sandalwood and cinnamon bark enticement.
Honey-perfumed dandelion sweetness subtly serenaded the juniper-berried citrus zing of Sadie’s Dandelion, a uniquely foraged amber ale with dry Chinook hop wood tones.
Finnish-styled farmhouse hybrid, Sahti To Me, utilized Kveik yeast to promote orange-oiled pekoe tea, dried fig, bergamot and papaya fruiting in a raw-grained barnyard setting.
Dryly tannic Sequoia-tipped amber grains and mild peated whiskey tones steadied Sequoia Pale Ale, leaving lemon-oiled orange fruiting on the back end.
Dry Noble-hopped Strawberry Rhubarb Cream Ale let tart strawberry rhubarb buttering sink into biscuity kolsch-like malts, picking up mild cranberry-pomegranate souring.
Spruce-tipped pine musk seeped inside grapefruit-peeled orange rind bittering and the ‘sturdy grain bill’ of Spruced Up Double IPA, a 90-minute-hopped beauty anchored by caramelized pale malting.
Toasted coconut draped the dark chocolate bittering of Kelly’s Gone Coco-nut, a coffee-nutted porter with latent earthy soiling.
An interpretation of an ‘old local dark ale,’ PVB Porter leaned on dry black malts to embitter the peaty earthen scorch, wood-burn hop char and soy sauced fig souring reinforcing syrupy dark cocoa richness.
CO-HOPS BREWERY & CANNERY
HATFIELD, PENNSYLVANIA
Taking up 10,000 square feet at a beige brick-fronted Industrial mall in Hatfield (a northwest Philly suburb), versatile independent enterprise, CO-HOPS BREWERY & CANNERY, came into existence during autumn ’21 (but closed 2025). Pennsylvania’s first full service contract brewing facility opened for public consumption, the proprietary craft beer haven crafts beer for many local startup homebrewers, even creating a few of their own liquid product alongside fine fanfare from Sutton, Radiant, Loso, Bucks County and Langhorne, to name a few.
At Co-Hops, entrepreneurial veteran brewer, Joe Modestine, offers methodological advise, equipment and spirit to the ensuing zymurgic denizens getting readied for regional distribution. His family ran a successful saloon before he began brewing in his garage prior to founding nearby Doylestown Brewing in 2011 .
Modestine prepares kegged and canned suds for on-site/ off-site consumption. The bright blue-floored brewing space backs an inconspicuous serving station inside the beige-walled, high-ceilinged, overhead-doored warehouse. There are tables and benches neatly placed across the ultra-clean cement floor pub. A small left side lounge with small wood tables and couch serves as a dinky private space while a picnic area with firepits provides outside quaffing.
I consumed three original Co-Hops brews and a few days hence some worthy canned ‘gypgy’ brews by Radiant, Sutton, Steel City, Loso and Like Minds (reviewed in Beer Index) while perusing Co-Hops early February ’22.
Brisk lemon-limed Cashmere hops meet floral-herbed Loral hops for Co-Hops Hazy Pig, a sessionable hazy India Pale Ale with lively tangerine tanginess and resinous pine snips above sugared pale malts.
Bright orange, tangerine and grapefruit tanginess guided spritzy Hatfield Haze, a lightly herbed New England IPA gaining mild mango, guava and starfruit tropicalia.
Dark chocolate syrup draped salty peanuts and sweet coconut for Co-Hops Hawaiian Stout, a dewy full body with distant cold-brewed coffee, espresso and spiced toffee illusions.
IMPRINT BEER CO.
HATFIELD, PENNSYLVANIA
Specializing in ‘lusciously thick stouts to mind melting fruited sours,’ IMPRINT BEER CO. is certainly leaving its unique mark on North Penn Valley’s tiny borough of Hatfield since opening, January 2018. Famous for their neverending line of thickly pulped Schmoojees, basically fluffily creamed marshmallow fruited ambrosia salad knockoffs, these ambitious zymurgists craft some of the most diverse brews north of Philly.
Located at a brick Industrial mall, Imprint’s cement-floored pub sits adjacent to the Quality Tank Solutions brewhouse. Several four-stooled metal tables, wooden benches, front-walled barrels and a kitchen kiosk fill out the rustic overhead-doored tasting room where large silver tanks take up the backspace.
Founding brewer, Ryan Diehl, realized he had to immediately expand his space after operating a small one-barrel nano. Now a mid-sized microbrewery, Imprint’s equipment includes its original 7-barrel fermenters (bought for its first expansion) and a newer 15-barrel system plus an experimental stainless steel brite tank.
My wife and I try a mild pilsner and lager before grabbing a few impressive stouts, then get a bunch of canned goodies for the road (reviewed in Beer index).
