DerekRx

Tonight I was supposed to be doing my own thing while my woman did something she loved. Unfortunately, I found out her plans went sour after my plans were already well under way. Even though I wish I had spent the time with her, here is my Victory Tuesday... and to end the night, a few fellow BA's showed up, one of which asked us to help him split his bottles of Founder's Blushing Monk and Voodoo's Love Child, a Belgian triple with cherries, raspberries, and passion fruit. Thanks for the tastes, Seth! Victory's Braumeister Harvest Pils, a wet-hopped pilsner. And you know you're starting to get important when the owner, Mr. Matt Capone himself, rushes out to serve you! One really nice guy he is, and truly passionate about his beers Picking up some goods and sticking with the Wet Hop theme of the week, up next I'd head to Capones, where it was all-you-can-eat crab leg night Since everyone was grabbing growlers of it, I figured it was worth a taste. I'm not too fond of ESBs, but it was one of the better ones. I think it was just popular with the locals because of its low abv and drinkability and much like the Kolsh, the ESB was just tapped, but no mention on the website or anywhere else. My seat for the evening gave me a nice view of the tanks. Tuesdays aren't busy at all at the place (especially compared to a Friday). Good to know! To accompany my pizza, time for this year's Hop Wallop...on cask! Lots of grassy and piney flavors in this crazy local yocal. Yum! The board of tapness, containing a few brewpub exclusives The night starts off back in Downingtown, home of Victory Brewing

Tonight I knew exactly what I'd be drinking, something I picked up at Capone's on Saturday, and was very excited to break opened. All the way from very charred Southern California comes Pizza Port's take on the Wet Hop Harvest IPAs, High Tide! Yeah, this sucker is a hop bomb. Loads of fresh citrus, grass, and pine tastes, with very little malt backing. Not as good as the Wipeout, but it may give Sierra Nevada Harvest a run for it's title of "Derek's Favorite Wet Hopped Ale". As for this year though, I think Sierra Nevada wins. Check out that awesome logo, a huge wave of hops. Oh to live near San Diego!! High Tide Fresh Hop IPA, Pizza Port/Port Brewing's bottled wet hop ale

^^Looks like good stuff, Adam, glad you finally found a time to get there. With their excellent beers for sampling AND free food, hopefully we'll be joining you sometime soon for a tour. On Saturday we decided to head down to a fairly new beer bar in the suburbs of Philly to see how the place was. As it aged, more of the citrus hops have gone away, but the grassy and pine is very strong Tonight, since IPA Project 07 is about a month away, I thought I should enjoy some more of the 06 I got of the Odyssey IPA from Sly Fox and while I could have went for a vertical tasting of Harvest Ale, I decided to try the 2007 Celebration Ale instead. Loaded with hops and a great way to begin the cold season approaching. For dessert, Nicole went with the Sly Fox Black Raspberry Reserve, which was filled to the brim with raspberry goodness and for Nicole, a pecan crusted chicken stuffed with shrimp served over pasta, also great stuff, just another reason why we love The Drafting Room. Great beers AND awesome food For dinner, the specials for us, Mako Shark in a cider au jus, apple and onion relish, and Yukon Potato and butternut squash medley. Just excellent While I went with the 2007 Sierra Nevada Harvest Ale, still pure awesomeness Digging it, she went and ordered a pint Wanting to try new beers and new styles, Nicole went with a taster of the Old Brown Dog from Smuttynose, a Brown Ale As usual, pretty awesome stuff on tap, lots of things left from the Sierra Nevada night last week Just a short 30 minutes away, it's time for dinner at one of our favorite places, The Drafting Room and a final stop at the very cool looking bathroom before heading onward Then quickly stole my Breakfast Stout, loving the taste of coffee that this brew dominates While Nicole practically inhaled her Kasteel Rouge, a raspberry lambic and what beers did we have? Well, for me, a Founder's Breakfast Stout, of course! The place is pretty small, so I'm glad we didn't come at dinnertime, but it had a nice atmosphere, great beers, and good service. The food looked pretty tasty too, including a salad made with Lindeman's Cassis vinegarette. That's the kitchen in the back. A look at the bar area, where you can see the 2 hand pumps as well as the wall of glassware, all used properly for the type of beer you order With 24 taps and 2 hand pumps, they've got plenty of variety. They've also got a huge selection of bottled beers from around the world, lots of them being Belgians Teresa's Next Door, a new addition to Teresa's Cafe, conveniently located next door. All beers come from the Beer Yard down the road, so you know they've got some greatness

