Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Tired Hands, Construction Update #4


As is the way with many new breweries today, Tired Hands has worked the social (and free) media quite well to its advantage.

Owner Jean Broillet has kept up via a website/blog and Facebook with details and pictures of his progress from various assistant brewer/cellarman/server positions to owner of a barn-kept brewery to proud proprietor of a suburban brew cafe, due to open (pending final inspections, of course) sometime around the middle of May.

Jean posted two days ago just how very close he is to opening the doors of his dream to share with all.

I'll be away during that time and Broillet mentioned that he won't be able to hold back the opening until I return, so I stopped in this past weekend for a last look. Though, with the Cricket Lane festival on 4/28, I may yet get one more last look with even more final-looking pictures to share with you.

To keep this brief — I know how many of you snicker in my attempts to do so — I'll leave you with my impression that this will be one of the Philadelphia area's most comfortable meeting places for socializing amongst friends, noshing on small plates of honest food, and downing some high-quality beers - particularly Saisons.

Jean and his core team (Collin Farrell- (mostly) of Iron Hill and Manayunk fame, Jeff McCracken- recently departed Manayunk Brewery after a few years of solid service helping turn around their reputation, and Colin "The Magick Man") have all been working tirelessly at creating a very warm, comfortable, and inviting space.

This should be no where more evident than in the second floor space, with plenty of exposed brick and ceiling, handcrafted tap handles, and repurposed barn beams and staircases in a bar area that might have turned out to be double the original anticipated size. Once finished, I think many of you will agree that this is the perfect hideaway from the troubles of the outside world.

They've also been brewing up a storm in the rear of the long cafe space with the "typical" Chico-based fermentations taking place on the first/main floor and the "funky Saison"-based fermentations being secluded in the basement where all kinds of wonderful things can happen. They've just brewed the 10th batch of beer, Tabel ("a riff on a wit bier and brewed with lemon verbena and green peppercorns") and also have a batch of FarmHands Saison bubbling away in the brewhouse.

Tactile will be served at the Ardmore festival on the 28th, so you'll have one more chance to try this beer before you'll have the pleasure of sitting at his cafe on Ardmore Avenue. Jean describes the Tactile as an "exceedingly aromatic rye-based pale ale". I had a chance to try it at the 2nd anniversary party of Station Taproom in Downingtown, Pa. just this past weekend and I think that many will find this to be quite a pleasant and refreshing 5%-ish beer. And, if you define your session (yes, you're allowed to do that all by yourself — I'm an Oxford Comma guy too, whatchya gonna do?!) in the 5% range as I do, then you'll be likely to see many of these disappearing over the course of a night spent at the future Tired Hands.

Enough for now. Check out the pictures. Follow Tired Hands as they come down the home stretch and welcome them to Ardmore.

Oh, yes and that one more thing (Columbo reference?). If you want to get in on the ground floor and say that you were a part of getting Tired Hands up and running, Jean mentioned that Believer's Club memberships are still available to those that wouldn't mind being a part of the club, receive its benefits, and drink beer at a prepaid discount. Check out the link with all the details.

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