Rich Pawlak

I seem to remember that about you, Tom, sorry. But, yes, I think I can convert you! Here are two reviews from my blog, HERE and HERE. We should grab a beer somewhere soon.

Has anyone been able to find this beer lately? This might be an interesting project for us: TELL US WHERE YOU'VE FOUND SIERRA NEVADA TORPEDO! Quickly becoming the hardest beer to find in America.....

Glad you had a good meal at OH. My experience a year back was pretty awful. I've enjoyed the NYC original for years, but my experience last year was terribly, expensively disappointing. Maybe they have righted the ship at the Borgata location. Next time out, ask for an IPA or a pale ale with your steak. Hoppy beers are a great foil for a good properly charred steak. Troegs Nugget Nectar, Victory Hop Devil, Flying Fish Hopfish, Yards IPA and Sierra Nevada Torpedo are just a couple that would work well. So would Sierra Nevada Celebration, essentially a Xmas holiday beer, but if you stockpile it as I do, you have it available at home at least for when you grill your own steak. Best steak-beer pairing ever! Since you're in the neighborhood, feel free to stop over and I'll gladly share a few.

Sly Fox AND Yuengling beers will be sampled at this event. Yum. The new Yuengling Bock would be a great match for either the crawfish and jambalaya or the ribs dinners. Extra yum.

Love most of the Dogfish head stuff, but I have found some of the Southern Tier offerings inconsistent and not always enjoyable. Finn & Matt's Excellent Ale is good, Old Man Winter Ale is good, but I havent been wowed by some of their other stuff.

Major coup if you can get the Prez to post, O Politically-Connected One.

This new place just opened near my home, and is serving up some tasty dogs in the tradition of Russ Ayres in Bordentown, a classic old hot dog stand. Open just a few weeks, it's doing brisk business at lunch and through the afternoon. The twins love the dogs here,, so dad is more than glad to make this a regular lunch stop. Captain Paul is Paul Tweedly, an earnest hot dog fanatic, and he serves up his dogs with care and pride. He serves 4 variations of a Hatfield beef and pork boiled hot dog, and he claims that he does not let them sit too long in the water, so they do not get soggy and unappetizing. The Full Box is a dog topped with yellow mustard, chopped onion, relish and kraut. The Fire Alarm is a dog topped with cheese The Second Alarm is a cheese dog topped with good spicy chili sauce The Third Alarm is a chili dog with mustard and chopped onion. He also serves Gelato's home made Italian ices and ice cream (six different sundaes), smoothies, milk shakes, and root beer floats. He will soon add chocolate dipped frozen bananas, ice cream sandwiches and "cannnoli pops". Oh man. So far so good for Captain Paul's. Good fresh dogs, fresh rolls, lots of enthusiasm. He says he plans other variations as he watches the business flow. Captain Paul's Firehouse Dogs 2230 Princeton Pike Lawrenceville, NJ 609-323-7253

I had my first Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA a few months ago, when it first arrived on the East Coast, and it just blew me away, all that citrus in the nose, the rush of hops at first sip, and that silken finish. It has nearly replaced SN Celebration as my favorite beer ever. And it still may. What a spectacular beer. More details on my blog, The Omnivore Well, it's been weeks since I've seen it anywhere on the shelves here in central NJ, but today, on a whim, I stopped into a liquor store in very Polish-Russian-Slavic North Trenton, and I found some treasure: 2 sixers of Torpedo. Snatched them up quickly, ran to the register and wow, just $7.26 a sixer! Beauty! Now, the fun of picking with whom to share the treasure..... If you haven't tasted this wild beer, you have got to search for it.

If you havent seen this VIDEO yet, I'm pretty sure almost every beer blog and craft beer -related website will be featuring this, but for those of you who don't frequent most of them, or ANY of them, this well-made video features craft brewers from across the country talking about their craft, to kick off the 2009 Craft Brewers Conference in Boston last week. And if this video doesn't get you craving a good, local craft brew, well, then, replay the VIDEO. Thirsty yet?

