This Thursday, the Pickering Creek Inn is hosting Craft Brew Night from 6-8pm featuring two great brews from Bear Republic: Red Rocket Ale and Crazy Ivan. In addition, there will be a FREE buffet, pint specials, and glassware giveaways per usual.
And now to the brews…
Red Rocket Ale (6.8% abv) – A bastardized Scottish style red ale that traces it’s origins to Bear Republic’s Roots. This full bodied and hoppy brew finishes on the palate with sweet, caramel malt flavors.
Crazy Ivan (6.9% abv) – This copper colored American IPA took a wild left turn when fermented with Trappist ale yeast. Charged with hops, followed closely by a clove and pepper Belgian yeast character.
Some come on out, get all grizzly, and kick out the jams at karoake afterwards!
This Thursday, May 20th at 6pm, the Pickering Creek Inn will host Stoudt’s Brewing Company for Craft Brew Night. There will be three Stoudt’s selections on draft – Double IPA, Fat Dog Stout, Heifer-In-Wheat – and a FREE buffet from 6 till 8pm. Sounds like a great place to watch the FLYERS game, right?
As one of the pioneering craft breweries in America, Stoudt’s Brewing Co. (Adamstown, PA) offers a variety of absolutely incredible lagers and ales. May 17th through 20th also happens to be American Craft Beer Week, so you have no excuses.
The holy trinity of Stoudt’s brews include…
Double IPA (10% abv) – Taste is a good balance of hops and malts, some notes of citrus. Feels full bodied in the mouth and has good drinkability.
Fat Dog Stout (9% abv) – Flavor is quite rich and complex… almost like an imperial stout, but without some of the vinous qualities and a little lower in alcohol. According to BeerAdvocate.com, this beer is no longer brewed.
Heifer-in-Wheat (5% abv) – This is Stoudt’s new summer seasonal beer. Taste starts sweet, a goodly shot of orange in the middle, and closes with a good wheat aftertaste. Mouthfeel is smooth, and drinkability is good as well.
So come on out, get your FLYERS on with some extra-awesome brew from Stoudt’s, and when they win you can do your best Kate Smith at karaoke immediately following the game…
Sunday is the Ninth Annual Bock Fest and Goat Races, which will be held from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Sly Fox’s new location at the Maple Grove Shopping Center. This event is one of my favorite rites of spring for two reasons: the sausage and the beer. In preparing this little post, I got to thinking what is the correlation between bock beers and goats? It didn’t take long before I learned that bock is German for billy goat (goes to show what I remembered from studying German for five years), BUT I also found that bock beers are typically brewed in months of the astrological sign for capiricorn…a goat. PLUS I found this really cool web site about goats on beer labels. It’s really intriguing: http://www.norelevance.com/current-exhibits/cult-of-the-goat/
Anyway, Sly Fox will be featuring their Slacker Bock, Instigator Doppelbock, two Eisbocks, which are made by freeze distilling a doppelbock and removing the ice to concentrate the flavor and alcohol content, and the to-be-named Maibock. The brewery’s other beers will be available as well a delicious selection of sausages. Last year’s line-up included weiss wurst, a mild, white sausage, knockwurst and bratwurst.
The goat races themselves start at 2 p.m. and the maibock will be tapped shortly thereafter. Hopefully last year’s winner, Dax, will return to defend his honor. He probably shouldn’t get his hopes up though. If my memory serves me the previous year’s winner, Sundae, didn’t fare so well, but it could have been the wet track.
A few notable changes will also happen this year as a result of Sly Fox’s move across the street. The brewery is encouraging parking at the Kimberton Fair Grounds a one-and-a-half mile jog from the event. Shuttle service will be provided. Also, it will be interesting to see if the new lot hosting the event can handle the crowd. Although attendance was low last year due to the weather, more than 3,000 folks were present two years ago and Sunday’s forecast sounds gorgeous. Let’s just hope there are a good number of port o johns because I don’t know if there are woods behind the new location.
Oh, and as usual, commemorative glasses and shirts will be available.
by Washington Washington
