Monday, May 21, 2018

Lancaster Stop #2: History cherished at Wacker Br.

    At one point in the nineteenth century, in the industrializing decades after the civil war, Lancaster was reputed to be brewing seven percent of all the beer consumed in the U.S.  One of the leading producers was Eagle Brewing Co., founded in 1853.  Joseph Wacker purchased the brewery in 1870 and he and his sons and grandsons ran it up to and then after Prohibition until 1938, a sixty-eight year run.  The brewery closed in 1956 along with hundreds of regional brewers in that era, and after another fifty-eight years, the business was reborn under the same name, Wacker Brewing Co., in 2014.
    Both the website and the interior of the taproom pay homage to this history. Along with photos of the original brewery, now demolished a few blocks away, the owners have framed and hung labels that once festooned Wacker bottles back in the day.  The Bohemian Pilsner, a best seller for the brewery in draft or 12-oz cans, was a leading brand back then, too.  The Kolsch is another popular style, according to brewer Michael Spychalski.

     The ten-barrel brewing system with four fermenters down in the basement keep about a half-dozen styles on tap here.  Wacker II just celebrated three years of business May  15. On the left, a glass of Marzen, somewhat lighter in color than many brewers make (isn't Marzen the style of choice for many oktoberfest beers?).  Or is memory tricking me here in the springtime? This led with the malt and went down very well.




(Visited 05/02/18)

Thursday, May 10, 2018

Lancaster's eponymous brewer

   Amtrak rolls west out of Philadelphia on the main line of the old Pennsylvania Railroad, through towns of mortared stone mansions and good new beers--Ardmore (Tired Hands Brewing), Bryn Mawr (Tin Lizard), Berwyn (La Cabra).  Past Downington and Victory's original brewery, farmland becomes more prevalent than commerce. Tidy farms, some run by Amish, surround the compact city of Lancaster, PA, about an hour's ride from the city.
    Lancaster Brewing Co., about a dozen blocks from the station, is the oldest (est. 1995) of the new breweries in a city once called the Munich of America for the quantity and quality of German lagers made here. Approaching its solid nineteenth century brick building, once a tobacco curing warehouse, one sees a silo attached to the exterior, looking like a grain silo--but isn't.
It's a rainwater catching structure, built to intercept storm water from the city's sewerage system before those extra flows can overload and bypass the treatment works. Inside, I meet Mark Braunwerth, head of brewing operations for the company and learn that the silo evolved from the city's review of LBC's application to add a brick patio area for outdoor sipping (visible beyond the silo). More impervious surface would have meant more stormwater in the sewers, unless it could be offset by some serious mitigation. Hence the silo and some other pervious areas to soak up the rains. 
   All that sounds fine, environmental kudos, etc., but what about the beer?  What caught my eye on their website was a milk stout, a chocolate milk stout, no less.  I remember having a hankering for this style back in Washington last winter; the only packaged milk stout was from Left Hand in Colorado.  "I think we've been making this longer than Left Hand," Mark said, offering me a sample. 
   Oh, my Gambrinius, that was good!  Think of a chocolate malted milk shake with a call-a-cab kick (6.8% abv). 
It was not stout-drinking weather, about 75 and sunny, but happily the brewery did have 4-packs of 12-oz bottles, so I took some home to savor on a cooler day.  These bottles were brewed and filled at Susquehanna Brewing, about a hundred miles from here, Mark said.  "All our capacity here," indicating the fourteen 30-bbl fermenters behind him, "goes into kegs."  He added that a canning line was in the works, which should enhance the company's marketing area, the five states that abut Pennsylvania, plus Virginia.
   So what to drink on a warm spring day.  A lemon blueberry shandy (5%, 5 ibu) caught my eye.  "That's quite a fruit bomb," Mark said. "I like to cut it half and half with our Kolsch" (5.1%, 35 ibu).  I took the brewer's advice and quaffed a just-right beer, a liquid blueberry muffin.
(Visited 05/02/18)

Saturday, May 5, 2018

Sterling Pig: True beer facts in this Media

   The pretty town of Media, PA, a few miles west of Philly in the suburban fringe, boasts two quality craft beer makers, one of the Iron Hill chain and Sterling Pig Brewing Co., a small (10-bbl?) operation with a good-vibe taproom and a menu with some tasty barbecue, smoked on site.
Founded in July 2015 by local restaurateur Loic Barnieu, the pub's food fare does stand out from typical pub grub.  The barbecue, like pulled pork, is smoked on the premises and the pizza comes out of a copper clad oven upstairs.  The beer selection is much more varied than the typical IPA house, too.  How many taprooms will have two pilsners on out of about a dozen choices?
Sterling was doing a standard pilsner, called Shoat (5% abv), hopped with just Mt. Hood, and Hoppin' Pils (4.9%), same process as Shoat to the end of the boil, then adding whole leaf Liberty hops in  a hopback process. I tried both, liked the second version a bit better. 
  Another good pint was the Sty-Lander (yes, a

few piggy names here), a Strong Scotch ale at 8.3%.  This had not just a malt-in-front taste, there was a bit of peat in there too.
  The pizza oven is shown on the right.







(Visited 04/26/18)