DALLAS, PENNSYLVANIA
Retired military veteran Clay Cadwalader, an avid homebrewer, and his high school sweetheart, Charity, co-owners of BACK MOUNTAIN BREWING COMPANY, develop a splendid cornucopia of stylistic brews (mostly one-offs or recurring) at an aged red brick warehouse. Learning his craft while stationed at Washington’s Puget Sound, Cadwalader returned home to Northeast Pennsylvania’s ‘back mountains’ to set up shop in Dallas during August ’21.
The rustic boiler roomed textile mill that Back Mountain occupies has been retrofit with hardwood floors, antiquated ceiling pipes, elongated window frames and matching wood tables. A small front deck provides more seating. Small -batch brew tanks in the back supply draughts to the central bar station.
My wife and I visited Back Mountain a week prior to Thanksgiving ’24, auditioning eight savory suds while bringing home two fab oak-aged ales – Something In the Dark Bourbon Stout and Rye Whiskey Barrel-aged Old Ale (reviewed in Beer Index).
An autumnal Cream Ale variant, Grandad’s Cranberry, celebrated Thanksgiving with its tart cranberry sauciness given spritzy lemon zest atop gluey cardboard-like pilsner malts.
Clear straw kolsch, Notorious P.I.G., let grassy-hopped barnyard acridity and raw mineral graining spread across tart lemon-candied mandarin orange spritz.
Dry Cascade-hopped K.I.S.S. 2.0 Pale Ale stayed crisp as cucumber-watered lemony orange tang serenaded pale malt pasting.
Piney yellow grapefruit and orange rind bittering rallied for West Coast IPA, Little Squashy, picking up mild juniper and currant snips.
Daringly crossing a farmhouse-dried witbier with a hazy IPA, Rocky Mountain Part Deux White Session IPA allowed its bittersweet orange-peeled grapefruit tang to gain tannic white wining, dill pickled spicing and light pine tones in a sugary pale malt setting.
Floury brown-sugared molasses and caramelized toffee seduced sweet dessert confection, Shoo Fly Pie Brown Ale, leaving residual mocha nuttiness.
Minty coffee-stained dark chocolate scurried thru pumpkin-pied ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and peppermint spicing of robust holiday ale, Lock Shock & Barrel’s Pumpkin Porter, a delightful full bodied mocha-gourd combo.
Tarry dry-bodied Pineland Porter retained fluffy mocha creaminess, chalky cocoa powdering and burnt coffee smidge as oily hop residue secured soy milked bottom.
