I've never been crazy about Iron Hill Brewery's offerings, except for an oddly delicious dunkel weizen, but my most recent visit to the local chain brewery was a tremendous letdown. The beers ranged from bad to worse. At least the food was decent, although served at temperatures that left my greedy mouth completely burned. Talk about punishment for being a fatty!
Anyway, here's some beers to avoid:
Hoppy Hoppy Hefeweizen - Sub-par beer with an amazingly stupid name, but sadly the best beer I had all night. At least until I went to the next bar. With a name like this, I was expecting aggressive hoppiness straight out of the Stone brewery camp. It didn't have that. I think it wanted to have that, but it just wasn't happening. There were hops, sure, but it was not hopped enough to live up to its name, no matter how lame that name may be. Arrogant Bastard and other well-made overly hopped beers also have a lot of other stuff going on, subtleties that work to complement, enhance, and otherwise support the incredible amounts of hops. The Hoppy Hoppy Hefeweizen didn't. It was more just like "hey the new guy messed up and dumped a barrel of hops into the hefe vat, what should we do?" "Just leave it."
Something-Or-Other Saison - It doesn't matter what this is called. Don't buy it. Ever. Take your money and go get a bottle of Dupont's Saison or Foret. Or if you really want a Belgian Farmhouse Ale made by a mini-chain restaurant/brewery in Southeastern Pennsylvania, go to McKenzie's. Their saison is a surprisingly solid offering. I'm a big fan of farmhouse ales, but this was way overspiced. It's like the same jerk who dropped all those hops in the hefeweizen dumped a full rack of cloves in the Saison vat. At least I know now why Iron Hill recently had a Saison fest where they let their employees flavor the beer with whatever spices, fruits, or floor scraps they wanted - it's not like they could ruin anything. Saison? More like Failson. Zing!
The Ryesing - Iron Hill's (surprise) rye beer offering was, well, rye. It was very light and completely dry and I kept expecting some sort of character or flavor to develop, but that just never happened. My buddy Len, who writes his own beer blog which is very good and actually gets updated, had this to say: "it sort of tastes like vomit. Like the aftertaste of vomit." And he was right. I knew this beer reminded me of something: it tasted the way Mardi Gras smells in the afternoon. For those of you who have never been to Mardi Gras, try this simple simulation: find a dumpster outside of the grimiest bar in your neighborhood, wait until you've had at least five days of 85-degree or higher temperatures (22 or higher for our Celcius friends), chug at least 16-oz of grain alcohol, then stand next to the dumpster and take a big whiff. Preferably on the day before it's emptied. Then have friends throw beads at your head as hard as they can, while you pull your tits out. Congratulations - you're at Mardi Gras. And with this simple simulation, Mardi Gras can happen any time, my friends.
If this had been my first visit to Iron Hill, it was the sort of trip that would have me convinced never to return. But I've been to Iron Hill too many times to let one exceptionally awful outing keep me away. I'll just wait until their next batch of seasonals hits the taps, and I'll pray they're not equally atrocious. Either way, you'll hear about it.
Cheers!
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