Discovered tonight that I had a bottle of Sweetwater left. Woohoo, time for the South to make up for that blah brown that Red Brick brewed. It's no IPA, but it sure is sweet and citrusy, with a nice lite pine finish 420 Extra Pale Ale, pretty good stuff

The beer week in review: and the taste wasn't that amazing either. Didn't taste very brown ale-ish to me Jesus, what a weird head Finally, Atlanta's Red Brick Ale. Supposedly a full-bodied beer by the label, but it pours more like a foam-bodied beer Oh yeah! What a fantastic barleywine. This beer better be revisited Scratch #4, dubbed the Flying Mouflan by those dudes at Troegs One darn tasty IPA, nice citrus and pine notes and a nice balance with maltiness Time to get my off-season inversion fix, thanks to Deschutes It's just an ESB, but it's another pretty good brew from Left Hand. Nothing to write home about, but also not a drain pour Started off the week with the Sawtooth Ale from Left Hand Brewing

Credits are bragging rights, and give the sense that you have more credibility when it comes to discussing them. If you've only ridden 20 coasters and say "Raven is the best coaster ever!" it's not nearly as believable to someone as if you've ridden 400 coasters and still think that. Much like you wouldn't really put much thought into believing what someone who has only been at their job for 3 weeks has to say about the job over someone who has been there for 30 years. The more credits you have, the better the chance you know what you're talking about when it comes to comparing different coasters, and more people will weigh on your advice and opinion.

Every October, hundreds of coaster enthusiasts and craftoholics make their way to Elysburg, Pennsylvania for Knoebels' Phoenix Phall Phunfest (With a Twister) and Covered Bridge Festival. With lots of local crafts and food vendors mixing with the last hoorah of the season at Knoebels where they theme some things for the Halloween season, what's not to love! Every year there is one big question that runs through the minds of the Phunfesters, "what's the weather gonna be?!" From freezing temps, to mild autumn days, to hot, to hurricane rains, Phall Phunfest has seen it all. This year was unseasonably warm, which really didn't make it feel like it was quite time for the season to end, but alas, it did. But it sure beats the rain of 2 years prior thanks to one of the hurricanes. Onto the pictures until next year (when maybe the Flying Turns will be running with people)! and a trainful of aggressive-handling riders take their last rides for the season on Twister. Until April! and poor Twister just sits there by the pool and says "hey stupid people, I'm a good coaster too! If you're too much of a wuss to be able to ride me more than once, than I don't want you anyway!" On Sunday, the line for Phoenix looks a lot different than the line did on Saturday night. And the coaster still rocked and delivered more airtime than every coaster in California put together Two trains passing by each other on a circuit is much safer than two trains running head first into each other on the same track, but not nearly as cool looking Murphy likes corn Off with the crew on one of Knoebels 2 train rides Someone thought the swings would be fun (I think it was me) and they were...for one ride another old ride that is lots of fun and doesn't have painful restraints like most Huss and Chance things these days, the Satellite (a roll-o-plane) Laterals capable of sending Nicole sideways once she breaks free While it may look like a kiddie ride, this slide has super intense laterals While we forgot to ride them the night before, the Flyers are a staple at Knoebels Going back on Sunday for "hangover day" we find less crowds usually. And we found these eagles too, they said you should call your mother more often, seriously! Always the ladies man, Heath ends the night with some Phoenix action with Ellen. Poor Adam Less than a year old, Todd Long's little peep Brody makes his first appearance at PPP, which will become an annual tradition for him Can't forget about Twister, which while being overshadowed by it's older brother Phoenix, still delivers a mean ride as the sun sets, Phall Phunfest really starts up. But with the temperature still in the lower 70s, it sure doesn't feel like Phall The Phoenix line grows, but still doesn't have a bad wait more than 15 minutes Chuck seems to be enjoying his first trip to Knoebels and grabs some Cesari's Pizza, some of the best park pizza there is PPP officially starts with the Haunted House, where you seem to run into everyone you've ever met! Thanks to Nicole...I mean Heath...for preventing any cuddle time later on, it was time to use up our included with PPP skyride tickets, where we got this nice, never before seen, view Fresh from Germany, Andy and Annie started off their Eastcoast tour at Knoebels, so I showed them where to sit Heath and Nicole seemed to make up and rode off in 1.3, one of the best places to experience the fury of Phoenix Back in the park, we made our way to our beloved Phoenix, truly one of the greatest woodies that still deliver great rides filled with airtime and laterals and withstand the test of time thanks to the awesome maintenance of Knoebels staff Oh! He was planning on paying Nicole back for throwing pine needles at him earlier. Looks like she got what she had coming to her Heath was wifeless for this trip, but why is he hanging out by the girls bathroom. Doesn't he know this is a coaster event?!? Her skills did manage to get her all the riding she'd need for the day though! Nicole tried to seduce the FT crew into letting us ride with her pole dancing skills, but it didn't work. All she got was cold hands from the pole frozen over in ice But they would only allow you to ride if you could breathe fire while re-enacting "The King and I" so there were no takers so close, in fact, that they were cycling trains! Heading into the park, we see the Flying Turns, still not operational, but getting darn well close! A Pumpkin Rice Pudding Cone is definitely a good way to get ready for the season After that, it's time for our second dessert, Rice Pudding in a cone! (hey, Heath is still in ACE, he NEEDS it in order to survive, and I'm still weening off) Even the lactose intolerant will eat this stuff with Heath, it's THAT GOOD Probably the best ice cream out there. In fact, it's so good, they can't sell it in stores! My personal favorite is the cinnamon caramel apple We got there a little later than usual, stopping at Selins Grove Brewing for lunch first. But that just meant we could start out our Knoebels visit at the Covered Bridge Festival and get some Penn State Creamery Ice Cream for dessert

