Best Pour House in the Chestnut Hill area
‘Beers to you’ at Iron Hill
(Top photo) Chef Eddie Ebright of Lower ChiChester, has been with the company for seven years. He makes sure that Iron Hill is not just known for their award-winning beers …
(Lower photo) A young lady on a pop-art mural gives lots of thought to whether she should order a light beer or a dark beer..
by LEN LEAR
I would certainly never claim to be a beer expert or even a beer aficionado, but one thing that has mystified me for years is how any human being with a palate could routinely drink some of these terrible liquid products on the market masquerading as beer, such as Bud Light or Coors Light. After all, would you go to a restaurant and order instant potatoes or instant coffee? Does this stuff even qualify as food? Granted, this faux food may not have many calories, but neither does dirt, and dirt at least comes from nature, not a chemistry lab, and contains real minerals.
Beer tastes best when it is fresh and not when it is infiltrated with multi-syllabic Latin-named chemicals and not when it sits for months in a warehouse or on a shelf 2,000 or 3,000 miles away from where it was made.
This is the reason for the explosive popularity of brewpubs, which generally sell beer they have made from scratch on the premises. And one of the best is the Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant at 1460 Bethlehem Pike in North Wales, about five or 10 minutes from Chestnut Hill, at the end of the Route 309 Expressway. (There are four other Iron Hill locations in Media, West Chester, Wilmington and Newark, Delaware. There will soon be another one in Phoenixville, and the company is exploring possible center city locations.)
Opened in March of 2004, Iron Hill in North Wales features a huge dining area that can seat more than 200 as well as an open kitchen with a wood-burning oven, an exposed microbrewery, rich mahogany paneling, corrugated copper walls, gray slate floors, black wrought iron accents and a large, almost-always busy mahogany bar.
Because of the virtually ubiquitous competition these days, a brewpub can no longer get away with serving just cheesesteaks, burgers and hot dogs, and Iron Hill clearly offers an extensive selection of “New American” cuisine that includes a variety of cuisines from ethnic to hearty comfort foods.
Signature dishes include salmon spring rolls; drunken clams, littlenecks simmered in pale ale, tomatoes, garlic, fennel and fresh herbs; lejon pizza with Florida rock shrimp, bacon, green onion, horseradish sauce and mozzarella cheese; fajita grilled chicken with mesclun greens, black beans, roasted corn, Mexican spices and orange-cumin vinaigrette; and Jamaican jerked porterhouse steak with curried sweet fries, fresh golden pineapple salsa and rum sour cream. Prices range from $3.50 (for roasted carrot soup) to $22.95 (for New York strip steak).
We loved the soup sampler (gumbo, roasted carrot and Maryland crab) for $6.75; the Tex-Mex egg rolls with grilled chicken, black beans, corn, bell peppers, cheddar cheese and avocado cream ($7.95); fabulous house nachos with diced tomatoes, black beans, green onion, jalapenos, sour cream, Monterey Jack and cheddar cheeses ($6.95); lejon wood oven pizza ($11.95) and bruschetta blanketed with tomatoes, roasted red and yellow peppers, capers, garlic, basil, feta cheese and extra-virgin olive oil ($6.50).
But we felt the pan-roasted chicken breast entree ($15.50) and soft-shell crab entree special ($22.95) were just so-so. One daily entree special we did not order but which received raves from a nearby table was the pan-seared tilapia with a chilled lentil-rice salad, sauteed asparagus and orange-basil butter ($16.95). The dessert selection also looked scrumptious.
Beer enthusiasts are able to watch the fascinating hand-crafted brewing process through large glass windows that enclose the brewery. Iron Hill’s beers have been awarded top honors at the nation’s most prestigious beer festivals eight years in a row, including 15 medals overall for its beers. Some of these awards were a bronze medal in 2004 for the Tripel and Bourbon Russian; gold medals in 2003 for the Russian Imperial Stout and Lambic de Hill; gold in 1997 and bronze in 2000 for the Lodestone Lager, and gold in 1999 and bronze in 2000 for the Maibock. Iron Hill has also won medals at the World Beer Cup and Real Ale Festival.
My own favorites are the Pig Iron Porter, a fabulous, robust, medium-bodied dark ale with a roasted flavor; Raspberry Wheat, a sweet Belgian-style beer with a touch of raspberry aroma and flavor; Wee Heavy, a rich, dark brown Scotch ale with a distinctly malty aroma and caramel flavor that goes perfectly with spicy food; and Heffe Weizen, a spectacular medium-bodied, unfiltered Bavarian wheat beer with flavors of banana and clove.
On Sunday evenings all Iron Hill restaurants offer one of the best deals around, a two-course prime rib dinner for just $16.95, which includes a baked potato, tossed salad and pint of beer or glass of wine. The 14-ounce prime rib steaks are dry-aged for 28 to 32 days and slow-cooked. And every evening in August, there is a Caribbean beer dinner for $19.95, which includes a hot coconut shrimp appetizer paired with a cool Anvil Ale and a Jamaican jerk salmon entree paired with an Ironbound Ale.
Pairing drinks and food is a time-honored tradition that is routinely practiced by wine connoisseurs, but in today’s world of more sophisticated and demanding customers, this ritual is also becoming commonplace with beer. In September and October, for example, Iron Hill will offer Cajun/Creole and Oktoberfest beer and food pairings.
The Iron Hill restaurants, named after a Revolutionary War landmark in Delaware, have been recognized by many area publications for their outstanding beers and food. For example, BrewPub Magazine named Iron Hill “Best Brewpub in the Mid-Atlantic Region.” Main Line Today Magazine called Iron Hill the “Best Brewery Restaurant,” and readers of Delaware Today Magazine voted them the “Best Overall Restaurant.”
Iron Hill in North Wales serves lunch Monday through Saturday, a light fare menu between lunch and dinner, and dinner seven nights a week. For more information about any Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant, call 267-708-2000.
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