Pizza Boy The Huma League, @ Al’s of Hampden, Enola, Pa.
Date: November 15, 2018
The Story— It’s remarkable that a bar like Al’s of Hampden in Enola, Pa. which features dozens of their own Pizza Boy beers has the hutzpah to carry even more beers from other breweries – and good breweries at that. The house beers are a couple of bucks cheaper, but in truth, the house beers have to be pretty darned good to keep from languishing in a seas of alternatives from all over the country.
And they are, if fact, pretty darned good and in many cases better than that. Brewer Terry Hawbaker put Bullfrog Brewery in Williamsport on the map, spent a brief sojourn in the Washington DC area and landed in a small innovative basement brewery in Enola. He was a key reason that the unlikely named Pizza Boy beers acquired a regional reputation for quality and interest, bringing beer pilgrims to Enola from nearby Harrisburg and much more distant Mid Atlantic cities. Success breeds success. A new, much bigger facility not far away from the original churns out dependable styles like IPAs, stouts and even pilsners, but mix in plenty of off-the-path fruit and barrel beers for less conventional tastes.
Pizzas are quite good and quite big. Salads are simple, but can cut the need for a carb-bomb of a large pizza or a collection of their nothing-short-of-enormous slices.
Several of the beers on tap on our last visit featured Pennsylvania hops. They are either grown locally or “seeds” (we suspect rhizomes) are sent out to grown in more hop-friendly places. It’s pretty evident they’re not coming out of a frozen bag in Oregon. They’re spicier, leafier and more complex than most of the 21st century hops coming from the west coast and New Zealand. The new hops often have complexity of fruit flavors, but spice, leaf, and earthy flavors that characterized many of the classic hops have been left in the dust. Eastern hops – not always intentionally—have more of these flavors and often add dimensions that make them truly distinctive.
The Beer— The Huma League was the best of a wonderful bunch of “Pennsylvania IPAs”. It had a full malt with those distinctive and tasty Pennsylvania hops. Earthy, even some musty closet, pine and pineapple with leaf and finally a hint of black pepper make this a beer to return to time and again if only to figure out what the heck is going on. Ellie loved the balance in this big rewarding beer.
Value —Good to very good. Five bucks gets you between a quarter and a third of a liter. Rip off by German standards, but a pretty good price for well above average American craft beer.