No it's not, it's just named differently, called the Holiday Porter. I learned that by going to the Sam Adam's Beer School at Epcot

Great TR, loads of pictures, and I'm glad I took a break between looking at all the shots and funny captions, otherwise I definitely would have been late for work. Makes me really bummed I didn't get to go to Florida this year for Halloween, hopefully next year the tradition will return. But did you guys not honor me by going to Sam Adam's Beer School at Epcot? or did you just not post any shots of that since there was no hot teacher this year? BTW, Kristen is the cutest kid ever!

Nothing is more fun or wrong than Cooking with Joe. This needs to be a regular series, not just a quarterly special. Sure beats Cooking with Derek, all I made were Chicago Dogs.

This PTR was beyond entertainment, I would call it enterdavement. You really need to do more of these, which will require you to take more trips, or something.

With nothing on the agenda for today and wanting to do some exercising, I decided to take Nicole to one of our area parks since it was a pretty warm November day and the weather was nice. What started out as just wanting to walk a little bit turned into a 6 mile walk. Here's some pictures, with historical information to boot. There, now you can say you learned something. getting home, my biggest souvenirs were 2 lovely blisters and sock fuzz. Yay! as winter approaches, the Canabians try to get away from Paul, Jerkki, and friends and chill out here for a bit This bridge here is Rt. 222, which would take us all the way to Dorney, if we wanted to go there. But it's closed for the season, so we're not going woohoo, only 30 miles back to where we started! (or 3 if people hadn't picked off the decimal points) another shot at the creek, this is where the Plum Creek met up with the Tulpehocken another bridge we crossed was Rush's Iron Truss Bridge, constructed in 1905 and moved to this location from Oley Valley Nicole on some random bridge the inside of the lock, full of duck weed Nicole takes a turn as locktender. After a month of this, she'd make between $1 and $10, depending on when during the canal's operation days it actually moves! This is lift lock #47E. It was restored back in 1976. Prepping for winter, squirrels were frantically gathering nuts all over the path and make a whole lot of noise This home on the banks was owned by the Machemer family, who used to take grist from up the creek into Reading via a barge back in the 1830s. I don't think he installed the sky-lights, that was probably a more recent owner another shot of Wertz's Covered Bridge over the Tulpehocken Creek This is the Berks County Heritage Center, including the Gruber Wagon Works, Melcher's Grist Mill, and Reeser's Farm House, as seen here, among other things Lots of covered bridges are believed to be haunted by people who killed themselves on them or from them. Lots of the sounds though are just the water combined with wind and the wood Walking thru the bridge you see lots of wood, and hear creaking noises. No cars are allowed to drive through these anymore, as another one up the creek was destroyed back in the 1960s when a truck over the weight limit attempted to cross it. He failed Notice the Hex sign on top. This came from the Pennsylvania Dutch influence in the area and warded off evil spirits Sometimes called Red Bridge, Wertz's Covered Bridge is the longest of Pennsylvania's surviving single-span covered bridges, measuring 204 feet I never knew Wayne Manor was so close! The area of the trail around here is supposedly haunted by Mrs. Bissinger, who killed herself and 3 children by jumping into one of the locks with some rocks tied to her because her husband was a player. This is Tulpehocken Creek (local Native American for "land of the turtles"), part of the Union Canal that used to take coal from Harrisburg to Philadelphia way back in 1828 Our starting point, Gring's Mill, which was a grist mill back in 1811. This building was actually the home.

