St. Sebastiaan Grand Reserve is Grand Indeed

The first thing I noticed about St. Sebastiaan Grand Reserve is the kickass bottle. It's earthenware with one of those nifty little stoppers built in for resealing, though if you can stop yourself from draining all 16 ounces in one sitting you probably don't like beer anyway and really shouldn't be reading this.

The second thing I noticed was the impressive lineage written on the label: "A single batch of St. Sebastiaan Grand Reserve is brewed each year.  This limited edition release from Brewery Sterkens is brewed with utmost care to be one of the finest beers in the world."  We'll see about that.

For the sake of science, it's important to note that this bottle has been sitting in my aging rack (aka cardboard box) for a few months. Upon opening the bottle, there was quite a lot of foam-over and I made a bit of a mess.  Hopefully the cats will lick this up, because I've got beer to drink.

The Grand Reserve pours a beautiful golden color, a little cloudy with visible sediment suspended perfectly.  It's a really good looking beer, with little to no head and some champagne-like bubbling. It smells good too, very rich, with a hint of fruit, a little 'barnyard' sourness, and a bit of alcohol. Very promising. I start salivating.

The promises made by the smell come through in the flavor, though it is surprisingly mild.  Really, the way this beer smelled made me expect a much more in-your-face experience, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of subtlety. There is a delicate sweetness beneath the flavors present in the nose, adding a nice layer of complexity. It is pleasantly smooth and easy to drink.  This beer is living up to the lofty promises made on the label, which totally contradicts everything Americans know about how marketing works.

A little deeper into the glass and I'm picking up the definite smell of apples, and an apple tartness to the flavor as well.  Really interesting.  This is the point where I decide that there's no way the stopper on this bottle is getting any use unless it gets recycled in a home brew attempt. This is really one of the best beers I've ever had, and I am quite glad that it doesn't have the ridiculous hype of something like Pliny the Jackass so I could actually buy a bottle.  Now I just wish that I'd bought two.

*Note - I did go back and buy two more bottles of this stuff, but one of them had turned bad on me by the time I opened it. I think the cap was bad. It was probably the saddest moment of my life.  On the upside, I've stopped having to have therapy about the time I watched my twin brother drown while trying to save our new puppy, who also drowned, all while listening to the Cure's Seventeen Seconds album. I guess there is such a thing as a silver lining, even when it comes to a perfectly good beer being ruined.

Fox Chase

Phoenixville PA used to be a pretty boring place to live.  Now, it's riding high on the wave of restaurants and shops who have taken up residence on Bridge Street.  One of these restaurants, Majolica, is carving out a very nice reputation as a premiere eatery, and with good reason - just look at that menu.  I recently took my lady friend there for a delicious five-course meal that paired each dish with a brew from Phoenixville's own Sly Fox Brewery. Both the head chef of Majolica and the head brewmaster (what a job) of Sly Fox were on hand to explain the intricacies of the meal, which was presented thematically as Majolica's take on traditional pub food. What a good idea. Now bear with me while I pretend to be a food blogger.

When we first got there, the Sly Fox Pikeland Pils was flowing freely.  Named after Phoenixville;s neighboring township of East Pikeland, this is an exemplary German-style pilsner, light, refreshing, and easy to drink.  Pilsners are not one of my favorite styles - I fall into the camp of people who finds they always taste a little skunky, the Pikeland being no exception - but this is still a tasty beer. The initial taste is almost sweet, and very, very clean, and the 'skunk' bitterness of the hops comes towards the end, creating a vicious cycle of "washing it down" that encourages session drinking.  This is not to say the taste is in any way unpleasant.  It deserves every one of the medals it has earned.

