GREEN LANE, PENNSYLVANIA
Renegade spousal-owned multifaceted nanobrewery, PERKIOMEN VALLEY BREWERY, honors the local pre-prohibition brewhouse that served 20,000 yearly barrels at its 1919 peak while celebrating the antique artifacts PVB’s former drive-thru bank left behind. A comfortable family-friendly tap room embracing individuals with mobility and sensory issues, owners Kelly and Tom Weiss have raised two autistic sons who now ably assist this idiosyncratic community haven.
Opened June 21, 2019, the Weiss family’s already crafted 115 sundry brews since inception as of my one-hour visit, early February ’22. An experienced gardener, Kelly’s specialty is foraging for natural ingredients and harvesting botanical herbage for the uniquely eccentric homemade brews emulating from the basement fermentation tanks and the original pilot system situated in the main pub area.
Inspired by John Troegner (Troegs Brewing founder) while on an exploratory brewpub journey, PVB also took inspiration from Illinois’ fabulous farmhouse brewery, Scratch. Two of their best selling flagships include Sadie’s Dandelion Amber Ale and Honeysuckle Golden Ale – both way more offbeat, involving and creative than their staid amber-golden stylistic design.
Wanting an exterior feel, there are LED lights on the blue-grey ceiling, a patio-like porcelain tile floor, sensory room kiosk and fireplace dotting the eight-seat bar. My wife and I conversed with Kelly at one of the cozy outdoor tables while downing nine diversified offerings.
Foraged hickory bark toasting and brown-sugared molasses sweetness paced Shagbark Old English Ale, an interestingly offbeat and stylistically advanced Extra Special Bitter with toffee-spiced marshmallow snips lacing dewy Marris Otter malts.
Another distinctively divergent ESB, Bees Knees, a lactic ‘bee-balm’ botanical brew, saddled English tea earthiness with frankincense, sandalwood and cinnamon bark enticement.
Honey-perfumed dandelion sweetness subtly serenaded the juniper-berried citrus zing of Sadie’s Dandelion, a uniquely foraged amber ale with dry Chinook hop wood tones.
Finnish-styled farmhouse hybrid, Sahti To Me, utilized Kveik yeast to promote orange-oiled pekoe tea, dried fig, bergamot and papaya fruiting in a raw-grained barnyard setting.
Dryly tannic Sequoia-tipped amber grains and mild peated whiskey tones steadied Sequoia Pale Ale, leaving lemon-oiled orange fruiting on the back end.
Dry Noble-hopped Strawberry Rhubarb Cream Ale let tart strawberry rhubarb buttering sink into biscuity kolsch-like malts, picking up mild cranberry-pomegranate souring.
Spruce-tipped pine musk seeped inside grapefruit-peeled orange rind bittering and the ‘sturdy grain bill’ of Spruced Up Double IPA, a 90-minute-hopped beauty anchored by caramelized pale malting.
Toasted coconut draped the dark chocolate bittering of Kelly’s Gone Coco-nut, a coffee-nutted porter with latent earthy soiling.
An interpretation of an ‘old local dark ale,’ PVB Porter leaned on dry black malts to embitter the peaty earthen scorch, wood-burn hop char and soy sauced fig souring reinforcing syrupy dark cocoa richness.