WILLIAMSPORT, PENNSYLVANIA
Terrific family-owned English pub-styled alehouse, RIEPSTINE’S PUB & BREWERY, opened by Bart & Tess Ripple in 2015, creates an expansive range of beer recipes complemented by ‘traditional comfort food.’
Located on the westside in the Newbury section of Williamsport, this white concrete-fronted brewery (with red brick foundation) features a brown aluminum-topped Riepstine’s Pub insignia above the front door.
Inside, Riepstine’s small penny-encased wood lacquer bar (with eight seats, sixteen draught handles and many walled mugs) services four right side wood booths plus one next to the bar and front wood dining seats. An outside cement-floored patio with aluminum-topped canopy sidles a plastic beach-chaired open firepit spot.
My wife and I visit on a muggy Saturday evening, May ’22, to down thirteen efficiently rounded and well differentiated brews leaning on the heavy and/or dark side.
Easygoing yellow-cleared light body, Lycoming Lager, stayed off-dry as mild lemon-oiled corn souring and buttery raw-honeyed pale malts coalesce.
Dry German schwarzbier, Pitch Black Lager, brought dark-roast cocoa malts to bitterly hop-charred tobacco chaw, tannic vanilla astringency and charcoal latte whims.
Riepstine’s Summer Ale received an herbal kick for offshoot Thyme Out Rosemary, placing rosemary and thyme alongside its cologned lemon lime zesting.
Brisk orange-peeled grapefruit rind bittering picked up herbal-tinged floral daubs and soft pine tones for flagship Imperial IPA, Alpha Deuce, leaving slithers of tangy peach, pineapple and tangerine on the caramelized backend.
Candi-sugared orange marmalade, lemon meringue and banana puree fruiting picked up buttery Chardonnay wining to engage the briny herbage securing farmhouse ale, 7th Ward Saison.
Beautifully designed Belgian quadrupel, Quadmire 2018, laced caramelized fig, raisin and prune sweetness with whiskey-soaked toffee spicing over dark crystal candi-sugared malts.
Muted coffee roasted nuttiness permeated Jaysburg Porter, draping black chocolate syrup on earthen black peppered hops.
Cold brewed coffee alkalinity settles across creamy vanilla sugaring for Buzzsaw Coffee Kolsch, plying black peppered herbage to lemon rind bittering underneath.
Dry cocoa powdered molasses oats surged forth for KRS Oat Stout, leaving latent black cherry, blackberry and date nut illusions.
Dryer Lumber Jack Imperial Stout, let mossy wood char seep into dark chocolate malts and black cherry snips.
Decadent Madagascar vanilla bean-imbued Vanilla Bourbon Stout sent creamy vanilla bourbon sweetness on a rich black chocolate journey, serenading mild burgundy, brandy and port snips.
Another luxurious dark ale, Society’s Reserve: Bourbon-aged Imperial Milk Stout, unleashed milk chocolate fudging upon light buttercream-frosted bourbon vanilla sweetness and molasses oats.
Even more luscious, Chocolate Cherry Bourbon Stout caressed soft-tongued chocolate caking with bourbon vanilla-daubed bruised cherry tartness, subtle blackberry-boysenberry-blueberry serenity and mild coffee tones.