Friday, April 24, 2009

Getting awesome at the Lambertville Shad Festival

Taking a trip with R this weekend down to Lambertville, NJ for their annual Shad Festival. For those who have never been down that way, we'd totally recommend making a day of it on any weekend when the weather is nice. Lambertville is one of those quaint little river towns where you can have a nice day just walking around and exploring. Plus, New Hope, PA is an easy walk right across the bridge. Between both towns there are plenty of antique stores, sight-seeing opportunities, and restaurants to take advantage of.

But what does that have to do with beer, you ask? Plenty. Located in Lambertville is the River Horse Brewing Company, a craft brewery that within the last year or so received a sizeable investment and is now producing more specialty beers in addition to their regular lineup and is also expanding distribution. We've seen them on tap in JC, Hoboken, and NYC recently, so they're getting out there. And in New Hope, you've got one of Triumph's three brewpubs. The food is excellent at Triumph (if a bit pricey) and they always keep the rotation of taps interesting. We always find more than one beer on there that we've never seen them serving before.

We'll also probably hit one of our favorite spots in Lambertville, the Swan. And check out a new one recommended by Lew Bryson and Mark Haynie in their New Jersey Breweries book, the Inn of the Hawke.

------------------------------------

I transferred my oak aged old ale to a keg to carbonate a few days ago. It tasted fairly awesome. Super oaky, which I'm actually hoping mellows out a bit with time. It's about three months old now, and the hot alcohols already seem to have aged out. Probably going to bottle it tonight.

Do to a household-wide bottle shortage, I'm probably canceling plans to brew a Biere de Garde. I'm going to keep the German Ale yeast slurry going with an IPA. And then it will be on to another lager and a saison. I'll need all of the bottles I can get my hands on for the old ale, berliner weiss, and saison.

2 comments:

Seanywonton said...

I'd like to taste that oaked old ale whenever it's done.

I just threw my keg of oaked barleywine in the kegerator to condition and if it's ready, I'll bottle it some time in the next few weeks.

Tom E said...

The tiny little rubber nub on the bottom of my beer gun is all ratty, so I ordered a new one ($4, what a bargain!) I'm going to wait until I get that before I bottle the old ale. I'd rather not take a chance on a bottling disaster with this beer.