Goose Island Gillian

I have quite a back log right now so I'm going to try and work through at least some of it. That means I actually drank this a while ago which was apparently December 6th according to the date on the picture. But, whatever, i'ts not like my notes go bad. Gillian is a sour saison brewed with strawberries and peppercorns (and possibly a few other things) and then aged in used wine barrels. Pretty complicated beast. One fun trivia fact is that the experimental name was Scully, which if you've ever watched the X-Files, Scully was played by Gillian Anderson. Get it? Scully -> Gillian? Okay, maybe only nerds will think that's neat but it totally is.

Spicy, peppery nose with some light fruit and a bunch of oak. Body was similar, starting off lightly peppery, almost bitter, followed by strawberry, oak, and a little white wine flavor. As I drank more, the bitterness faded like it usually does and the strawberry and wine notes really came to the front. Very tasty beer with the only real negative being the price. Not sure what the going rate for it is in Philly, but it easily could be $35 or $40 given the usual markups. Knocks it down a few pegs for me just because for that kind of money I could get other beers. Still, glad to have tried it at least once.

Prairie Artisan Ales Truncheon

I struck out on Heady Topper cans when Jo and I were in Vermont, but I did get to stop at a store named Hunger Mountain Co-op and pick up a few interesting bottles. One of them was Prairie Artisan Ales Truncheon, a wine barrel aged saison. I don't have any more information than that since that's all the bottle said, but it had to have been some sort of white wine barrel considering the color and flavor.

The nose had a lot of white wine character mixed with a little saison spiciness. At first, the body was mostly sweet grape with only some of the saison peaking through. Similar to the nose though a bit sweeter. As I drank more, the flavors meshed a bit more and the sweetness lessened. Still, I wish it had been a little drier with the saison half being a little more pronounced. As it stands, it wasn't bad, but I don't think I'd buy it again.

Some Tired Hands Catch Up

I've been remiss again at making posts more often but I at least warned everyone I'm a slacker. Today, we'll do a little Tired Hands catch up on some of their bottles. While I do have some tasting notes, I think I'm going to skip the overly long stuff and mostly just post some nice pictures. Seems easier.

To start we have Handfarm, a wine barrel fermented saison.

Prairie Artisan Ales Prairie Hop

I've been slacking in my updates lately which I'm not terribly happy about but at least I can blame it on our unborn son. Never too early to start blaming things on your children, right? Also, unlike last week when I lied about it being my last post for a bit, this really will be my last one until at least after Memorial Day. So, for my last one, I'll talk about Prairie Artisan Ales Prairie Hop. I think to reference this beer you really need to use the whole brewery name just so you don't say Prairie Prairie Hop. Just doesn't sound right to me. Also, I've discovered the word prairie is very difficult to type, who knew.

I'd been hearing a bit about this brewery and was excited to try this. Powerful, bright nose. Straight orange citrus with a hint of saison spiciness. Very yum. On the first sip my reaction was that it tasted very nearly like orange juice. My wife thought it was super bitter so results may vary. Things continued with a strong mix of orange sweetness and a little bitterness in the finish to clean things up. Incredibly solid and delicious and I look forward to trying more from them.

Since this is my last post for this week, I'll mention Philly Beer Week. It starts next Friday which is quite exciting. Unfortunately (well really fortunately as I'm excited to have a kid and all but you know) I won't be able to attend anywhere near the number of events I usually do. No big, but it means picking some good ones. The Beer Garden is always fun so you should check that out if you have more time than me. Cigar City events should be cool, Dark Horse is always a good choice and it's at the Cambridge this year, and there are a bunch of Goose Island events that should be great. I'll try to post my schedule next week but we'll see how things work out. Looking forward to seeing everyone at least once!

First trip to Forest & Main

For my birthday last week, my very pregnant wife suggested we check out Forest & Main, a new brewpub that opened up in Ambler last year. I've been wanting to get out there forever as I've heard great things about it, but it's just a bit further than Tired Hands and not so conveniently on the way home from my wife's work. Since she's awesome or possibly crazy from the pregnancy, she drove us there even when she couldn't enjoy it. And, again, let me stress that she suggested it. This was not my idea but I was not about to turn her down.

When we got there, they had six beers available with the choice of getting a flight of four so that's what I did.

