Beer Radar

In honor of the release of Weyerbacher Fireside, this week’s column takes a look at smoked beer. Make your way to Devil’s Den (1148 S. 11th St., South Philadelphia) for the debut.

Speaking of Weyerbacher, one of the things that has always puzzled me about the Easton brewery is its Winter Ale. Here’s a brewery that is known for BIG BEERS (Quad, Merry Monk’s, Heresy…) and yet it opts for a mild-mannered winter warmer as  its annual Christmas beer.

Don’t get me wrong - I enjoy Winter Ale. But in honor of the holidays, I’d kind of like to see something more adventuresome from a brewery known for pushing the envelope.

Then, I stumbled across Weyerbacher Delta yesterday among the taps at Ron’s Original Bar & Grille out in Exton. It’s described as “a pitch black stout made with ginger, cinnamon and a touch of molasses [with] flavors of dark chocolate, roasted coffee beans and ginger snap cookies.” It’s quite roasty and - if you let it warm in your glass - just full of all kinds of complex flavor. A perfect beer for a cold afternoon.

I noticed from Weyerbacher’s calendar of seasonal releases that it plans a new beer for December ‘09. Guys: Delta should be your Christmas beer!

This entry was posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 12:17 pm and is filed under Beer etc., Weekly column. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.