Local 44

I couldn’t pass up an email I got around noon offering all pints at Local 44 for just $3!  I had a porter that started with Sin, and Ben had the Coniston Bluebird Bitter, which we both loved.  It was also featured later that night at Tiedhouse—coincidence?  Probably not, since it was equally refreshing there.  I will be looking for this beer come summer time.

Not drunk?

Tiedhouse

Low-power flight

Monday night, Beer Club had 5 members show up for the Session Beer Project at Tiedhouse with Lew Bryson and Russ Czajka.  After keeping Russ peppered with questions for a good half hour, we have quite a few tips to practice at our next brewing.  We’ve been flying by the seats of our pants till now, with temperature control a complete afterthought.  Time to incorporate that variable into the mix.  I was really impressed with the food at Tiedhouse—only one item on the menu over $10, and the burgers were excellent.  Just the right balance of butteriness and moisture without being feeling like I just struck the cow’s jugular.  It went down perfectly with a pint of the Economizer—Gen. Lafayette’s “recycled” beer—that tasted like a cold peach on a hot summer evening.  The Red Velvet (a half & half mix of the Chocolate Thunder and their Irish Red) brought some much needed sweetness and openness to the porter half, while the maturity of the porter balanced the freshness & shininess of the red half.  Now I know I need a case of the Irish Red to counter the half-case of Thunder at home in the beer fridge.

Lew Bryson talks a good talk, but
just how good can a low-abv beer be?

Green Room

Afterwards, we headed to Becky’s old stomping-ground, the Green Room at 20th and Green.  The always-lovely JC took care of us, pulling out a few oft-overlooked bottles from the fridge.  It’s not the kind of place people order real beer often, but as Tom Kehoe pointed out during Craig LeBan’s chat on 3/3, you can walk into a dive bar and find good beer—something largely unheard of outside of Philadelphia.  I had a Flying Fish ESB and a shot of scotch and called it a night.