Great Beer Weekends in the Mid-Atlantic #3:
The Reason to Visit: A fun tasting evening: a huge range of styles all brewed well and a short walk to a hotel.
Date: January 18, 2018
The Story— North East York doesn’t have the historic appeal that the downtown area has. But it’s a perfect overnight on a trip along I83 with tons of food options and two breweries within two miles of the interstate intersection.
Stony Run gave us the kind of beer evening we love: moderate shareable pours of a huge range of beers that we can taste at leisure, haggle over and spent the kind of evening that has almost– but not quite– defined our marriage.
Stony Run’s parentage is the home brew shop next door, but the beers are nothing but professional. We tasted a dozen of the beers and were impressed. There wasn’t a serious mistake in any of them and they held pretty close to style. Lead brewer Tim March is fairly conservative with his approach to brewing, although his daughter has pushed him to be more adventurous. A milkshake IPA was his attempt to move outside his comfort zone, but even that was soft and creamy and easy to drink. You’re probably not going to leave thinking two or three of his beers were the best you’ve ever tasted, but that’s OK with him as long as you want to order another while you’re there and enjoy yourself enough to come back. We’d be happy to order another of anything he brews.
We’ve chosen the blonde not because it was our favorite of the evening — the big strong dark beers were simply yummy– but because it’s a hard beer to do well and shows the skill of the brewer and the brewery.
The Beer— This beer has much of the flavor of a Belgian strong gold ale (think Duvel), but at a fraction of the alcohol. Some metal, apple fruit and a bit of the tropics rest on the palate before more metal and a bit more citrus and some orange fill it out as it drinks. This is a pleasant, almost session, Belgian gold. Moreish.
Value — Good. Five bucks for a quarter liter is pretty much the going rate at a brew pub.
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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