I may start a lot of posts lamenting how long it has been since I visited somewhere, but it's always true! This time it had been nearly a month since I last visited Tired Hands. But, whatever, I'll just have to do better moving forward instead of complaining now. When I arrived the first level bar was actually completely full so I went upstairs for the first time. Man, I had forgotten how nice it was upstairs. Just a huge space, decent number of tables, and another beautiful bar. Not quite as big as the one downstairs but still a decent size.
The first beer I ordered was OoeyGooey, a wine barrel fermented saison made with five different grains.
Nice nose. Sweet and lightly sugary with a few notes of wine in the back. While the wheat wasn't a big portion of the grain bill, I felt like it was the major grain flavor in it. Following that was some breadiness and then a really nice, mildly tart finish. As I drank more, the tartness actually grew into a nicely balanced lemony finish, making this even better. A real enjoyable saison.
After that I got an 8oz of the R5 Saison, a saison brewed with 5 R ingredients: rye, ramon nut, roses, rhubarb and raisins. If you don't know, Ardmore and thus Tired Hands which is in Ardmore is on the R5 line of Septa regional rail. (Though they got rid of numbers at some point and maybe it's the Paoli / Thorndale line now? I dunno, no one ever calls it that anyway).
Funny enough, looks pretty similar to the above saison. Random shot of Jean, the owner and head brewer, in the background too. Mild nose on this, not getting much. Similar body to a lot of their saisons, pleasant and lightly spicy with a little sweetness and then some flavors from the ingredients come into play. The major one I felt like I tasted was the raisins actually. Not quite as good as OoeyGooey, but decent enough and I imagine a full glass would have the flavors change a bit again.
Only going every few weeks, I miss out on quite a few beers, but at least the ones I do get to try are delicious. I hadn't realized before this visit just how nice the upstairs area was either. The whole place is just cool looking, comfortable, and inviting. If you haven't visited yet, you really should.
Yeah, I love Tired Hands. I got this single hopped simcoe saison thing the last time I was there and it was superb. It seems like they're making a lot of fans in the beer blogging community of late (Drunken Polack just posted a recap of his visit, and I did the same a few weeks ago)! I have a feeling they're going to be come a reagular stop for me. Teresa's Cafe (right down the road) is pretty great as well.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Teresa's gets a lot of talk though I've only ever been there once.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Tired Hands, it's new, the beer is quite good and getting better, and the variety of styles is amazing. Jean brews whatever the heck comes into his head at the time and it's quite cool to see. Can't wait to see what happens as he gets more comfortable with the equipment, the barrels, and everything else.