On tap at Beef Trust, disparate hybridized hefeweizen brings lactic-milked peach and cinnamon adjuncts to sharp lemony orange tang and mildly soured gooseberry, guava, green grape and green banana tropicalia with fine results. Citric-enhanced cinnamon spicing aids peach yogurt template. Not far removed from a sour IPA.
On tap at Seven Lakes Station, mellowly soured pale ale utilizes Huell Melon hops to provide pivotal melon rind, muscat grape, prickly pear and candied lemon tartness for upfront grapefruit rind bittering, wood-dried Amarillo hops and mellow mandarin orange tease. Closer to a sour IPA, perhaps.
On tap at Taphouse 15, ‘crushable’ pale ale stays dry as woody Simcoe-Amarillo hops saturate sunnily citric Cascade hops. Mellow grapefruit-peeled orange rind bittering gains spritzy lemon twist over grainy pale malt bed.
On tap at Centre Street Public House, straightforward flagship moderation brings toasted amber graining to dry Cascade hop astringency in familiar pale malt-spiced fashion.
Crisply smooth pearly-headed amber yellowed light body brings Mexican-styled corn cereal sweetness and maize-flaked astringency to sour lemon-rotted malt liquor snag without getting stifled by musky hop-oiled rye graining.
On tap at Plank Pizza, silken boho pils with muskily herbal Euro hop profile gains sour lemon licks, dark floral wisps and mild herbal snips above daintily mineral grained toasting. Sturdily designed.
On tap at Ambulance, classic straw-hazed German pilsner retains dank sourdough honeyed graining for zesty lemon spritz, grassy hay-maize acridity and muskily perfumed herbal black peppering above its buttered biscuit base.
HATBORO, PENNSYLVANIA
A hidden gem in the heart of Hatboro 25 miles north of Philly, CROOKED EYE BREWERY came into existence when homebrewer Jeff Mulherin began experimenting in 2014. Growing into a seven-barrel microbrewery over a few years, Crooked Eye’s sturdy stainless-steeled suds certainly deserve attention.
Set inside a garage-doored makeshift pub, its modern Industrial rusticity and Edison light-strewn canopy give the small space a welcoming neighborhood bar feel. And the stylistically straightforward brews will please any palate.
The corrugated-bottomed, wood-topped, 8-seat bar serviced three stainless steel industrial cart tables and a few wood-metal tables. A blackboard beer list and one large-screen TV fill out the room. Behind the black brick wall lies the silver brew tanks.
My wife and I stopped by during early November ’19 for an enjoyable afternoon wakeup call.
The lightest offering, Boro Blond Ale, brought light orange-oiled hop bittering to dewy mineral grained French breading and delicate sugared spiciness.
Blending mellow orange-peeled coriander spicing with lemon-soured ginger herbage and fried plantain sweetness, White Tail Wit was a fine opener.
Smoothly mineral-grained Regimental 80 Scottish Ale gave its dewy tobacco sweetness a resinous brown tea musk, mildly spiced caramel malting and pastry-like flouring.
Earthen brown tea consumed dewy The Brit ESB, an easygoing moderation with subtle leafy foliage.
Designed close to an India Pale Ale due to its piney dry-hopped citrus bittering, Accidental Pail Ale retained a sweet pale malt sugaring to amplify its lemony orange-peeled tang and relegate the spicily floral herbage.
Creamily white-headed Hazy Eye Double IPA soothingly plied sunny orange-peeled grapefruit tanginess to mineral-grained wood lacquer and mild alcohol astringency, picking up juicy floral-daubed peach, mango and honeydew illusions for further roundedness.
Black chocolate malt bittering inundated dry-roasted pumpkin rusticity of Austin’s Pumpkin Porter, a fine autumnal dark ale with cayenne-peppered cinnamon bark swipes and latent anise-nutmeg seasoning.
Sweet grain-roasted caramel malts received glazed pecan-hazelnut sugaring to combat dried cocoa powdering for Gangster Of Lover Imperial Brown Ale.
Dark-roast black chocolate malts rampaged forth for nitrogenated One Eye Dog Coffee Porter, leaving black peppered coffee remnants on the back end.
Creamily sweet brown chocolate gave nitrogenated Black Eye Oatmeal Stout its opening salvo as roasted coffee, molasses, charred cedar and hazelnut illusions play backup.
crookedeyebrewery.com
DRESHER, PENNSYLVANIA
A unique experience blending the art of brewing, TRACK 3 MICROBREWERY & COFFEE HOUSE opened in springtime 2019 at a cozy mall-bound shop in the small northern Philly suburb of Drescher (and closed 2020).
