Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Iron Hill Brewery (West Chester, PA)

My wife (Jackie) and I went to Iron Hill Brewery in West Chester, PA this weekend for their Caribbean Beer Dinner. The dinner features two courses and with each course you get a 10 oz. beer... all for $19.95. The first course, an appetizer, was Coconut Shrimp with a chipotle-orange marmalade and pineapple salsa. You got 3 shrimp sizeable shrimp that tasted very good and had nice presentation. The first beer was their Anvil Ale... which has a nice crisp hoppy flavor. ANVIL ALE O.G. – 1.048 Color – 9.5 L IBU – 30 Alcohol % (abv) – 5.0 The first course was followed by a good sized piece of Jamaican Jerk Salmon which sat on top of some green tomato slaw. Around the outside of the plate sat about 3 curried rice cakes... which are about the size of a golf ball and are basically deep fried curried rice. The fish had a great spicy jerk flavor and was accompanied by an Ironbound Ale. The Ironbound ale also is a hoppy beer, consisting of 4 different varieties of american hops. This beer was great for cooling your mouth off when the spicy fish got to be too much. IRONBOUND ALE O.G. - 1.050 Color - 12.5 L IBU - 30 Alcohol % (abv) - 5.1 All in all, the dinner was very nice and well worth the small price tag. In addition to the meal, I tried their seasonal beers, Red Ale and Saison. I did not like the Red Ale and actually drank only half of it before I asked for another beer... the bartender asked why I didnt like it and was nice enough to give me another beer on the house. The Red Ale had a sour flavor that turned me off. The Saison was dry, tart, and reminded me of a tripel... which Jackie and I both liked. If you've never been to an Iron Hill Brewery, I highly recommend it... their handcrafted beers are great, the food is top notch, and the atmosphere and staff make it my favorite restaraunt and bar in West Chester.

2 comments:

Bryan Kolesar said...

They've never tried bottling their beer, have they?

Anonymous said...

While the beer here is not bad, the food here is awful and menu choices are limited. So many better restaurants in town to choose.