Stone Saison du Buff aged in Red Wine Barrels

This was sent to me forever ago by my buddy in San Diego and was a great surprise just for its uniqueness. I've never actually had the original Saison du Buff, which is kind of funny or dumb depending on who you ask considering the distribution but whatever. So this is obviously a saison aged in red wine barrels and this version was brewed by Stone. (There were versions brewed by Stone, Victory, and Dogfish Head which is why I'm specifying the brewery like that.)

Big herbal nose with a little fruitiness in the back. The barrel is really minimal there. First sip was again sharply herbal with a bit of bitterness and then some light apple and cherry fruit flavors. The latter are almost definitely from the aging and the former flavors from the base. I wonder if the saison part was brighter or even more herbal when fresh, but since I've never had it, I dunno. Still, it was tasty enough though I wish the red wine barrel had imparted a bit more flavor. Thanks Eric!

Great Divide Colette

I've only been having Tired Hands saisons for a while now, which are almost all awesome, so sometimes it's a little difficult to pick up some others unless I know they are good. I took a slight risk in the Great Divide Colette since I knew nothing about it, but turns out it's actually pretty decent. Great Divide stuff usually is, though, so it wasn't too big a risk.

Nice nose on it, very saison like. Basically flowery, herbal, and minty. Started sweet and fruity up front, sort of reminiscent of apples. Finished with more of the herbal, minty spice. On a nice, hot day this would be fantastic, just sitting on the roof deck out in the sun, enjoying it and relaxing. Of course it's hard to think about those times when you wake up and it's snowing, but we'll get there!

Return to Tired Hands

Not exactly the most timely post, but, well, it's finally done and that's what counts. After visiting to pick up my bottles of HandFarm, a few days later I saw that Jean tapped MotherAnimal, a beer I really wanted to try. It's a coffee and vanilla English style barleywine and boy doesn't that sound delicious. So, I decided I'd take another trip on Septa to Ardmore to visit sooner than I figured but that's not a bad thing.

When I arrived, I saw they had some other new beers available and considering the strength of MotherAnimal, decided to start with one of those instead. The Singel Hop Saison made with Amarillo just seemed too interesting to be second.

Recent Trip to Tired Hands

This post is overdue but that's okay. It had been like a month or two since I went to Tired Hands and I knew that had been too long. Plus, they just had their first bottle release and I needed to go to pick mine up anyway. So, win win. With the release just happening, there was a lot of talk about one of their new beers, The Light that Spills out of the Hole in your Head. And, yes, I randomly capitalized some parts of that name since I couldn't decide how to write it. You'll just have to live with my grammatical decisions. Sorry! The Light was a double IPA brewed with orange peel I believe. Maybe some other stuff, too, but I don't remember. I'm so helpful.

Another Trip to Tired Hands

This visit to Tired Hands actually occurred way back before Thanksgiving but I half forgot about these notes and half just hadn't gotten around to writing about it. But today I make up for it! I made this visit so soon after the previous one for two reasons: to fill a growler and to try the new Westy 13. Since it was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, man was it busy. I got the last seat at the bar and showed up only a few minutes after it opened. Funny but totally great for them.

So since it was new and special, I started with the Westy 13, a quad.

Boulevard 2011 Saison Brett

Other than a couple of 12oz bottles, the Boulevard Saison Brett is the last beer I brought back from Houston. When I bought it, I had a choice of 2011 or 2012 and decided to go with the year old version. I figured with this style and Boulevard's reputation, it would be a bit more interesting with a year of age on it.

Minty and herbal nose with a light fruitiness. Like tropical fruit almost with a bit of lemon. Thicker body than I expected, actually, but not in a bad way, just different than is usual for the style. Spicy, herbal, minty body but lacking the fruitiness of the nose. Still, very tasty. Lightly bitter in the finish with a little more of the herbal edge in the aftertaste.

This was quite good, very refreshing and clean tasting. Nice with the latkes and some other food we had that night. It's why I'm so frustrated when I have a mediocre Boulevard beer since I know they can make such good ones. Oh well, I'll just have to keep trying them all and hope the quality is high.

Beers with Friends

My friends and I had been trying to get together for this bottle share for quite a few months, but one of them has a job that makes it a bit tough to schedule. However, he finally had a Monday off and so messaged us that it was time. As it happened I was walking home from Sabrina's, kind of drunk already, so of course I said totally! I was originally planning on not even drinking the Monday before Thanksgiving but oh well, sacrifices must be made right?