Inspired by great music and the love of fresh coffee and hand-crafted beer, TRACK 3 features framed wall photos of famed rockers such as Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd. The sterling grey epoxy-floored interior consists of sturdy metal-wood chairs and tables, rows of Edison lights (attached to the black pipe-exposed ceiling) and a small centralized serving station.
A colorful blackboard provides beer, coffee, cider and tea choices and the brew tanks are hidden ’round back.
A fine barista-styled nanobrewery with an expansive selection of quaffable elixirs, Track 3 has gained the attention of local minions in a short period of time.
My wife and I consume seven beers on our happy one-hour November ’19 stopover.
Mildly lime-embittered cherry rhubarb tartness regaled lightly sour Tart Cherry Upper Duberliner Weisse, a dry salted coriander-licked moderation with only minor acidity.
Piquant lemon-candied orange tartness and white-peppered herbal notions contrasted soapy banana-bubblegum-clove respite above honeyed Graham Cracker wheat malting for Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It, a soft-toned witbier lacking chutzpah.
Toasted amber grains and subtle rye spicing welcomed 88 Special Red Rye Ale, retaining orange-spiced tartness and leafy hop foliage in the dewy back end.
Creamy vanilla-sugared sweetness glazed Shake Your Rump Blood Orange Creamsickle Milkshake IPA, a resilient medium body with snappy yogurt-soured lemony grapefruit tanginess providing sharp bite.
Tropical Mosaic-Moteuka hops provided passionfruit, guava, mango and kiwi tartness for I’m Easy Hazy IPA, picking up sneaky lemon souring and grassy astringency by the dry finish.
Milk-sugared brown chocolate sweetened Night Train Porter, a resilient dessert treat with creamy vanilla and light roast coffee tones rising above sedate charred hop bittering.
Dark roast coffee dominated chocolate, vanilla and hazelnut sweetness for Baby Bottle Coffee Vanilla Stout, a lusty mocha nightcap.
HATBORO, PENNSYLVANIA
Located inside a former auto body shop (attached to a Goodyear repair center) and utilizing rock-related beer names, ARTIFACT BREWING opened its doors October 18, 2019. Just up the road from the center of town in the bucolic north Philly suburb of Hatboro (established in Colonial times by an English hatter), this rustic cement-floored pub features the works of local craft beer artisans Brian Mc Kinney and Matt Brzowski. Set up as a three-barrel nano brewery with four serving tanks and twelve-plus tap handles, Artifact became the borough’s second operating brewery (behind Crooked Eye).
A green-walled cement floored space with a 14-seat, plank-sided, maple- topped bar, Artifact’s small interior includes four community tables, three round cocktail tables and a wooden bar-walled American flag.
My wife and I head up to the bar and consume six well-rounded brews on our pre-Halloween ’19 journey.
For their maiden voyage, Artifact created interestingly enigmatic pale ale, Paradigm Shift, a stylistically advanced dry body utilized citric-spiced Norwegian Kviek yeast to temper its beet-sugared maple syruping, complacent orange tartness and mild cherry coughdrop smidge.
Candi-sugared orange peel sweetness rode above spiced banana, vanilla and caramel illusions for delightful As Serious Can Be, a lightly creamed moderate-medium body perfect for Belgian ale lovers.
On the surface, floral-cologned juniper bittering picked up zesty lemon juicing for pleasantly offbeat saison, Forever Sleeping, leaving ginger-herbed rose hips, elderflower and chamomile undertones in its busy turpentine-lacquered kiwi-guava-induced Nelson hop wake.
Combining dankly herbal lemon-dried Golding hops with oats-backed German pilsner malts let hybridized English bitter-styled kolsch, Everyman, remain smoothly dry and crisply clean.
Dewy tobacco-sweet mossing inundated grapefruit, pineapple and orange rind dryness for subtly designed English bitter, Walk Like A Smile.
Before heading out on this sunny Saturday in October, quaffed today’s only IPA (also note, there were no dark beers available).
