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...