Zesty dry-hopped lupulin oiling gave Czech-styled pilsner, Citra-Galaxy Wallpaper, its mildly bitter IPA-like lemony orange-peeled grapefruit splurge, delicate peachy pineapple tang and clean Seltzer briskness receiving muskily floral-spiced herbage above milled grain malting.
Another cleanly dry citric-bent moderation, Game Face Helles Lager, retained spritzy grapefruit-peeled orange rind bittering for pale lagered mineral graining.
As for the two richly creamed stouts, lactose-bound Vanilla Rye Imperial Stout boasted chewy Madagascar and Mexican vanilla luxuriance for its nutty rye-spiced black chocolate density.
Richly rewarding confectionery milk stout, Dunkable Nilly, let Nilla wafer sweetness entice resilient vanilla ice-creamed brown chocolate milking as tertiary bruised black cherry, toasted almond and praline illusions reached its fudgy vanilla mocha finish.
During early February ’25 noontime trek, Imprint added a retro arcade, Gnarcadium, and a kiosk pizza kitchen near the aluminum-chaired tables on the hardwood vergala floor. I quaffed five previously untried delights.
Honey-roasted almond and chestnut saddled light bodied Ambrrr Lager, leaving tingly fig spicing.
Sweet cereal grained pilsner malting received a lemon-wedged for crackery golden lager, Lagrrr.
Juicy dry-hopped My Morning Haze let sunny lemon zest sprinkle tangy pineapple, sweet navel orange, salted mango, sour guava and tart passionfruit atop vanilla-creamed oats base.
Bold waxy-fruited triple IPA, Filthy Animal draped pine sap across spicy citrus resilience above honeyed pale malts.
Rich confectionery Imperial Stout, Origins Maple Vanilla Marshmallow, seeped bourbon-barreled vanilla sweetness into maple syrup and marshmallow sugared Columbian coffee stead, bringing along toasted coconut, candied almond and cinnamon niceties.
BLUEPRINT BREWING CO.
HARLEYSVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA
At an Industrial Park in tiny suburban village, Harleysville (30 miles northwest of Philly), BLUEPRINT BREWING CO. was designed by the three friends and opened during 2018 (but closed March 31, 2023). Going thru the earthen flat-stoned frontage, Blueprint’s rustic cement-floored, picnic-benched barroom features opposing overhead doors, cavernous ceiling and strung Edison lights.
Blueprint’s prodigious Philly-themed painted insignia covers the wall across from the Formica-topped, corrugated aluminum-sided serving station. An electronic blackboard lists all available draughts and one TV hangs nearby. Six metal-chaired tables fill out the refurbished wood-laden room.
A lounge area leads patrons from the pub area to the brew tank room.
My wife and I grab a few excellent food truck burgers while settling in to devour a dozen choice homemade brews this Friday night in February ’22.
Dry Mexican pale lager, Luchador, let musky grain earthiness reach peppery hop herbage, leaving a mild smoked agave nip.
Dewy amber lager, Pick Me, let tobacco-roasted brown tea crisping contrast caramelized apple sweetness above mild bread crusting.
Flour-sugared vanilla sweetness tingled Cake Cream Ale, an otherwise dry pale malted moderation with spritz cream soda licks.
Lemon-twisted raspberry tartness engaged Raspberry Beret, a dry fruit ale with subtle cranberry and crabapple notions plus cherry rhubarb snip.
Lime-salted guava tartness embittered offshoot blonde ale, Blondeprint Guava, pervading mild white grapefruit, white peach and lemongrass illusions.
Tangy tangerine juicing forwarded White Zombie, an adjunct witbier with delicate orange-peeled coriander spicing, wafting floral herbage and dry pale malt sugaring.
Candi-sugared Belgian blonde, Thicc And Sweet, burrowed its banana-clove sweetness into mild cologned herbal salting before gaining subtle yellow grapefruit and mandarin orange zesting.
Spicy orange-peeled grapefruit tang and candied pineapple tartness embraced The Wizard, a fruitful IPA with light piney hop astringency contrasting oated wheat malts.
Lemon-soured orange spicing pervaded the floral pining of dry Imperial IPA, Tribe Mentality, one of Blueprint’s finest offerings.
Zestful tropical fruiting brightened fruited sour, Sparkle Bomb, letting persuasive grapefruit-peeled pineapple bittering, peachy mango sweetness and pink guava tartness reach its resinous pine bottom.
Sumptuous peanut-buttered dark chocolate creaminess guarded P’Nuts And Bolts, a thick Imperial Stout with wood-charred hops contrasting nutty mocha insistence.