Tropical fruit-spiced Galaxy and Vic Secret hops sharpened herbal-perfumed medium body, Contagious Smile IPA, a cucumber-watered refresher with tangy grapefruit, pineapple and orange piquancy gaining blissful lemon zesting.
www.artifactales.com/
AMBLER, PENNSYLVANIA
Right in the heart of diminutive village, Ambler, 16 miles North of Philly, TANNERY RUN BREWWORKS opened its doors March ’19. Re-creating Ambler’s rural past with modern Industrial decor, the 16-tap brewpub features a nifty wood lacquer-etched bar top inlaid by pyrographic tree designs and an overhead fern-vined trellis plus a separate corrugated sheet-glassed right side dining area and a sofa-laden backroom lounge with a large mural celebrating the Pink Boot Society. Rear tanks serve fluctuating flagship brews and snazzy one-offs.
One mile from warehouse-bound Ambler Beer Co,. this 9,500 square-foot centrally located seven barrel pub-eatery (with downstairs private event space) specializes in Splatch Brewing, an innovative mash-kettled yeast and hop system splitting batches into different varieties.
My wife and I grab mushroom leek flatbread from the soup-salad-sandwich menu while consuming eight rangy brews on our enjoyable premier visit.
Amiable copper-toned autumnal lager, Sozin’s Comet, contrasted its toasted Graham Cracker sweetness with dewy herbal restraint and earthy fungi must.
An orange-candied lemon spritz and dewy earthen foliage emerged from dry English-hopped Ceiling Smasher, a hybridized saison with herbal green tea notions.
Brisk Belgian blonde, Beast Of Burden, let herbal white-peppered lemondrop tartness contrast sweet banana-bubblegum-clove-coriander illusions with genuine aplomb.
Dewy fermented tea-like earthiness grappled dark candi-syruped plum, fig and date sweetness for Sokka’s Master, a delightful Abbey yeast-soaked dubbel.
Dank West Coast-styled IPA flagship, Red Dragon, brought dry lemony orange fruiting to a lightly spiced malt sugaring that contrasted its musky wattle-seeded pine nut, fennel and brown tea illusions.
Belgian ale yeast provided black-peppered fungi must and candi-sugared fig-dried resonance to Blue Dragon IPA, a finely detailed rustic hybrid.
Floral-honeyed peach, orange and grapefruit sweetness countered resinous herbal whims for Elder Dragon IPA, a dryly pale malted aggressor.
Dry-kilned Belgian coffee malts provided the mocha thrust of black-malted Dark Ritual Porter, leaving dark chocolate bittering at the finish.
NEW BRITAIN, CONNECTICUT
On the second floor of a cavernous wood furnished red brick-walled setting, downtown New Britain’s FIVE CHURCHES BREWING occupies a former clothing factory. Taking its ‘we have faith in our beer’ slogan to the max, the spacious pizzeria-brewpub even dabbles successfully with their soda-fruited gluten-free Weerder alternatives.
While the impressive stainless steel silver brew tanks behind the twelve draught-handled bar serve pristinely crafted liquid fare, the right side wood-fired pizza oven provides terrific variety. Sterling wood-lacquered furnishings adorn the expose-piped open space and several Edison bulbs light the fourteen-stooled bar (with three TV’s) – retaining the original Industrial brick, flooring and windows.
A backspace banquet area and an outside left deck (with five tables under blue umbrellas) offer further seating.
Head brewer Austin Japs crafts a vast array of one-off ales, but the one constant flagship is sharply orange-spiced, caramel-toasted amber ale, Amburlance, a brisk moderate-medium body with sweetly dewed autumnal foliage.
Mild wheat ale, #Zessed, brought tingly orange-candied lemondrop tartness to mineral-grained crisping.
Sweet-tart hazy NEIPA, Pew Pew, let Citra-Simcoe hop tropicalia rule the roost as orange-dried grapefruit juicing saddled dainty wood tones.
Another dry-bodied IPA, The Machinist, brought sunshiny grapefruit tang and crystal malt sugaring to lemony orange rind bittering, leaving sticky pine lacquer upon its latent juniper piquancy.
Knocking off a New Zealand-styled Imperial IPA, Street People relies on limey melon, gooseberry, passionfruit and grapefruit desiccation to perk up its pale malt spine.
Briskly winter-spiced porter, Once And For Fall, let minty fern caress its caramelized chocolate sweetness and mild nutmeg-cumin-chicory seasoning.
Delightful Out Of Porter, an Imperial Porter, swished milk chocolate syrup around cocoa, toffee and caramel sugaring.
