Saying Yes to Unions

Another business trip, and this time it was to Amish country.  It’s quite a hike, and I had volunteered to make the trip myself.  Good thing I plotted the route, and found some cool places to stop on the way there and back.

My first stop was Stoudts brewing, a nice pub in Adamstown.  Stoudts serves a wide variety of beer, and has a great menu.  I had their peach American pale ale to wet my whistle, and then chose to keep on moving rather than staying for dinner.  Jenn and I had visited before, and I was in search of somewhere new.  So I went on to Mount Joy to check out Bubes (I never found out if it was pronounced boobs or boobies, but does it really matter?) a gourmet restaurant with a pub area that served high quality pub food.  I chose the fish tacos (spicy!) with a sampler.  My favorite beer was their Deep C Wheat.  I got a call from my coworkers from Pittsburgh who were also attending the meeting, and we agreed to meet at Iron Hill brewpub.  I’ve been to several other locations, but never in Lancaster.  I snacked on their Manhattan fish chowder (with a shot of Tabasco) to go along with the brews.  I first tried their Raisin Hell on cask, a Belgian ale brewed with raisons.  Next was their Maholo, Apollo – a double wit that had quite a kick.  It was a good evening, relaxing after our journeys, and preparing for the next day.

We had our meeting, and I got on the road a little north to the Union Barrel Works brewery in Reamstown.  The place looked deserted (and a bit scary), but inside it was very inviting and had quite a crowd.  I was interested in a snack to go with my sampler, so I had their Texas caviar – a mixture of corn, salsa, black beans and avocado (absolutely awesome, but I needed to keep the windows down for the ride home).  I liked their Kolsch and their Blueberry wheat, both fine examples of summer beers.  And now that I was fed, I headed off to another of Draft magazine’s top 100 beer bars, the Union Jack Inn on the Manatawny.  I pulled in (it’s at a gorgeous location) and was a bit concerned that I was their only customer.  I was told I was two hours early, but when they found out that I didn’t need anything from the kitchen they invited me to sit down at the bar.  I tried the Abbey of Christ in the Desert Monk’s Ale, made by Benedictine monks from NM.  It was delicious.  I also tried a Port Lost Abbey Devotion on draft, a fine example of a Belgian Pale Ale.  I was able to get some bottles to go, including an Alesmith Speedway Stout.  I was excited about that since it was the only beer on Zymurgy magazine’s top 50 American beers that I hadn’t tried before.  Finally, I stopped by Shaggy’s in Emmaus to see if it was worth the hype.  This beer store offered a great selection of cases, but wouldn’t let me in the rumored back room where vintage beers could be purchased individually.  That’s okay, it probably best for my bank account.

 

Travelling is tough, but with an audio book, a plan, and some well placed stops it is not so bad. – 5795/11120

"We’re wanted men; we’ll strike again, but first let’s have a beer." – Jimmy Buffett