The Farm Season Is Over. Almost.

Leeks. Broccoli. Beets. Carrots. Daikon radishes. Kohlrabi. Arugula. And that was it. The last pickup for the season at Honey Brook Organic Farm in Pennington, NJ, always a sad day for me.

Despite the soggy, rainy summer, it was a good season at the Farm, the largest CSA in the country, short on strawberries and spinach to start the season, but strong on lettuces, tomatoes, peppers, garlic, basils, parsley, eggplant, sweet potatoes and arugula. There was little to no pick-your-own tomatoes this summer, but the quality of what was harvested was exceptional. And the lettuce was better than ever, still the best I've ever tasted. The flowers bloomed seemingly endlessly. And the herbs were off the hook.

But now it's all done, and the harsh reality of supermarket lettuce and tomatoes, flavorless carrots and broccoli and scarce sightings of arugula will make for cold, cruel winter.

But not just yet.

At the end of the season, Honey Brook schedules what they call the "Pig Out", a final gleaning of the fields by anyone ambitious enough to canvass the farm for what remains to be harvested. That means one last dig for cauliflower, broccoli, beets, collards, lettuce and maybe more. It starts tomorrow and runs through Saturday. And I'll be there one last time, bright and early at noon tomorrow. It's gonna be fun playing farmer for a day.

Mickey Gets His Firkinteenth On

It's always something that makes a Friday The Firkinteenth at the Grey Lodge Pub in Philly something special. Usually it's the beers. Sometimes it's the people who show up, friends I haven't seen in a particularly long time. Stuff like that. This time around, I was thinking about our friend Gary Bredbenner, a fixture at almost every previous FTF. He and I had a habit of slipping out of the festivities for some fresh air and a bite to eat, always good times, checking out nearby cheesesteak joints or heading to Tony's a block away for some tomato pie . Yesterday I caught myself thinking, "Lemme check when Gary's getting there..." and, well, I caught myself. A terrible twinge of sadness.

Yesterday I also woke up with laryngitis.

I had been on a seemingly endless series of meetings and interviews last week, and I think I just plain talked myself out. I did the salt water thing, the hot tea thing, but to no avail. Getting the kids ready for school yesterday, they were chuckling at the breakfast table, because "Daddy, you sound like Mickey." Terrific. Glad I could entertain them.

So when I headed down to the Grey Lodge in mid-afternoon for Friday The Firkinteenth, I was actually wondering how I'd order a beer amid all the noise and laughter that an FTF brings. Hand signals? Pointing? Flash cards?

It was packed at 3:30 and boisterously loud when I made my way to a gathering of friends I spotted in a convenient curve of the bar. Good friends Eric and Cary were the first to greet me and they couldn't understand a word I whispered. Beer bloggers Dan Berger and Kevin Romer (the Big Beer Guy) approached next, and weren't anymore successful. Finally good beer buddy Jim Noone grabs me by the arm and says, "whatcha havin?" and out of my mouth came a full Mickey Mouse: "Victory Yakima Twilight," I moused. and the gang all laughed. "WTF?" said Eric. "Laryngitis," said I. More laughter. "You're gonna go nuts not being able to talk!" he responded. Shaddup already. So Mickey and his friends enjoyed a bunch of very good beers this time around at FTF:

The Victory Yakima was teeth-rattling hoppy, but with a nice malt balance and a crisp finish, reminding me of one of my favorite beers on earth, Deschutes Twilight;
Next up, Sly Fox Rte 113 IPA, another hopmonster, with a really bitey tart end. Nice, but the Victory blew it away in comparison;
Arcadia London Porter was next, recommended by Cary, and it was a lovely porter, deep, round, roasty, chocolatey;
Kevin the Big Beer Guy raved about the Nodding Head Anomaly, but it was gone by my arrival, so I went with his other strong rec, the Manayunk Old Ebenezer Barleywine, a magnificent beer, deep and caramel and nutty and very rich. I wish I had a cigar to enjoy with that one;
Weyerbacher Double Simcoe was my next buy, a big citrusy double IPA, all Simcoe hops, and it has a spicy finish that I kinda liked; it would be a great beer with hot wings or some spicy Asian food, like a Thai green curry;
I took a break from all the hoppiness and tried a Sixpoint Vienna Lager, and it was light and refreshing and pleasantly nutty after all those ballsy bitter beers;
But my favorite beer of the day was the Dogfish Head 75 min. IPA, a blend of their 60 min. and 90 min. IPAs. It had perfect balance, sweet and tart, grassy and citrusy, spice and honey. A brilliant beer. Blew away everything I had previously;
My final beer of the day was a Yards ESA, dry-hopped with East Kent Goldings, in the true British fashion of cask ale, and it was a terrific farewell beer, big, round and full, the best beer with which I could toast the portrait of our friend Gary that hangs on the 2nd floor of the Grey Lodge, and toast all my friends as I bid them goodnight, in my best Mickey voice: "See ya real sooooon!"

And lest you think I was leaving the Grey Lodge in a state of absolute blotto, I drank only small 7-ounce cups of the beers I tried, seperated for the most part with equal cups of ice water, over the course of my almost 3 hours at FTF. Clean palate, barely a buzz, no hangover in the morning.
When I left, there were only 7 firkins left to be tapped. The crowd had emptied 18 firkins in just 6 hours. I learned later from Dan Berger that all the firking were kicked by 7:30PM.

Amazing. There won't be another Friday The Firkinteenth until August of 2010. I can't wait.

