It was Saturday night and we were fixin’ for some action … sort of. Earlier in the day we had snagged fresh produce and chicken sausage at our local farmers’ market, donated a car-load of stuff to Goodwill, brewed our third beer (Steph and Tim’s Tropical Foreign Extra Stout), and had a dinner of stir-fry steak, broccoli and corn by 6 PM. Such accomplishment should have exhausted us, putting us to bed by 9 PM after a nightcap of Rock Band and Merry Monks.

Au contraire.

Ray suggested we take the train into Philly, and I grabbed my trusty guidebook to see what we should hit up. This was going to be awesome.

Our first stop was The Khyber. We dug the fact that it wasn’t packed and immediately grabbed the end of the bar by the bathrooms — which were labeled “Sit” and “Stand.”

The chalkboard draught list offered some favorites, as well as new brews, but the first thing that sold me on this bar was that it had a tap handle proudly displaying Middle Ages Brewery’s Beast Bitter! My parents currently live just north of Syracuse, NY, so Middle Ages is technically my hometown brewery. They make excellent brews in the fashion of medieval England. Get a load of this, sourced from their Web site:

“To maintain the tradition and tastes of English ales of the Middle Ages, the brewery uses two-row malted barley imported from Munton and Fisson Plc., in Stowmarket, Suffolk, England. The malt is germinated barley that has been kiln dried. ‘Our yeast strain is a direct descendent of brewing yeast originating in Yorkshire, England. It has been cultivated for the past 150 years,’ Marc [Rubenstein, head brewer and owner] said. We figure it should bear a resemblance to the Medieval yeasts.’ Middle Ages Brewing harvests its yeast from batch to batch, mixing it with warm beer to activate it.”

Talk about friggin’ cool!

Beast Bitter was my first pint of the night. It had a coppery color, and a delicious, balanced hop flavor. Standing at 5.3% ABV, this hometown favorite would make an excellent session beer. Ray ordered Sly Fox’s O’Reilly’s Stout, an Irish dry stout. It’s often described as “Guinness, but better.” We both loved how creamy it was (thank you, nitro tap), and we ended up just sharing the beers, since I kept sipping Ray’s pint.

For my next drink, I ordered Sly Fox’s Blob Ale, a seasonal imperial red ale brewed in honor of the annual Blob Fest in Phoenixville, PA held each July. It was surprisingly nutty and roasty, and I had no idea it was an imperial red until I looked it up later — it’s that smooth!

Ray ordered Atwaters‘ Vanilla Java Porter for his second round, but it left a bad taste in his mouth — literally. The beer had oxidized, leaving an icky vegetable taste smack dab in the middle of each sip and making it undrinkable. Ray mentioned it to the bartender who at first simply pointed to a loud-mouthed, half-witted brunette and her dopey husband and said, “Well they’ve been drinking it and loving it.” However, a minute later, after taking care of a long backlog of customers, the bartender came back to us with a sample in hand, leaned over the bar and said, “You know what, there is something wrong with this.”

The bartender quickly apologized and let Ray replace the beer with Paper City’s Blonde Hop Monster, which was an astounding imperial IPA. Served in a tulip glass to allow the nose to really show its stuff, it started with the sweet smell of flowers and gummy bears and filled the mouth with a big, malty, citrusy explosion. Meanwhile, the other couple at the bar ordered another round of the oxidized Atwater Vanilla Brocolli Porter.

Check back in later to see how the rest of our night panned out at Eulogy and Triumph!

Craft Beer, Pubs 1 Comment »