While down in West Chester yesterday visiting QVC, we decided to grab some dinner. Fortunately I knew of a place and wanted to check it out, as I hadn't been there before...and there was something I was really interested to try. Still has some pretty good flavors in it Today I decided to just knock out some more stuff left from the summer, like this Peachtree Pale Ale from Atlanta Brewing Our waiter was pretty cool and although they were out of the Oktoberfest, he gave me samples of some of their other stuff. Dunkelweizen, Pig Iron Porter, Saison, and Ironbound on cask. All were great, and I look forward to Iron Hill's expansion into my area later this month Iron Hill also makes fantastic food. I got the special, a lobster salad with sweet corn salsa, avocado, and a citrus vinaigrette. I practically inhaled this The newest beer on tap, their Pumpkin Ale. Another great one with lots of pumpkin taste and spices. Not as good as Jaw Jacker, but better than Smuttynose's and Rock Bottom's The place has 2 bars, one at the front and one at the back. It wasn't too full when we got there, but by 6pm the place was packed with college kids The tap list, all of which they brew themselves. And as you can see from the medals above, they win at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver quite often But this is the one I'm most interested in, Iron Hill, a chain of brewpubs in the Philly suburbs in the downtown area of the college town of West Chester we find lots of bars

Last night it was time to celebrate with all the nurses from work who passed their OCN certifications this year. Since I was put in charge of the celebration, there was only one place I could think of to have it, Union Jacks! and I know where and how I'll be celebrating on Thanksgiving weekend Loaded with raspberry flavors and just delicious and to finish off our night, some Founder's Blushing Monk. More Stone for Dave, this time the IPA Nice flavors in this one too, pretty solid well balanced IPA. I'd expect nothing less from Founders More IPA for me, this time Founder's Centennial Dave keeps trying to get all the Stone brews, like Ruination more of my Wipeout. Good thing I have a DD! as I promised if she passed, I bought Shelly a Golden Monkey Oh yeah! Just pure awesome and I followed that up with some more excellence, Pizza Port's Wipeout IPA My coworkers managed to kick the Sly Fox, so they replaced it with Humboldt's Nectar Ale IPA. Pretty good stuff even our physicians assistant came out with us, hearing me talk about how awesome their beer selection is at UJs. They weren't disappointed Cindy, Ronnie, and Dave get their drink on Lots of enjoyment going on at the other table too Even Cherie decided to have a beer, something she hadn't done in a long time. Smuttynose Pumpkin was her choice I was very pleased with the Founder's Breakfast Stout, also on tap. So much coffee tastes, mmm mmm good Cathy wasn't too pleased with the taste of the Sly Fox, as you can see Amy came down from Bloomsberg to celebrate with her mom, and enjoyed a Pyramid Apricot Weizen while she was at it Proud of her passing, Shelly grabs a Franziskaner Dunkelweiss while her husband gets a Sly Fox Southern Cross IPA, one of this year's Project IPA brews Chocolate martini for Cathy, while Barb takes my advice and goes with the Atwater Vanilla Java Porter First up for me, Stone's 11th Anniversary Black IPA. Freaking fantastic on tap As usual, the draft list doesn't disappoint Back to Jacks to partake in a wide assortment of beers

This is a very tough call. While Sheikra does have the better theming and more interesting layout and location, I like the view of the James River on Griffon much more than the ghettos of Tampa view from Sheikra. I haven't ridden Sheikra in its floorless state, but I'm gonna give the edge to it, as the smell from the BBQ place is much better.

I'm not really afraid of much, but I was really leery about riding a Star Flyer, until I actually did earlier this year. It looks much worse than it is, it was actually fun and a great view of all the flatness of Orlando. Maybe next time we'll just fill you full of beer, Matt, apparently it worked for Paul!

Nice setup, dude. We did nothing interesting other than handed out bags of candy. No decorations or anything like that, even though we wanted to. Maybe next year. The red hair was part of my Halloween costume for work. I went as the Devil, horns and all. I wanted to be the Grim Reaper, but management didn't care much for that idea in a hospital setting. Well, it's now November, kinda a bummer, meaning winter is well on the way. Luckily I've got some brews saved up to help me ease my way into it. Surprisingly, still awesome stuff. Hop character and loads of chocolate and coffee. This definitely helps me prepare for hibernation Follow that up with last year's Winter Ale from Mendocino Whoa, a little bit wee heavy on the alcohol at 8% that it doesn't mask much, but very good with lots of sweet maltiness First up, Duck-Rabbit's Wee Heavy Scotch Style Ale, all the way from Farmville, North Carolina

Between TPRs "Idiots Guide" and Ted's applet, this is the quickest way to do Mitch's Polls, unless you keep track as you ride stuff, and even then you need to have everything the way Mitch does, which sometimes gets hard with all the coaster and park name changes. Another year of the wood poll is done for me, now I'm just dreading the steel poll...again!

