If you noticed the lack of posts last week (and hopefully you did), it was because I was on vacation.  Every year during the same week, we go up to Shawnee on Delaware in the Pocono Mountains for a week.  It’s usually a good sized group, it’s my parents, me and my family and my sister and her family.  I have been going up there since I was a little kid and now I get to enjoy introducing the mountains to my two boys.

Little did I know that this was going to end up being an excellent week for my Year of Beer.  My brother in-law and I always drink our fair share of beer while we are up there but that is usually where it ends.  Much to my great delight, this turned into quite the beercation.

We left on Saturday and stopped at a Wegmans outside of Allentown on the way up.  Wegmans has a great little cafe so we did a little grocery shopping and then had lunch.  After lunch, I went straight to the beer section, which was the real reason why we stopped.  I have mentioned this before but Pennsylvania has some wacky beer laws.  Beer is only available on tap, in full cases at beer distributors or as 6 packs in restaurants and bars.  As I mentioned, Wegmans has a great cafe so they are able to sell beer.  They sell it in 6 packs, 12 packs and in larger 750 ml bottles.  You are only allowed to buy a certain amount at a time but they don’t care how many times you go back into the store to get more, just can’t bring more than a certain amount (12 pack) to the register each time.  I told you we have some wacky laws here in PA.

I have discovered a lot of great beer so far in this Year of Beer and had set out to introduce my family to some of it while we were on vacation.  I had about a half a case of Irish Stout home brew left so I knew I wanted to take that up and let everyone taste it but it wasn’t going to be enough with all the beer drinkers in my family.  At Wegmans, I bought:

• Troegs Variety 12 Pack
• 6 pack of Thirsty Dog Old Leg Humper Robust Stout
• 4 pack of Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout
• 750 ml Chimay Grand Reserve
• 750 ml Rouge Brutal Bitter
• and 750 ml Ommegang Abbey Ale

I thought it would be fun to introduce everyone to a new beer or brewery each week and tell them what I knew about them.  My brother-in-law also brought up some beer, he got a case of Negro Modelo.

Saturday was pretty mellow as we all got there in the afternoon and had to deal with unpacking and getting situated.  We had some beer and enjoyed the night.  On Sunday, my Uncle came up for the day and we went golfing like we normally do.  After golfing, we went to the local bar that we always go to.  The bar has undergone a lot of changes over the last 10 years, for the last couple of years it was called Sam Sneads but this year, it was under new ownership and had been renamed The Gem and Keystone.

When we went inside, they had a whole line of beer featured by a brand new microbrewery that I was very happy to discover was located just minutes away on the same property.   The brewery is called ShawneeCraft Beer and they have had beer on tap for 4 months.  The bartender remembered us from last year and gave us some free samples, the beer was delicious!  I was really impressed, for a brand new brew pub, they had a great selection of really great beers.

ShawneeCraft Growler and Pint of ESB

To the left is a growler we bought later in the week of the ESB Pale Ale.  Even though we had a lot of great beer back at the cabin that we had been enjoying all week, we just had to have more of the ESB.  But, that was later in the week, I am getting ahead of myself.  Before we left I got the number of the brewmaster so I could call him and ask him if he gave tours.  I called on Monday to find out that it was a one man operation and he was really open to having us stop later in the week for a private tour of his new brewery.  He seemed pretty excited to show it off.

We went up the next day after lunch for a tour.  The brewmasters name is Leo Bongiorno and this is not his first brewery.  He has been in the industry for 18 years and the enthusiasm for his craft was very evident.  The man is a machine and is working a crazy amount of hours to get his new brewery off the ground.  I hope to be doing an interview with Leo in the near future so I can do a proper write up on his brewery but in short, you can color me impressed.  He told us about his plans for the future and I really look forward to seeing his brewery grow.

It’s not every day that you discover a brand new brewery and the brewery ends up turning out fantastic beer.  It was a pretty exciting addition to my Year of Beer.

As the week went on, my wife and I decided to check out another brewery that we knew was in the area called Barley Creek.  They have been around for 2 decades and we were excited to get some time away from everyone.  We went up on Thursday, had lunch, drank some beer and went on a tour of there brewery.  The beer was good but not great.  Some of the beers I tried had this really strange flavor that I had never experienced before.  I am assuming the taste came from the types of malt used but I am not sure.  I tried their Angler Black Ale, Antler Brown Ale, Navigator Golden Ale and the Rescue India Pale Ale.  I enjoyed the Antler Brown Ale the most but still wouldn’t rank it among my favorites.

Barley Creek Brew Kettle

I don’t want to talk badly of the place, I would certainly try more of there beer in the future, I just wouldn’t hunt it down at this point.  The place itself was really cool, the food was good and they gave a nice tour.  They had a pretty neat brew kettle that had brick on the outside with the metal tank on the inside.   The area outside of the brewpub was very scenic and we had a nice ride back.

We finished up our week up in the mountains and left for home on Saturday morning.  One thing that is really lacking where I live is a decent home brew shop so we decided to stop at one outside of Bethlehem (which is about an hour away from my home) on the way home.  The store was called Keystone Homebrew Supply.  I didn’t know what to expect but was hoping it might be a place I could frequent.  It was very easy to find but was smaller than I had expected, very cramped.  However, the is the only bad thing I can say about the place, they had a really great selection and they were very friendly and helpful.  That goes a long way with me.  What’s more, they have a homebrew club that sounds like an absolute blast.  The guy I talked with at the store gave me the information for the next meeting and I am intending to go and check it out.

All in all, I would say I had a pretty damn good vacation.  Lot of fun, lot of good beer and some really great discoveries that I hope to blog more about in the near future.