The Pils is one of Sly Fox's many varieties available in the can, a packaging format they greatly prefer over the bottle.  I think Sly Fox only bottles beer in the 750ml format, and then only for bottle-fermenting purposes, but I don't know for sure and don't really care.  They're big believers in the preservative qualities of the can, and I have to admit can drinking can be a lot more fun than bottle drinking because they are a lot easier to crush against your forehead.  As the pilsner flowed, we picked at hors d'oeuvres including smoked mussels, raw oysters, and my favorite, tuna tar tar on potato chips.  Jealous yet?  There were also great smoked peanuts (dropping the shells on the floor of a fancy restaurant felt a little odd, but was encouraged and was perhaps more fun than it should have been) and popcorn fried in duck fat.  I found this to be a little too heavy a flavor for the popcorn, but I can't wait to get my fat mouth around some duck fat French fries, which I hear are huge in Baltimore.  I think the fries will be a much better vehicle for the flavors of the duck fat. That is a sentence you will only ever hear from a white person.

After a generous amount of pilsner and snacks, we settled in for the first course: Majolica's take on French onion soup,  paired with the Pils. The soup was clearly unlike the French onion slung around your favorite diner or pub - no crock covered with a layer of slightly burnt, deliciously artery clogging cheese, no floating island of soggy bread, not even any limp strands of onion. Instead, it was a beautifully plated offering that featured a thick 'soup' base that was almost a paste, some sort of small whole onions (red and white), and some thin, crispy, cheesy bread things. It looked like something you'd see on Iron Chef, and I thought the approach was sort of Japanese-inspired, presenting the unique flavors separately instead of blending them. It lacked the comfort food quality of a good crock of the French Onion you know and love, but all the flavors were there and it was impeccably tasty. The sharpness of the onion and the natural bite of the Pils are truly a match made in heaven.

Next up was an upscale serving of fish 'n chips.  One of my favorite bar foods, I was excited to see what Majolica's Chef Andrew had up his sleeve on this one. Instead of the usual cod or other mild white fish, Majolica served a Spanish mackerel, which is a sustainable fish much recommended by smart seafood watchgroups like this one. The fish was outstanding, having a strong flavor without being overly 'fishy.' The chips were actually fried garlic petals, which is brilliant, and the whole thing was served over a scoop of English-style flat peas. Flat peas are regular peas that have been somewhat mashed by the chef. You can make your own flat peas if you have a fork and some peas. Try it! My girlfriend hates peas, but she liked these. Great course, though I think the fish was just a bit too greasy and could have benefited from some dabbing with a paper towel. At any rate, it paired well with the Weisse, which features strong flavors of banana and clove and is one of my favorite of Sly Fox's regular offerings. This beer is a great introduction to the world of "fruity" beers, but it's also an exemplary member of the Weisse beer family.  Perfect for inexperienced beer newbies and jaded geeky critics alike! Plus all that unfiltered yeast is good for the digestive tract.  Think of it as drinkable yogurt, but nowhere near as emasculating.

This brings us to one of the most anticipated pairings of the night - the American-style Phoenix Pale Ale and the Buffalo-style Veal Sweetbreads.  Sweetbreads are actually the thymus gland, not the brain, which was simultaneously comforting and disappointing.  I overlooked my normal hippie aversion to anything veal, and found this fried, Buffalo-sauce-covered blob to be fan-phucking-tastic. Imagine a big, meaty, slightly fatty Buffalo wing with no bone.  Amazing, and a good source of Beta cells. It paired well with the American-hopped Pale Ale, which washed away the hot sauce so each bite was fresh and exciting.  Pale Ales aren't really an exhilarating style of beer, so suffice it to say that the Sly Fox version is a strong example of the style and worth drinking regardless of whether or not ales are your thing.

So let's take a pause here, catch our breath, have a beer or four, and wish we were back at Majolica eating all this stuff again.  I didn't even mention the homemade pretzel sticks with rosemary and sea salt that served as both centerpiece and snack, nor the entire second half of the meal and all the exciting beverages that came with it.  Stay tuned...

Philly Craft Beer Fest

Beer Festivals - a tradition as rich and rewarding as drinking itself. There's nothing like packing a ton of people into a confined space and having loads of talented brewers hand out samples of their finest products. It is one version of paradise. And a damn fine version -

But my recent trip to the gargantuan Philly Craft Beer Fest left a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth, and not from any particular brew. I was talking with the rep from Troeg's about their delicious Nugget Nectar, and how I was a disappointed it wasn't one of the beers they brought with them. He agreed, but shrugged it off by saying, "This isn't the crowd."

