Midnight Cast Black IPA from Mudhook Brewing Co.

When we visited Mudhook Brewing Company (in York, PA), we drank some of their beers (duh).

Color:

Very dark brown with some red hues, SRM ~24

ABV:

7%

Glass:

Pint

Smell:

roasted malt and floral

Taste:

It was a very floral hoppy beer with a deep roasted taste. It had a mild chocolate and very hoppy aftertaste. It was more a more floral of an IPA but it still had a slight bitter side. It had a medium mouthfeel.

Rating:

It was a pretty basic floral roasted IPA. There was no real pizzazz; it was a decent black IPA.

Wild River Weizen from Mudhook Brewing Co.

When we visited Mudhook Brewing Company (in York, PA), we drank some of their beers (duh).

Color:

pale gold, some very mild light red brown hints, unfiltered, SRM ~5

ABV:

5%

Glass:

Pint

Smell:

mild, with sweet undertones and almost citrus heavy

Taste:

This beer was very citrusy. It had very mild pale malts with low hop flavor. It tasted like it was full of cascade hops. It almost tasted like malty orange juice in a way, which made it interesting. It was very full bodied but seemed like if it had been filtered it would be watery.

Rating:

It was a decent hefeweizen and of the beers we had that night I would most likely grab this one to drink. It seems like it would be a pretty good summer beer.

Deep Sea Stout from Mudhook Brewing Co.

When we visited Mudhook Brewing Company (in York, PA), we drank some of their beers (duh).

Color:

Black Brown, almost black with very mild red hints, according to Dave it was “the color of methylnaphthalene, it’s not a bad thing” SRM ~27

ABV:

7.4%

Glass:

Pint

Smell:

chocolate, espresso, roasted

Taste:

This beer was a heavily roasted stout. It was a basic dark stout with more chocolate and roasted flavors. It had a strong espresso aftertaste that lingered for a long while. I still had the taste of coffee in my mouth 5 minutes after having a sip. It had a full body and mouthfeel with low carbonation. All I can say is that it was just very roasted. It was such a basic stout that it tasted like every other super basic stout. That’s not bad; if I was judging it in a competition of what fits the perfect requirements for a basic stout it would do well, but it was kind of boring.

Rating:

It was so basic that I would have forgotten about it after drinking it if not for that lingering coffee taste.

Mudhook Brewing Company

Mudhook Brewing Company is located in York, Pennsylvania. I developed a hatred of York because of this trip. The city is full of one way streets and the one road we needed had 2 blocks closed off for no reason. There was no construction, no street fair, nothing, absolutely no reason for it to be closed! Finding parking was impossible; we ended up parking in what looked like the only parking garage in York. Mudhook is connected to the Central Market York. It is a rather small place with a small batch brewing set up.

Service

We arrived at about 6:45pm on Friday and were given a 15 minute wait. (We decided to check out the Central Market York (which is basically York’s version of Reading Terminal in Philly). This wait was surprising for the fact it was so close to multiple theaters and it was about an hour before shows usually start. We kind of brushed it off figuring it was because there were a decent number of other places to eat so if someone was worried about finishing dinner before their show and they had to wait too long, they'd just go somewhere else. The service was decent in general and our server was very kind and attentive. Our appetizer came quickly. The kitchen was super backed up. The place isn’t that big, maybe about 70 people total (it actually should probably hold only 50). I really do mean super backed up, we waited over an hour for our food. Overall we spent more than an hour and a half at the brewery and by the end I just wanted to leave and be done with the whole experience. I have never wanted to leave a place this badly.

Food

The food was okay. That might actually be overstating how good the food was. We started with what they called the Market Plate. No! Just... NO! I was so disappointed by this plate that I would never get it again. (David: I'm sorry we got it in the first place.) It came with 6 tiny triangles of pineapple, 4 mango slices, 8-10 cubes of cheese and a handful of store bought small hard pretzels. These could all be dipped into a small cup of store bought honey mustard. As said before, NO. This cost us like $8-9 but tasted like it was worth maybe $3. We were so underwhelmed and disappointed, that we had to convince ourselves to stay. “Maybe the actual food will be really good." We waited more than an hour for the food, AN HOUR!!!

So, onto the actual food. All we can say is we were sorely disappointed. Dave got a barbecue bacon cheeseburger. The bacon was ultra crispy to the point where it didn't have much flavor anymore, just crunch. The only other topping was a couple rings of red onion. The burger was ordered medium, but came out completely charred and dry. I had a chicken sandwich with swiss cheese, bacon, and honey mustard. It came with no lettuce, tomato or onion. The chicken was so thick that it was barely cooked. It was cooked but half way through the sandwich I got worried that the meat wasn’t cooked because it was so thick. The sandwich was ok overall.
I ordered seasoned fries and Dave ordered the beer bread as our sides. We both ended up with seasoned fries. We were hoping to try the beer bread, but Dave likes fries too and by that time we just wanted to eat rather than bugging them about which side they gave us. The fries were fresh, tasty and reminded me of home since season fries are common in the Chesapeake Bay region. The portions were large but really the food was just meh. For the extensive wait, I was expecting more, as was Dave. I would not eat here ever again. The food was just a massive disappointment.

