Great Beer Weekends in the Mid-Atlantic #2: Ever Grain Camp Pils; Mechanichsburg/Camp Hill/Harrisburg, Pa.
The Reason to Visit: A very friendly and very professional brewery.
Date: January 17, 2018
The Story— In researching good beer and good beds in the Mid Atlantic, Ever Grain continues to break our hearts. It’s one of the most fun we’ve had in a brewery in ages and the beers are uniformly good, but there just isn’t a place we’d put you in that doesn’t require a car. So it will make the book as an add-on, probably in our Harrisburg chapter, though you could get there from Enola about as easily.
Ever Grain struck us as a sort of small scale Tröegs. It’s not as glitzy and well financed and doesn’t offer the same tour experience or the uncanny range of beers. But it does have the same mix of very good beers in an open tasting space that allows you to look at the brewery as you drink. Most remarkably, in our experience it combines a local-centric, regulars who know each other and welcome you to the fold, with a highly sophisticated and professional brewing operation.
We recommend you make this the first stop on your visit and then dump your car in Enola or harrisburg to continue your beer exploration. The problem is that there are several other breweries in the area that are worthy of your time. It’s hard to tell when you leave Mechanichsburg and enter Camp Hill and we’re not sure the breweries there have quite figured it out either. They range from the literally Mom and Pop (mostly Mom, actually) Harty’s, to a branch of Appalachian, to the somewhat mysterious Highway Manor to Ever Grain’s sophistication and the newcomer sour-focused Mellow Mink a short walk from Ever Grain. We wonder if you could park a camper in the many mall lots along this stretch.
Our favorites were rich and strong, including a well above average Russian Imperial Stout, but we’ve chosen the pilsner because it’s one of the most difficult beers to brew well. We always thought it almost comical that some of the best of the European brewmasters we met were in awe of Anheuser Busch and Miller, but if you’re worried about off-flavors– and you have to be when you’re brewing a pilsner– those guys never ever have off flavors.
The Beer— Starts with a crisp malt then runs to a tangy finish with some juicy fruit in the mix. IBUs are half that of a German pils but the noble hops provide flowery and fruity flavors. More authentic as it drinks as the hops settle in. Nearly flawless quality, which with low IBUs and a light malt is so very hard to produce. Hats off to them.
Value — good to very good. Standard brew pub prices don’t quite reach bargain, but are nonetheless a good value for this quality of brewing.
Values: “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.
For fifteen days, we’re presenting some fun towns to explore and have a beer. There’s all within a few hours drive if you live in the Mid Atlantic. Most are near enough a place to stay that you can walk back to your room. We’ve found these in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night. Look for it later this year.
Did you miss our Ten Beers for the New Year? These are full flavored chewy beers for a winter’s night and a good fire — even if it has to be on your cable station. The links are below.
Jailbreak Coffee Dusk Till Dawn, Tröegs Mad Elf Grand Cru, Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, Boulevard Manhattan Cask Still Ale, Ommegang Game of Thrones Series: Mother of Dragons, Lickinghole Creek Carrot Cake Imperial Amber Ale, Colbitzer Heide-Brauerei Schwarz, Lickinghole Creek One Lion Imperial Stout, Founders Dank Wood, Stone Woot Stout.
We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests. Not all our notes, though. The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same. (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”) All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter. Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers, and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys. At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”
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