Meanwhile, on Earth-Two, this is 37th brewery I've visited this year, mostly with the kids on those beautiful lazy Saturday afternoons, but occasionally on Sundays with an hour or two free while I'm on the road. On Earth-Two, I was on Ridge Ave. in Roxborough for a completely different reason—you see, without COVID, a teen isn't going to go stir-crazy after months of virtual school, send a pic of herself in just a bra over Discord, and then get committed to the nearby psych treatment center after threatening to do something drastic. Maybe I'm up there for a fake report or something, and the family I visit is all cheery and totally lacking any abuse or neglect concerns. I don't know; I'm stuck on Earth-One, where I need a beer instead of just want one.
On both Earths, there's a new-ish brewery on the main strip of Ridge Ave., and it's called New Ridge Brewing Co. Because it's new, and it's on Ridge, you see. It's a big hit on Earth-Two. I actually have to make a reservation in advance, and still have to wait around for fifteen minutes before a table opens up for me. But this is old hat—everyone acknowledges on Earth-Two how beautifully privileged we are to be able to get out of the house and spend time with kin and peers at the local watering hole, so we're all constantly out there, blitzed with merriment and good booze.
I've been to so many breweries this year on Earth-Two that I've actually developed a rubric for judging each one. There are no breweries in this city that stand out, if we're being honest, but there are micro-differences that we can find to tell them apart in ways besides geography. I've become sort of an expert on breweries around here. Here are some of the boxes I tick off as I sit there, enjoying yet another fine brewery in our fine city.
(And this is on Earth-Two, remember. Back on Earth-One, I'm sitting at a cold outdoor table in an empty courtyard on the final day of sit-down seating before they pack it up for the foreseeable future and concentrate on take-out.)
How's the atmosphere? It's real nice out here. It could've been warmer, sure, but we're so packed with people out in this courtyard that we're all keeping each other warm. And it's just so friendly at this brewery. Everyone from all walks of life, squished in an alleyway filled with bright, playful colors painted on the walls, everyone with a beer in hand, enjoying life, you can't beat it. The joy is infectious.
How's the beer? This is the most important part of the brewery experience. I only have time for one beer, so I make it a dunkelweizen, which, if you'll recall, is a hefeweizen with darker, caramel malts. There's banana and cloves in there. I love dunkelweizens, so maybe it's that, but I have nothing bad to say about it. If every beer that New Ridge brews is like this one, then we have a great fucking brewer on our hands.
How are the beer names? I've been stung by Evil Genius too many times, with their elaborately lame (or lamely elaborate?) meme culture names. Then again, you can go too far in the other direction and make the names too boring. New Ridge unfortunately trends in this direction, not even bothering to give their dunkelweizen a fun name. In fact, the only beer on their seven-beer menu that has a name other than its beer style was a Russian imperial stout named Moscow Speedwolf. Now that's a cool name! Why couldn't they do that for the other beers? I'm in a good mood here on Earth-Two, so let's give my dunkelweizen a name. How about a "Roxboroughanana"? No? Maybe they'll appreciate it on Earth-Six or something.
How are the beer prices? Pretty standard. It ranged from a $5 pils to the Dirtwolf at $6.75, and to be fair, the latter is 9.1%. I could buy a dunkelweizen for cheaper than $6 at a six-pack store, but that's not the point. The point is that I'm out, experiencing life, enjoying time with my fellow man. I pay an extra buck or two for the experience.
How's the food? Same with the beer—I only ate one item, so either we say I can't judge the food, or we can extrapolate. The porkroll/egg/cheese I had was pretty fucking great. The bun was toasted on a flame grill, giving it a smoky flavor. The porkroll was thicker than I'm used to, but combined with the runny egg and gooey cheese, it hit the spot. It even had this like spicy tomato chutney-type topping on it. Just tasty as fuck, you guys. I'd go back to this place for the food, which is not something I really ever say about breweries (maybe on Earth-One, anyway... I think I recall going to Dock Street on Earth-Two and getting some wildly great pizza, but that was many months ago and many lightyears away).
How's the decor? There were no exposed ceilings with large metal HVAC vents crisscrossing above us, and there were no long polished wooden benches to cram into, so New Ridge avoided the cliché trappings of every other fucking brewery on every Earth, it seems like sometimes.
Did it have that extra something that made it memorable? I enjoyed my sojourn here at New Ridge, but I can't say that it brought anything "new" to the table. "New" is easier said than done at a brewery, though. If you have good beer and good food, you don't really need to rewrite the script. Give people a place to congregate and get drunk/happy, and they will come. On Earth-Two, anyway, where we can all go to New Ridge Brewing Co. and taste each other's beers and cough in each other's faces and then go home for Thanksgiving dinner at the end of the week and not have to worry about killing grandma. Oh god, now I'm on Earth-Two and the couple at the next table order is biting into the neck of a bat, and they're coughing and coughing and coughing and coughing and CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS!!!
NOTES
BEER: New Ridge Dunkelweizen
BEER: New Ridge Dunkelweizen
STYLE: Dunkelweizen
ABV: 6.4%
BREWED BY: New Ridge Brewing Co.
LOCATION: Philadelphia, PA
PURCHASED AT: the brewery on Earth-One, unfortunately
PAIRED WITH: a bangin' pork roll sandwich
GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5
No comments:
Post a Comment