Atmosphere

They had live music while we were there and live music seems to be quite common there. There were two seating areas: an inside portion, which was a little dark, and an outside area that had an awning over it and flexible plastic walls. The outside area had heat lamps up near the ceiling on one side. We sat in the outside portion. The heat lamps did not really make things comfortable. I was sweating on the side of my body sitting near the heat lamp but the side of my body away from the lamp was cold. The seating was cramped. They had 3 chairs at the tables that should have seated 2 people. Despite the fact that the third seat was empty, it left almost no room between it and the table beside us. The waitress could barely fit past it to get to the table behind us. Dave moved the third chair against the wall away from our table so that the waitress could get past.

Beer

They weren’t doing beer tastings (or flights) because there was an event and all their tasting glasses were in use. Mudhook is about 3 years old and has only 6 beers with no seasonals at the moment. They were also out of their newest beer, a Belgian Dubbel. Despite only having a handful of their own varieties, they didn't have any beers from other breweries on tap to boost the selection. We ended up getting three beers, two dark and one light. The beers were decent but certainly nothing special. Check back for a full post reviewing the beers. They do a lot of simple beers, nothing with any real pizzazz. Mudhook beer is available at the brewery and you can take home a growler, which was reasonably priced at $20 for a growler and fill.

Overall

We did not enjoy our stop at Mudhook Brewery. Personally I would never go again, ever. We watched one group of four come in, sit down at the table next to us and then get up and leave after only drinking half their beer. Our stop for dinner took 2.5 hours in total, finding parking, waiting, eating and getting back on the road. We wouldn't suggest this Brewery even if you are in the area. After we finished dinner and left, we played a little game of “think of any place we've been that was a worse experience than that” for the remaining hour and a half drive to the eastern part of the state. Neither of us could come up with any restaurant experience that was that bad. Maybe we're just both blocking out the memory of anywhere we've been that was worse, but that's still pretty darn bad. We agreed that next time we're headed that way, we'll keep driving and go somewhere else, it's not all that much further to Lancaster.

Rating

Harvest Ale from Saranac Brewery

Another installment in our continuing series of reviews on aged beers. (Also known as beer we forgot about for six months.)

Color:

dark gold color with slight red hints, “bastard amber”, opaque, SRM ~7

ABV:

5%

Smell:

floral, very very flowery, fresh hops

Taste:

This beer had a very very mild malty taste. It was very floral with a strong fresh hops aftertaste. It had a very mild bitter aftertaste right at the end and it lingered for half a minute. Harvest ales usually are made with lots of just picked hops. This explains a lot of the floral taste. It had a low-medium mouthfeel.

Rating:

This was very floral and I prefer it over the other Saranac beers I’ve had.

Pale Ale from Saranac Brewery

This is another one of the beers we forgot about for 6 months. Maybe sometime we'll do some intentional aging and review the beers fresh, and aged to see how they change with time.

Color:

Golden color with a lot of red hues, almost a light copper color, looks unfiltered, a little cloudy, SRM ~7-10

ABV:

5.5%

Smell:

smells malty and smooth

Taste:

This beer had a mildly malty taste. It was very hoppy with a floral front taste and bitter aftertaste. In general all I have to say is that it’s quite bitter, very much like an IPA. It was not what I was expecting. The aging could have affected the malt flavor making it almost non-existent.

Rating:

This is a decent beer but nothing special. I was not expecting an IPA. I might drink it for a full session but it would be lower on my list.

The Elder Pumpken from Otto's Pub and Brewery

We were able to stop at Otto's again and try another one of the Cork and Cage series. They were out of this beer the last time we visited so we were excited to try it this time. Hopefully next time we can get a tour of the brewery. You're supposed to call ahead for a tour, but we tried asking for one anyway. Unfortunately for us they were in the middle of bottling and couldn't give a tour that day.

Color:

Light red-orange with gold hues, but mostly orange, SRM ~10

ABV:

8.6%

Glass:

Half Pint Nonic

Smell:

Not a strong smell, sweet in a way, no cloves or spices normally used in pumpkin ales, maybe slight vanilla

Taste:

This is almost like a malty pumpkin cider. There is almost no carbonation. It barely bubbled when it was poured straight down in the glass, the small head created had zero retention. It has a malty pumpkin after taste with a very slight hoppy after taste. It has a slight fruity cider-like taste probably from the elderberry added. When I placed it under the tongue I got a strong berry flavor. You can’t taste the 8.6% alcohol; there is maybe a very slight alcohol aftertaste. As it warmed, a vanilla smell started to show up and it became more pumpkin in taste. The glass poured had a cloudy brown color and was slightly sugary in taste, more sugary than the other glasses.

Rating:

This was a very different kind of pumpkin ale. It was very much like a pumpkin cider, which I enjoyed quite a lot. The berry hints made it something I would heavily suggest trying.