Tuesday night I talked about drinking beer and saving the world with a group of beer appreciators in Havertown, PA, just outside Philly. They are students taking a class organized by Peter Cherpack at Beer Appreciation LLC.
We tasted the Wolaver’s Organic Brown Ale, Brooklyn Local 1, Brooklyn Chocolate Stout, and Dogfish Head Midas Touch. Whew! Only four beers, but those last three are strong! Afterwards we had a pint at the Oakmont National Pub up the street. Then it was to a new place in Wayne, PA called Teresa’s Next Door for dinner and an extensive and expensive beer menu including two hand pumps of real ale. The place has style, though the service was a little spotty.
If you live anywhere near Havertown, check out Peter’s course in beer appreciation. He offers it every year. The night I was there they were also bottling some homebrew that the class had brewed together a few weeks earlier. I hear they get to go on an “exclusive” brewery tour somewhere too.
I live in Philly and would love to take the class – when is it?
I’m drinking a Wolaver’s right now – can you suggest some organic stouts?
Also, do you know anything about the types of preservatives and chemicals that are in many conventional beers? There doesn’t seem to be much info about it on the internet, but I’m interested to know more about it.
Thanks.
Hi Mike, the class was a few days before I published the post above on October 18th. Click on through from the link above to the Beer Appreciation class website for more details about the class.
Wolaver’s has a great organic oatmeal stout. Can’t think of any others that are organic off the top of my head, but scroll over the links on the right hand column of this site where it says: “Organic beer” to find some others that you might find worthy. You could always try brewing your own too! See the link below for organic brewing supplies from Seven Bridges.
In Fermenting Revolution I wrote a lengthy chapter about the pesticides used on barley and hops. If you don’t want to buy the book, I think much of that chapter was reprinted on the Seven Bridges website at http://www.breworganic.com.
Cheers,
Chris