This is the sound that I heard in my head when he said that.  A beer fest not the right crowd for a good beer?  What?  But in a way, he's right. This was pretty late in the night, and looking around I saw that most people had obviously come there to get drunk, not to drink great beer.  Sure, some people got drunk by accident, but most of the people in that giant hall were not interested in trying new, rare, or exceptional beers.  They could have just kept cycling in line at the PBC stall, for all I know.  And that's sad.

That being said, some of the brewers still impressed.  The Bruery's White and Dark Orchards were both exquisite, as was "Fallen Apple," a lager/cider blend that I believe came from Dark Horse Brewing Co, although I can't find it on their website. Voodoo Brewery, whose Wynona's Big Brown Ale was my pick for best beer of last year's PCBF, also represented itself well this year with a variety of tasty beverages. Their Abbey ale, Voodoo Love Child, was fruitier than this guy's shoes.  Voodoo is based out of Erie PA, and you should make a real effort to get to know their beers.

You should also make a real effort to attend the next beer fest in your neighborhood.  Maybe simple people like you and me can help restore a culture of geeky culinary curiosity to the beer festival scene, instead of letting this time-honored tradition sink into little more than a glorified frat party.

Rock Bottom Actually Tops

Work is the reason most people drink, because it is the source of the income you spend on drinking. See, you thought I was going to say it's because work is the place you go for eight hours a day to have the life sucked out of you. Well that's true too. Drink that life back in - in the form of unfiltered yeast!

The other day (ok at this rate like a month ago, I'm the world's worst blogger), in order to try to forget how miserable our jobs make us, my coworkers and I went to the local brewpub Rock Bottom in the bottom floor of the King of Prussia mall. I'm not much for the mall anymore, but I'm not one to miss a good drinking opportunity. As it turns out, this was actually a great drinking opportunity. Rock Bottom was tapping its Scotch Ale, Naughty Scot, that night and the brewer was on hand for a meet and greet. You can follow him on Twitter here. They also handed out a pint to everyone in the bar, which was pretty cool.

I got a chance to talk with Brian the Brewer for a bit, and he's a really swell dude. You really should follow his tweeting. If you ever want to talk to a brewer, just say you do a little home brewing.  This is guaranteed to get their attention because home brew is probably where the brewer started on his or her career path.  It also lets them know that you probably didn't walk into their brew pub and order a Miller Lite, unless it was for comedic effect.  Brewers, from the few pros whom I've met, are very happy people. This is probably because they spend their time getting paid to do something they love, and because they get to drink for free.  I imagine you save a lot of money as a brewer, unless you really hate the taste of your own beer.  The bartenders at this joint also knew their shit. Apparently they only want beer geeks behind the bar there, which is very much appreciated. There are a lot of brew pubs who are far better known for their beer (cough cough Victory cough cough) whose bartenders can't tell the difference between a lager and a log, and there is little more frustrating about going to a brew pub and getting dumbfounded looks when you ask about one of their beers. The folks at Rock Bottom know what's up, and that is as important to the brew pub experience as the beer itself.

Speaking of beer, I didn't do a lot of sampling at Rock Bottom.  I found the Sub Zero IPA early on and stuck with it, except for my free Naughty Scot. The IPA was exquisite, its hearty dose of American Simcoe hops lending a heavily floral and citrus taste without being overly aggressive. I'd put this right up there with any IPA I've had, and I can't wait until it shows up on their taps again (we were on the last keg that night, and it is long gone by now).

The Scot was also quite tasty, though its heavy caramel maltiness would not make this a good session beer.  Unless you really, really hate your job.  Then pretty much anything will work. I suggest cheap tequila, and lots of it.

I'm looking forward to hitting this place up more often, as it's a microbrew that actually seems to put the beer first. The food is also great - try the Mac 'n Chicken.  It's mac and chee with chunks of fried chicken in it. Totally heart healthy, and every bit as satisfying as it sounds.

Cheers!