Craig and Nancy Miller are at it again. It's crawfish boil time in Kimberton, specifically at their BYOB, The Station Bistro. I've culled the details from their press release. Anyone think this would make a killer gathering of eGulleteers? May is prime crawfish season, and Craig Miller is itching to do another real crawfish boil. Specifically on May 17th, 12-7PM. Miller and wife Nancy have been doing crawfish boils in their backyard for years, sharing their passion for Louisiana cooking with family and friends. "Nancy and I really got into crawfish when we worked in New Orleans," says Miller. We could easily down five pounds of crawfish each with some good beers at a local bar.” “We have the crawfish flown in fresh from Louisiana that day,” Nancy Miller points out, “and we use an authentic seasoning blend to flavor the boil. It’s the real deal.” Diners will have a choice of getting All-You-Can-Eat crawfish, savory jambalaya, cool, creamy coleslaw and a beverage for $28.95; OR a full helping of the Station Bistro’s famous, smoked-on-site baby-back ribs, french fries, coleslaw, and a beverage for $25.95. There will be some Sly Fox beers for tasting, but since the Station Bistro is a BYOB, Craig Miller suggests diners also bring a few good beers to pair with the mudbugs and/or ribs. I can speak for both the Cajun food and the ribs. Top notch stuff. The Station Bistro’s 2nd Annual Crawfish Boil starts at 12:00pm on Sunday May 17, 2009. Reservations can be made at (610)933-1147 or via the restaurant’s e-mail link at www.stationbistro.com If anyone interested in gathering a group to chow down, I am up for that. PM me. I'll take names. Station Bistro 1300 Hares Hill Rd Kimberton, PA

I second the Mercato rec. A good, solid casual Italian BYOB, with handmade pastas, olive oil tasting flights, and terrific personal cooking from R. Evan Turney. Their website is www.mercatobyob.com, if you want to check the menu.

Matt, it so far just makes stealth appearances in the Philly area. But trek up to Berwick, PA to the awesome One Guy brewing brewery and taproom, and you'll be able to grab a growler or two and bring it home. Or get friendly with Gary Bredbenner (gbredben here), who lives in South Philly and is a frequent traveller to One Guy and maybe he'll bring you back a few growlers. The Atomic Punk flat out rocks.

Having done my share of pub crawls in the past 15 years (all beer-focused, mind you), I think Yanii's crawl scheme is the most logistically do-able. Keep in mind that you are drinking cocktails, with much higher ABVs than beer, so some of the same rules I've applied to beer tours, should be emphatically employed here: 1. Drink water with every cocktail, at least in equal measure to the cocktail itself; cleanses the palate and re-hydrates. And don't hand me that crap about how well you can tolerate your booze, the amount of alcohol will quickly add up on a crawl. 2. Eat SOMETHING at every stop, too. Helps with absorption and equilibrium. Those dates wrapped in bacon at Chick's alone are worth this important step. 3. Pace yourself; it will help if you walk, but if not, spend at least 10-15 min between stops. Catch your breath. Hit the bathroom. Catch another breath. 4. Anything more than 7 stops and you'll be killing yourself. 7-14 cocktails in a day is a considerable amount of alcohol. Not only will the photos you take be in better focus, but the next morning you'll be sans hangover. Dont worry, it's a medical term.

I have two thoughts, having been one of the lucky attendees to the Egullet banquet: 1) Will we be able to dine out anymore with Jeff now that he's famous beyond his wildest dreams? 2) No matter your place in the journalistic universe, always accept an Egullet invitation! My take on the Han Dynasty2 banquet hosted by Jeff in February on my blog. Not as exhaustive as Jeff's take on his Philadining blog, but I hadn't yet stopped sweating.

Theyre called glass washers. Some hard-core serious beer bars have them, but not very many on th east Coast; I've seen them in Portland OR and Denver and San Diego, so far.

Anchor Brewing Co. Bock This brand new bottling from Anchor pours big and full with a tall khaki head; upon settling you get an immediate whiff of bourbon and wood. First sip is a little thin, but with a semi-sweet chcocolate note on the back of the tongue. Silken mouthfeel. Delicious. Enjoyed a couple of these during our weekly beer chat on Starchat. With a bag of Pennysticks Hard Amish pretzels!

