Cast a crooked eye in Hatboro, PA

     The Crooked Eye Brewing Co. is about a six-block walk from the regional rail station in Hatboro, PA, a suburb about twelve miles north of the Philadelphia city line. The seven-barrel brewery was

founded in 2014 by a couple of brothers of the Mulherin clan and their uncle.  The building is tucked behind a tattoo parlor and also shares parking with a deli, so food, while not made in the taproom, is never a lack.
   The Irish like the Mulherins are akin to their fellow Celts, the Scots, and this is most true in the beers made here.  Among what they call the core beers I saw a stout, a wit, a golden, a brown, and a Scottish Ale, Regimental 80, at 4.7% abv, a nice malty flavor.  Plenty of choices besides the usual IPAs, in other words.
   They offered a second, stronger Scottish called Angry Piper (6.9% abv) and this was wonderful.
I imagined I could taste a bit of the earth the barley had been grown in, the mouthfeel was that good.  At the recent Locals Only beerfest in Philly, where each brewer brought their flagship and one specialty brew they wanted to show off, Crooked Eye had Angry Piper on tap as the specialty.

   Ever adventurous, the brewers were also offering a Gruit called Ugly Mug Wort the day I stopped in. Gruit is German for herb, and before hops were as commonly grown as they are today, various herbs were used for bittering. This one (6.9%) used mugwort, hence the name, also some sweet gale,ground ivy, and heather tips. The end result was still on the sweet side--if you want real pucker up bitter, there's no substitute for hops.



(Visited 04/08/18)