COOPER’S SEAFOOD HOUSE

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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. A diversified seafood/beer joint, Cooper’s interior features a central bar with separate dining spaces. A toy train goes thru each room nonstop and nostalgic nautical and cultural items line the crowded walls.

Initially, bought three Barley Creek brews while quaffing chocolate-y Stegmaier Porter. Worth noting: due Southeast six miles in tiny Eynon lies huge ‘distributor of micro and specialty brews,’ Ace Beverage, where I found middling Straub.

I had revisited Cooper’s a few more times before they began brewing their own beers May ’23.

While enjoying stuffed flounder and chicken corn chowder, June ’24, tried two newfangled dark ales but didn’t get to quaff Captain Cooper’s Helles Lager, Sozzled Skipper’s Pale Ale, The Moxie 40 IPA and It’s All About Timing IPA.

Peaty wee heavy, Cooper’s Smoking Scotsman, linked smoked brown chocolate malting to pecan-glazed chestnut, hazelnut and cola caramelization plus spicy dried fruiting contrasting weedy hop dankness.

Using similar base malts (?) as the wee heavy, Pennsylvanian Cowfish Milk Stout sunk dextrin malted sour milking into dry Bakers chocolate, oaken vanilla and distant soy saucing.

KANE CLOUD COVER

Intriguing Belgian-styled witbier with wheat-dried barnyard-like farmhouse attributes blends floral citric pleasantries into crystal malt sugaring. Lemony mandarin orange rind bittering softly affects tangy pineapple, banana and grapefruit tropicalia. Herbal-honeyed hawthorn bush, heather and hibiscus flowering sweetens frolicking fruitiness while contrasting roughhewn alfalfa, whey and horse blanket illusions, deepening its full-bodied conviction.

    

MENDOCINO BOCK BEER

Copacetic malty dessert treat contrasts buttery caramelized molasses sweetness against coarse mocha fruited dryness. Brown-sugared fig spicing, prune-stewed raisin pureeing and almond-toasted coconut oiling saturate busy brown chocolate midst. Tertiary red grape, brown pear, apple strudel and bruised banana illusions tempt backend brandy-soaked whiskey boozing.

(LAUGHING DOG) SNEAKY PETE IMPERIAL I.P.A.

Charmingly complex medium-full body offers fresh-watered crisping to creamy caramel malting and brisk citric sashay. Prominent bruised orange fruiting picks up bosc pear, mango, pineapple and grapefruit illusions above whiskey-dabbed Belgian chocolate spicing, bringing great depth and clarity of purpose to endearingly expressive, well-balanced India Pale Ale styling. Further sips reveal spice-hopped pine comb bittering and resinous floral potpourri contrasting embedded cane sugared sweetness.