Brace Yourselves

After nearly a year and a half of posting about the news of and my own anticipation of North Country Brewing Company, our of Slippery Rock, it finally looks as if the time has come. News has spread on Twitter within the Western Pa. beer community about the cans actually being filled and the actual palettes being trucked around wholesalers via forklifts.

.@ncbrewingco kegs are in the market now. Cans hit the market next week.
— Craft Pittsburgh Mag (@CraftPittsburgh) December 7, 2013

Look what we picked up from @ncbrewingco today! Available now IN CANS from @beersince1933. Be among the 1st! pic.twitter.com/cCodZj5F8B
— Michelle Reid (@Pourthing) December 12, 2013

May the excitement ensue. The Craft Pittsburgh tweet is from five days ago. So, that should mean that North Country cans should be in some distributors by this weekend or early next week at the latest, correct? Only time will tell, but I'm sure that's the likely case. This state seems to be having a craft can explosion of sorts. I've also seen and heard rumors of the Troegs Brewing Company cans hitting markets as well.

Do Yourself a Favor

Throughout all of my craft beer adventures in the Commonwealth two places have stuck out and have proved to make me giddy for each of their respective brews. Oh, and I should mention the food as well! Both of these establishments were fun and interesting to be at. Great atmospheres as well as good beer. Be sure to check them out when you get the chance. Well, there has been some news concerning each in the past week or so.

Roll Out! Roll Out!

The beginnings of my craft beer tastes (or microbrews as we referred to them in my early college years) might have begun to develop after sampling some of the brews offered at North Country Brewing Company in Slippery Rock.

We've known for about a year that the brewery had expanded from just the morgue turned brewpub and into a full-scale brewing facility south of Slippery Rock. It feels as if we've been waiting for kegs and cans of North Country beer to hit the local markets here in Pittsburgh for almost an eternity.

Within the last week kegs of North Country brews have reached many Pittsburgh bars. North Country has been trying to update the locations in which said brews are offered on its Facebook page. The roll out is finally looking to be happening. Still no word on cans being sold in distributors, but I'm sure that's close to happening as well.

I met a friend at OTB Bicycle Cafe on the South Side just over a week ago and he snapped a good photo of a North Country Tap Handle. The beer was in. It just wasn't tapped yet. This was for the new Buck Up Black Pale Ale. I don't remember ever having that while in school. So, it looks like they';re still being creative as possible with their brews.

My buddy, Zack, also spotted more NCB on the North side via his Twitter account.

Needing a Larger Shoe Size

Back in August I visited Gettysburg Battlefield Brew Works after months of anticipation. I was fascinated at the fact of drinking great beer in what was a former Confederate field hospital at the time of the battle in 1863. Things were obviously still getting started when I was there. I've been following the Brew Works on Facebook  (I've also found them on Twitter) and things have seemed to be picking up amazingly. There is now consistent live entertainment as well as some barbecue food offerings from a local Gettysburg eatery.

I've been writing about the place constantly. From when I first heard about the pending liquor license (and the reason I have the odd subhead just above) and when I finally got to visit for the first time on my yearly excursion to Gettysburg.

More importantly, the Brew Works made an appearance on the Discovery Channel's Bar Hunters show. I missed the episode on Sunday and I've never watched the show before. So, I'm not entirely sure if the episode was dedicated in full or it was just a segment. Still, I was able to embed a video I found on the Discovery website.

Monday Rant on a Tuesday: One Big Microcosm

Back in college when I attended one of my first journalism courses, we were taught to be as factually accurate as possible. The professor that taught said course had a fact error policy. A fact error, by his definition was anything close to being factually inaccurate in your news lead or article.

To put it plainly, anyone that took this course quickly became familiar with what a fact error was. That was because if you made one, you got an automatic 60 percent on that assignment. This could include a misspelling of a person's name, mixed digit in an address number, or a wrong time. Almost anything fell into that category.

Bryan from This is Why I'm Drunk had a remarkable post late last week that was well-researched and described some of our beer searching habits over the last few years. I felt moved enough to post a comment, something I really should get to doing more often on sites I enjoy reading. I didn't think that what I said would spark much response, yet would contribute to an entire blog post which is linked in the embedded tweet below.

Whoops. I guess a comment of mine inspired another well-researched post by @BryanDRoth http://t.co/By4SHPmFua #craftbeer #microbrew
— Bill K. (@BurghBeerSnob) August 27, 2013

That is honestly the first time I've hashtagged the term "microbrew" in my entire history of talking beer on Twitter. Bryan admits in the second post that it's pretty much speculation, but that we probably used the term "microbrew" to refer to individual beers and "craft beer" to refer to the actual movement.

It was around the time I took the course that we used "microbrew" to describe different beer made in brewpubs here in Pennsylvania. We did it at Slippery Rock all of the time with North Country brewing Company right on Main Street in town.

Now, here's where my fact error story comes into play. Does it matter what word we choose to describe it anymore? I've actually never given it much thought. Are there brewers that care which term we use? Are there fellow beer geeks that would take it personal if we used one or the other? I'm not entirely sure.

What I'm positively sure about is the lessening of "microbrew" and increasing usage of "craft beer" at the very least can be looked at as a microcosm of what happened when good beer actually went big about a decade ago. That can always be looked at as a good thing.

Not Quiet on the Northern Front

I've tried my best to be up-to-date on the local breweries finally getting some beer on the market in cans. The best part about the breweries that have started to do it in this area were ones that mostly only had draft selections. Rivertowne did have a small bottling operation going at one point, but for whatever reason there was just only three beer selections available at distributors in bottles. At least that's all I noticed over time.

According to Craft Pittsburgh, one of the breweries that gave me one of my first craft beer experiences (North Country Brewing Company in Slippery Rock, Pa.) is nearing the completion of its canning project. It's looking as if things are ready to roll.

Look for @ncbrewingco beer out in the market in a few weeks from @beersince1933.
— Craft Pittsburgh Mag (@CraftPittsburgh) June 25, 2013

From my own recollection, North Country should be putting out three of it's original beer lineup. This should include station 33 Firehouse Red, Buck Snort Stout and Paleo IPA. Also, there should be cans of Slimey Pebble Pils, which I've never come across during my trips to Slippery Rock.

I dream of one day coming across some cans of the famous fruit beer rotation North Country always does (otherwise known as "The Fruit Bowl"). Some Blue Bear-E, Cherry Garcia and Strawberry Fields Forever would hit the spot.