Toasted coconut sweetness guided finer spinoff, P’Nuts And Coconut, letting rich peanut-buttered dark chocolate and recessive burnt marshmallow whims bolster its confectionery goodness.
KANE BREWING COMPANY
OCEAN, NEW JERSEY
KANE BREWING COMPANY quickly became one of Jersey’s finest iconic microbreweries during August 2011. Led by married financial marketeers Michael and Erika Kane, their huge freestanding warehouse operation has expanded by leaps and bounds since the beginning.
Inside a rustic high-ceilinged building with cement floors, overhead doors, barrel stands and large silver brew tanks (in the barroom and right side fermenting space), Kane utilizes repurposed wood for its bar frontage and 20-plus draught station backdrop.
A fabulous maltster, Michael Kane homebrewed for fifteen years and traveled to Europe to learn more about beer culture. A Fairfield University grad with a Masters degree from Notre Dame, the lanky red-haired zymurgist soon became interested in spirited barrel aging and spontaneously fermented mixed culture sour ales.
I get a chance to hang at Kane for a few hours on a snowy Super Bowl Sunday in 2022 to down two enlightening barrel-aged stouts, one glorified pastry stout and one barrel-aged porter. I’d been to Kane in the past, but only to buy bottles to go. As of this date, I’ve had 67 different proprietary brews (all reviewed in Beer Index except the following four quaffed on-site).
For starters, I chose the breakfast-styled pastry stout, A Night To End All Dawns Banana Pancake. Maple syrup-draped caramelized banana sweetness indulged dark chocolate fudging as dark-roast hop char lightly embittered the backend to contrast ancillary bourbon vanilla sugaring, butterscotch walnut cookie flouring and toasted cinnamon splendor.
Viscous bourbon-spiced porter, Morning Bean, aged in Willett and Wild Turkey barrels, plied cream-sugared coffee beaning to Madagascar vanilla tannins, dark cherry pureed tartness and black peppered whims anchored by bittersweet dark chocolate luster.
Fudgy brown chocolate affluence guided Bourbon-aged Lunchbox Hero, a luxurious Imperial Stout conditioned on peanut buttered cacao, vanilla beans and hazelnut paste. Its richly creamed maple syruping soaked up bourbon vanilla-sweetened marshmallow chewiness and chocolate cherry cordial banter for an enticing pastry-like dessert.
As a luscious sweet-toothed Imperial Stout nightcap, Saturday Night Lights, let its sublime Vermont maple syruping serenade sweet brown chocolate goodness as milk-sugared coffee, vanilla pastry cream, toasted marshmallow, honeyed Graham Cracker and cookie dough illusions enriched the bourbon-licked chocolate cake decadence.
TO OL / KOPPI BOURISTA IMPERIAL COFFEE STOUT – BOURBON AGED
Decadent yellow-honeyed Costa Rican coffee serenity draped in mild bourbon sweetness retains cleanly dapper, if somewhat flattish, mouthfeel, never undermining its sticky mocha richness. In the midst, loud hazelnut-glazed espresso tones placate cedar burnt hop char. Dark chocolate syruping coats the caramelized bourbon vanilla coffee finish.
SOUTHERN TIER NITRO HOT COCOA IMPERIAL MILK STOUT
On tap at Growler & Gill, creamy milk chocolate fudging gains vanilla, marshmallow and creme brulee sweetness for lovely nitrogenated cocoa powdered dessert (with inconspicuous 10% ABV). Warm hot cocoa excellence. In the can ’22, luscious fluffily creamed fudged brownie confection lets ice-creamed chocolate cookie abundance outdo advertised ‘hot cocoa’ expectancy. Chewy caramel-salted mocha goodness contrasts less impactful wood brunt hop char as nifty creme brulee, toasted marshmallow and spiced bourbon vanilla illusions deepen nitrogenated stout.
HOOF HEARTED MIRACLE TOAST DOUBLE MASHED IMPERIAL STOUT
Rich “Imperial French Toast Stout” aged in bourbon maple syrup barrels contrasts burly bourbon chocolate influence and Cassia-barked cinnamon sugaring with mild dried fruited souring and dry vanilla tannins. Wispy burgundy, rum and anise licks stick to treacly maple-syrupy bourbon mocha finish.
BOLERO SNORT MARSHMALLOW DOUBULLSHOT
Fulsome confectionary stout drapes dark chocolate syruping over milk-sugared vanilla and coffee as frothy marshmallow creaming sinks into the complex mix. Fudged marshmallow brownie continuance teased by bourbon-spiced cherry whiskey nip, pleasant cinnamon-coconut snip and wispy plum-fig wisp for richly creamed Imperial Stout nightcap.