AMERICA'S BEST BEER FESTIVAL

I'm willing to stick my neck out now and then with regard to various areas of contention and opinion (remember the World Series prediction of "Phillies in 6, maybe even 5"? Well, shaddup already, especially you obnoxious, finger-pointing Yankees fans), and in beer aficionado circles, the "best" beer festival is always fodder for serious suds talk. I rank the Oregon Brewers Festival in Portland and the Great American Beer Festival in Denver among the finest examples of beer festing in America and I'm still waiting to go to my first Toronado Barleywine Festival in San Francisco someday. But for 12 years I've been attending the best beer festival in America, and only in the past few years did I come to realize it.



I'm talking, of course, about Friday the Firkinteenth at the Grey Lodge Pub in Philly, the only beer celebration dictated by the calendar: it occurs only on Friday the 13th. 2009 has been a very good year for FTF; this Friday's FTF will be the THIRD one this year!



They start tapping the firkins at NOON this Friday. Here are the details, excerpted from the Grey Lodge's website:




Kitchen will open at 11am serving our full menu.
Number of firkins is still TBA. We expect 20+.
With 20+ firkins, we should have cask ale going until at least 9pm. Time permitting Scoats will be updating the news page and tweeting throughout the day with cask status.
7 firkins will be pouring at any time (except when we get down to less than 7), tapping a new one as one kicks. The order of the casks will be random, but hey there should be no stinkers in the line-up.


Current Cask List (likely to change, it always does): more to come!


Arcadia London Porter, a robust London style porter 7.2% ABV
Clipper City Heavy Seas Loose Cannon, a triple hopped IPA 7.25% ABV.
Coronado Islander IPA, West coast IPA . 7% ABV
Cricket Hill Col. Blide's Bitter, 5.5% ABV
Dock Street Rye IPA, an aggressively hopped American Pale Ale 6.8% ABV
Dogfish Head 75 Minute IPA, a blend of its 60 and 90 Minute IPAs 7.5% ABV
Duck Rabbit double-dry-hopped Brown, 5.6% ABV.
Earth Tappist Pale Ale, ? ABV.
Flying Fish Grand Cru, strong golden ale. 6.8% ABV.
Iron Hill Totally Inappropriate. An Octoberfest primed with fermenting Quadruppel and dry hopped with American hops. 6% abv.
Iron Hill Hopzilla IPA. Classic rendition of an English IPA. 5.8% ABV
Lancaster Celtic Rose, traditional Irish Amber Ale. 5% ABV.
Manayunk Old Ebenezer Barley Wine, traditional English barley wine 9% ABV.
Nodding Head Anomaly, an unusual beer without any unusual ingredients… 5.25% ABV.
Philadelphia Brewing Co. Joe, brewed with locally-roasted, fair trade coffee, 5% ABV.
Sixpoint Otis, an accentuation of stout beer. 6% ABV.
Sixpoint Vienna Pale.
Sly Fox Chester County Bitter, dry -hopped, quaffable session ale. 4.5% ABV.
Sly Fox Rte 113 IPA, big, strong IPA for all the hopheads. 6.6% ABV.
Stoudts Winter Ale, a new version from Stoudts. 6.2% ABV.
Troegs Hopback Amber 5.6% ABV.
Victory Yakima Twilight, 8.7% ABV.
Weyerbacher Double Simcoe, a double IPA using exclusively Simcoe hops! 9% ABV.
Yards ESA dry hopped with East Kent Goldings True British cask conditioned flavor 6.3% ABV.



I expect to get there at the midway point. Hope to see you there!

Back to Philly for a Three Game Sweep?

Whew.

Now that we've gotten that Yankee win out of our system, and let those Bronx Bombers win one in front of the home crowd, the aging owner and all those glitterati, it's time for fun at the Bank where Utley, Werth and Howard rule. I've so far predicted the Phillies in 7, revised it to Phillies in 6, but now I'm seriously thinkin' Phillies in 5......

High hopes!

Our Annual "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!"

I am so glad to be back blogging.

And at such an opportune time, too. It's time for an annual event in our weekly beer chat, The No Bull Inn, on starchat.net (every Friday night at approximately 11PM EST). This Friday on Halloween Eve (Mischief Night no less!), we'll be gathering up pumpkin beers and sampling them all night, from east coast to west. Pumpkin beers are a great diversion this time of year, and if you follow the advice of yours truly (ahem) and make a plate of cheesy, salsa-laden nachos to accompany them, you will experience one of the great beer-food pairings of all time. I promise.

So this week, head to your local beer store, or wherever you shop for GOOD beer, and grab up a few pumpkin ales: Buffalo Bill's, Brooklyn, Otter Creek, Weyerbacher, Dogfish Head, Saranac and Harpoon are just a few labels you might find. But grab a few (or more, for side-by-side comparison), and join us THIS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, for some great pumpkins!

Simply sign on to www.starchat.net after 11PM on Friday night. Register a nickname for chat room use and then seach the "channels" for the "No Bull Inn", our virtual taproom. And prepare to a have a good time with beer and jokes and good chat. See you there!

A World Series Worth the Hype!

Finally.

The teams are set and what may be the best World Series in 30 years starts on Wednesday, with the Phillies and the Yankees carnking up their bats and best pitchers for duels in two homer-friendly bandbox stadiums (or is it stadia? yeah, I know, who cares...). The early likely pitching matchups are definitely worth the hype: Cliff Lee vs. C.C. Sabathia in Game One, and the likely appearance of Pedro Martinez (in Yankee Stadium, no less! Who's Yer Daddy?) vs. A.J. Burnett in Game Two might even overshadow the feast of sluggers facing each other every night of the Series. And by the way, do you think we could get a couple of DAY GAMES????

Yeah, I know, wishful thinking.

Phils is 7, maybe even 6!

Nothing is Sacred Anymore

Today's New York Times reports that Conde Nast, the parent company of scores of magazines, is shutting down the venerable, 68-year old Gourmet magazine. A truly sad day for foodies and Gourmet fans everywhere.