We started off with one of the better beers of the night, Goose Island Bourbon County Rare. This is a special version of Bourbon County, aged in barrels for two years instead of the eight months or so. It did sell for quite a bit more per bottle (about $40 vs $12 for two regular bourbon county).

Beers at Sabrina's

Just before Thanksgiving, some friends of mine decided that their cellars were getting too large. To try and start to fix the issue, they asked on twitter if people wanted to go to a BYOB and share some beers and have dinner. I had nothing to do that night and Jo didn't care about eating dinner alone so I figured why not. After some back and forth, we decided on Sabrina's in Fairmount as I figured it wouldn't be too busy as it's mostly a brunch place and it's informal enough that they wouldn't mind us sitting around drinking forever.

After ordering some food and settling in we decided to start with Deschutes The Dissident, the one sour Matt brought along.

A Couple Beers at Tired Hands

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.

Boulder Farmhouse Saison

Stopped at Kite & Key yesterday and ordered a Boulder Farmhouse Saison. Thought since it was a warm day, it would be more refreshing than some of the other options.

Nice nose, really fits the saison style. Lightly spicy, peppery, and with a bit of fruitiness. Flavors followed the same path with a slight bite of pepper, fruitiness coming in after, and then a bready finish. Pretty flavorful and enjoyable beer. Good beer to look for during the summer.

Second Visit to Tired Hands

Last weekend I took my second trip to Tired Hands in Ardmore. This time I did it on a Saturday so I could spend a bit more time there than when I visited on the Wednesday during beer week. Once again the trip from Philly on the R5 was super easy and it's maybe a five minute walk from the station. Super convenient for those of use that find getting to the suburbs a pain in the butt.

When I arrived I ordered a glass of Tabel, a 3.8% saison. Note that even though I insisted in saying the name like table, it's apparently pronounced ta-bell. So if you don't want Jean giving you funny looks, you can say it properly now.

Philly Beer Week Day 8: Jose Pistola's & A Beer Garden

We're almost to the end of Philly Beer Week! Just two more relatively full days and I'll be done and you can go back to reading shorter posts. On this Friday, Jo had the day off so we were going to have lunch at Jose Pistola's and I had planned to check out the With Love Beer Garden later on. We also ended up with an unscheduled stop at St. Stephen's Green for dinner which turned out great because they still had a bunch of great beers on tap.

As I said, the day started at my favorite lunch spot, Jose Pistola's. They were hosting a lunch for Hill Farmstead and how could I miss that? For those that don't know, Hill Farmstead is really well known for their hoppier stuff though Shaun Hill has a deft touch with mostly everything he brews as far as I can tell. I started with a glass of Florence, a saison.

Philly Beer Week Day 6: Tired Hands

After our busy fifth day of beer week, Jo and I were originally going to take Wednesday off. Well, mostly off as I was still going to get one drink, but then the Friday before, it was announced that the Tired Hands cafe was finally opening! Immediately I said so much for our day off, time to go to Ardmore!

When I arrived the first floor bar was about three quarters full but still plenty of room for me. I took a seat and ordered my first beer, EWBANH (apparently Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt), their India Black Coffee Saison.

Nodding Head Monkey Madness

Okay, before explaining anything, let me just drop this right here.

Have I set the scene? I think I have. And yes, the assistant brewer Fava is inside.

So this past weekend was another Second Saturday event at Nodding Head, this time named Monkey Madness. The theme for this was beers with lemongrass and ginger, following along from their world famous Monkey Knife Fight (or at least it should be world famous, best name ever). Along with two variations of that beer, they brewed a couple others using lemongrass to round out the lineup.

Brooklyn Sorachi Ace

Some nice turnover from last week at the Kite & Key meant I had quite a few new choices. Since I had liked a saison brewed by a friend of mine made with Sorachi Ace hops, I decided to give the Brooklyn Sorachi Ace saison a try.

Pretty wonderful nose. Bright and juicy with lots of tropical fruit. Taste followed though unfortunately not quite as nice as the aroma. Mostly fruity with some malty breadiness underneath but that was about it. It just wasn't as strong as I would have expected and wanted. Decent enough but I won't be revisiting it any time soon.