Wildflowers

Oh ya gotta make the Smoke 'Em event, Katie, even for just a few sips and nibbles. I'll be there, one of the few events, along with the Pilsner festival at Triumph on 3/12 and Friday The Firkinteenth at the Grey Lodge the next day, that I'll be attending. On the 13th, there will actually be a free shuttle between Yards and the Grey Lodge, so that beer geeks can get to both events, relatively worry-free. No, I will not be driving it. I did attend the Upstate Pa Beers event at the GL on Sunday, which I've described both in the Beer Forum and on my blog. It was a terrific event.

There is little hope that I'll be able to make it to more than a few events during Philly Beer Week, but this was one I was not going to miss: Upstate PA Beers with Lew Bryson at the Grey Lodge in NE Philly. And as always, the food and beer did not disappoint; the food specials made for the night were spectacular: an earthy, herb-flecked, half-pound bison burger, rich and moist and cooked perfectly medium, and a sensational basket of Atomic Punk Sweet N Sour glazed wings, bursting with sweet tingles of citrus and bitter hops. These wings could easily convert even a die-hard hot wing fan, and I hope Grey Lodge owner Scoats makes them a part of his regular menu. They were that good, crispy, greaseless and expertly glazed. Which brings me to the beer I have been looking forward to for almost a year; One Guy Brewing's Atomic Punk IPA, hands down one of the best beers I've had in the last 5 years. Big, ballsy, with an herby, citrusy nose, an explosion of hops in the mouth upon first sip, and a clean, almost silky finish. Guy Hagner, owner/brewer at One Guy is already one hell of a brewer, and Atomic Punk is a magnificent beer, worth the drive to Berwick, PA just to drink it. But not everyone can get to Berwick. Those of us gathered around a big table upstairs at the Grey Lodge were in unanimous agreement: Atomic Punk would rock Philly. Are you reading this, Guy? The other beers served last evening were also quite good, but the AP blew them all away. Stegmaier's Oak Aged Spiced Winter Warmer from Wilkes-Barre, was a boozy dessert in a glass, like a bourbon bread pudding with chocolate and attitude; Bavarian Barbarian from Williamsport contributed their Square Feet Wheat Dunkelweizen to this event, and it was a sweet and sour, kind heavy version of the style, but it was a killer match for those wings; Bullfrog's Beesting, a honeyed saison style ale from Williamsport, was nice, though neither Gary nor I could detect much honey in the glass; Elk Creek's Belgian Strong was not to my liking, due more to inexperience with that syle than anything else, but it was a tad too alcoholic for me to enjoy; and Yuengling's brand new Bock was a delight, tasting to me like a roasty version of their fllagship Lager, which, to my palate, is a good thing. But here and now, let me start my campaign for Atomic Punk in Philly: (repeat after me) BRING ATOMIC PUNK TO PHILLY , GUY! WE WANT ATOMIC PUNK!!!

Bells are EXPENSIVE, people! I'm sure it's just more Inquirer cutbacks. Times are tough all over, you know.

Heard a very reliable rumor that, after his debacle in Wayne, PA, John Mims is heading to ever-rising Phoenixville, opening Johnny's New Orleans Pizza Kitchen on MArch 13 and then, less than a week later, on March 19th Daddy Mims BYOB at 150 Bridge Street. Go figger. Anyone have any more details?

The brand new Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA. Spectacular. Citrusy, slightly piney, floal, sweet evem with a monster billowy head, ripe grapefruit aromas and initial taste, a smooth, serene finish, Spectacular.

Working in your "laboratory" at 5AM? Holy Shamoley!

Let me add Kalamazoo, MI's Bell's Brewery to that list, if you're not able to get Bell's beers where you live; Bell's makes a lot of different stouts, all of which are spectacular. My favorite Bell's brew is their Two Hearted Ale.

I opened up a 2006 Sierra Nevada Celebration last night with dinner (a red curry chicken stew over rice), and it was quite interesting; hints of bourbon, more burnt sugar, apricot and spiced wafers, a nice evolution of the beer over 3 years.