Sunday, November 7, 2010

Stumbling upon Revolutionary History...and beer.

Yesterday afternoon, Kyle and I sought out the hour-or-so drive to Lambertville, N.J., to check out the River Horse Brewery that we've wanted to try ever since we heard of it a few months ago. But little did we know on our quest for alcoholic bliss that we'd stumble upon a historical place where the bad-ass George Washington led his troops across the Delaware River on Christmas Eve night of 1776.

 
Washington's Crossing at the Delaware River
 It's called Washington Crossing State Park - and not only is the scenery there absolutely beautiful, but the history and stories that took place there are pretty awesome. We saw replica Durham Boats like what Washington used to move his troops across the river. We saw the marker which noted the place along the shore where his army crossed. We saw refurbished cannons and restored historical buildings.

Even walking into the visitor's center to get a map, the man and woman there were dressed in Revolutionary-era clothing (though it was somewhat creepy because they were remodeling the real visitor's center so they had set up shop in a dank-looking double-wide trailer).

The bridge we had to cross was built in 1905 - and boy, was this sucker narrow! Had it been just a few inches thinner, we'd for sure be scraping the side mirrors on the railing.

But no worries - we still got our beer for the day. After moseying around the park for a while, we headed over to River Horse and got samples of four of their brews and got a 30-minute tour of the brewery. The beers there were so much better than mass commercial brews like Bud Light and Coors. They were rich and flavorful (and strong!) Turns out the key is that River Horse, like most smaller breweries, allows the yeast to ferment for much, much longer than the mass-commercial brewers, who will simply let it fermet until it reaches a desired alcohol content and then filter out the rest of the ingredients so they can ship it out quicker.

But River Horse "is patient with the yeast. We can wait as long as it takes" quoth the tour guide. And man, you can surely taste the difference. But the problem is they are already operating at full capacity and still can't meet their market need for River Horse brews. We tried looking for River Horse in our nearby package store but our search was to no avail. So if any of you (who even care to read this stupid blog) happen to see River Horse beer on the shelves, I highly recommend you purchase it! The Lager is amazing, also the "Tripel Horse."

2 comments:

  1. Firstly, I read and enjoy your blog and its not stupid. :)

    Secondly, you should read the novel To Try Men's Souls, by Newt Gingrich. Its the story of the crossing of the Delaware told in a first person narrative from the perspective of George Washington, Thomas Paine, and an enlisted infantryman. It was so good. I felt like I was right there crossing the Delaware, but having that first hand knowledge of the area would make it even better.

    ReplyDelete
  2. oooh thanks for the book recommendation, Elise! I will have to try and give that a read. I know Kyle would like it since he is a huge history buff. And thanks for reading my blog! :-) I like yours too! Keep rockin' out Texas style!

    ReplyDelete