Beer Travel: GrowlerQuest 2010! (Part 1)

Back from vacation and, as I am wont to do, managed to squeeze in a bit of beer hunting during the break. Since we were going to be spending plenty of time in Pennsylvania, I decided to focus on getting some fresh growlers from some PA breweries. Georgia law prohibits growler sales and I miss my days in Maine when I could just drive down the road and get a refill from my favorite local brewery. So growlers it was!

The first stop would be at Tröegs Brewery in Harrisburg, PA. I have had my big 2-liter German-style Troegs growler for more than 6 years now and filled it often when I would pass through town but haven't had a chance to use it since this trip nearly three years ago.

I arrived during the mid-afternoon so the place was pretty empty. The first thing I noticed was the expansion of the hospitality area as there were now tables to sit and enjoy samples but an expanded store as well. But more importantly, the taps were in the same spot...so I headed over to the taps to get my growler filled.  

I perused the list of beer on draft and noticed one I did not recognize. I asked what "Mouflan" was. "That's a barleywine," said the barkeep. "I'll take it," I replied. 

$15 filled my growler with Flying Mouflan, a relatively new offering from Tröegs, hopped with Chinook, Warrior, Nugget and Simcoe and weighing in at 9.3% ABV. How on earth I will be able to finish a growler of such a beast in the appropriate time is beyond me. Obviously, I will have to share.

There were lots of barrels stacked in the brewery, obviously an expansion of earlier experiments involving adding wild yeasts to standard brews and barrel aging them. 

Tasting notes to follow...

12 Beers of Christmas, Day 4: Troegs Mad Elf Ale

Brewery: Troegs Brewing Company, Harrisburg, PA
Style:Strong Belgian Ale (?)
ABV: 11%
Date Poured: December 2009

This is one of the craziest Christmas beers you'll ever come across. It's ruby red, brewed with cherries and Pennsylvania honey, uses a "spicy" Belgian yeast and hopped with the "noblest" of hops, hallertau and saaz. It's an odd concoction that somehow works. I haven't had this beer is years but when I came across it during a recent trip to Maryland, I picked up a bomber.

It's a crystal clear ruby red in the glass with a thinnish ivory colored head. Fruity aromas, honey and ripe cherry. Also smells boozy and oaky.

As you might expect, lots more cherry in the mouth. Very, very sweet. The honey is quite present. Just a touch of tartness fromt he cherries. Sweet spice in the finish, herbal hops in the aftertaste, detectable but faint. Big beer and sticky mouthfeel but the alcohol and the hops clean just enough away in the finish to keep it from being cloying.

It's truly original and, more importantly, really tasty. I wish that I could get it more often.


Troegs Brewing Company

Dead Reckoning Porter

Brewer: Troegs Brewing Company
ABV: 5.4%
Poured: September 2007

Filled my Troegs growler while passing through Harrisburg, PA on Labor Day weekend.

Pours a nearly opaque dark brown with mahogany highlights. Smells of roasty and sweet malt but clearly a lot of spicy hops aromas as well.

The hops bite right up front. Certainly the hoppiest regular porter I've ever tasted. The only other porter that would rival its hop profile would be Flying Dog's Imperial Porter and that's saying something. Anyway, after the hops it's creamy smooth and some sweeter flavors shine through. The finish glows with hops and the hops linger long after the beer has entered the gullet. There's an odd yeasty profile too, somewhat English in character but I can't really put my finger on it.

Definitely a unique porter but plenty tasty. I had no trouble finishing off the growler!

Beer Travel: Troeg's Brewery

OK, I'll write this up even though I lost all the damn pictures I took during my visit to the brewery! Argh!



Anyhow, this past weekend (September 1) I was passing through Harrisburg and went to tour the Troeg's brewery as well as to fill up my old Troeg's growler with some tasty beverage. I arrived about 15 minutes early for the tour but they were serving free samples so I decided to partake. The first beer I tried was a very spicy tripel they had brewed called Scratch Beer #3. It clocks in at 10% ABV and showed it a bit in the taste but a very nice tripel for sure. Also sampled some of their new fall seasonal, a porter named Dead Reckoning. Very hoppy for a porter! I ended up filling my growler with that beer so more on that at a later date.



Chris Troeg, one of the two brothers who are the brewery's namesake, gave the tour and it was fairly informative without getting too technical and going over the heads of the non-beer geek crowd. What was interesting to me is how small Troegs still is. You see their beers all over Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania so you get the impression that they would be a bigger operation. Their bottling line in downright tiny!



Anyway, it was a typical brewery tour. They are building some new, bigger fermenters and looking to expand a bit. The most unusual part of the tour is that when it was done, Chris let us basically have the run of the place so we could take a look around. It was then that I found (where the new fermenters were going to be located) several new oak barrels with names of beers scrawled in chalk. There was the name of a beer and then a date (ex: Naked Elf 071407) I did not know that Troegs barrel aged any of their beers so it was quite a surprise to find these.



On my way out, I was paying for my growler and Chris was nearby and I asked him if they were releasing any oak aged beers in the future. He said that no they weren't and that those barrels were holding beer that was being treated with wild yeasts as an experiment. You mean like brett is being added? Yes, he replied. Cool.