I'm actually impressed that they're investing that much money into an already existent ride to make it better. I hope these new trains will help the ride out, as I stopped riding it about 4 years ago after one too many brutally rough rides. This will ensure I ride it at least once more, instead of just strolling past the entrance like I normally do on my visits to the Mountain.

Only a 22/25 for me. The smaller additions threw me off, as I know nothing about them, at least I didn't until this quiz. Fun stuff, looking forward to Decembers quiz.

^Nice to see you finally found a place to go to get some beer, Soren! Thanks for sharing the pictures, at least you got a little bit of home there with you. Here's some other places in your area that you may want to check out at some point: Beerfly- Sao Paulo It's Halloween today, and I can't think of a more perfect beer for tonight than one of the best pumpkin ales out there. Sadly, it'll probably be the last one I have for the year, as it's almost time for the Christmas ales. One of the best pumpkin ales out there and a great batch this season. Lots of powerful tastes just like pumpkin pie, but with alcohol burn and not as creamy. The only downside to this one is the higher ABV than most of the other pumpkins, meaning you can't drink a whole lot of them without feeling the effects, unlike Pumpkinhead and others. Weyerbacher's Imperial Pumpkin Ale, 8% alcohol, but 100% loaded with pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove

Tonight it was finally time for me to break opened my bottle of Harvest before it loses too much of it's hop kick. Yum! It may still be better on tap, but it's also one of my favorite beers of the year from a bottle Thanks to this coming in a big bottle, I finally get to enjoy 2 glasses in a row tonight More maltiness picked up in the bottled version, but it's still got that great fresh hop punch to it After having this on tap several times before, I'm glad to see they've finally bottled it this year, though seemingly limited

Another Left Hand beer for me this evening, their Pale Ale. Another good call pale ale. Well balanced between malt and hops. Sweet and doughy malt and earthy hops with some citrus notes like oranges Jackman's American Pale Ale from Left Hand Brewing. Not sure who Jackman is though, maybe Wolverine?

Laser at Dorney this afternoon. Probably the last coaster ride of the season, but hopefully it won't be the last ride I take on Laser.

Saturday it was off to the Allentown area for another one of Tom's infamous parties, this time Halloween themed. Finally, Nicole gets a chance to partake in all the fun! and so, another one of Tom's Parties goes in the books. But fear not, I suspect another one will be only a few months away! and after a few more Oktoberfests, I decided to end the night with an IPA from Davidson Brothers up in New York Eventually Tom broke out a bottle of the St. Bernardus ABT 12 60th Anniversary for us to enjoy moments before his birthday As much as Ellen loved the Oktoberfest and shots, she had to keep her head in the game. Go Sox! Tom lines up some shots for those partaking, this time Apple Korn, apple schnapps. Also dangerously easy to drink, like cider I repositioned myself right next to the taps so I could keep going back for more Pschorr whenever I wanted without having to bug the bartender or get up These things are easier to drink than water and she also decided to do a shout out to all our friends in the UK. There it's WKD, here it's WLD, but it'll always be Windex to us yeah, I think she likes it Nicole also finally got to try one of the finest lambics out there, Chapeau Banana Loaded with coffee and chocolate flavors, Nicole was digging it too as were the rest of us stout lovers. I hope this one becomes a regular brew for Troegs Heath brought some Troeg's newest scratch beer, #5, an Imperial Oatmeal Stout with him for us to enjoy. Tom seems pleased Kim and Nicole wanted in on that, and did several shots throughout the evening. Hey, they were staying over, no need to drive anywhere a little while later Adam, Ellen, and the neighbors showed up ready for some shots of Baja Luna Heath and Kim finally showed up after their time at Troegs and it was time to let the Festing begin. Here Heath goes with the Hacker Pschorr while Nicole enjoys a Stoudt's Oktoberfest Not wanting to pass out before midnight, Tom started off with some Miller Lite, which I just can't bring myself to do! Still waiting for people to arrive, I decided to go with Shipyard's Pumpkinhead, one of the better pumpkin ales, though lite in pumpkin, it's loaded with spice mmmm, sweetness, even better fresh from the tap! We'd all have plenty of these throughout the night Showing up to Tom's house before anyone else, I got first crack at the newest keg for the season, Hacker Pschorr Oktoberfest, one of my favorites