SUMMER WEEKEND PLANS (FOOD+BEER)

While the first weekend in July is almost always a party, the remaining weekends during this peak summer month can often go unplanned, leaving some of us with serious summer FOMO. The team at Autumn Arch is set to keep summer rolling in style, with new releases ranging from signature seasonal sours to hazy IPAs and everything in between (including a duo of High Viscosity “smoothie” sours that resulted from an April Fools joke gone wild). Here are a few pool side & backyard beer and food ideas to get you started.

July 9 - 11 : Charcuterie board + 8 Track Dreams (Golden Sour)

July 16 - 18 : Kebabs +Misplaced Dreams (Double IPA)

July 23 - 25 : Brats/ Hot dogs +Arcane Elements (Lager)

July 30 - 31 : Chicken Caesar Salad +Unconditional Summer (Golden Ale)

The Post 4th of July Recovery Weekend

It’s without a doubt that 4th of July was celebrated more excessively than normal this year since COVID restrictions have been lifted almost everywhere. The weekend of the 9th is for “active” recovery. Instead of BBQing, sit down in the back yard with a nice charcuterie board and our 7% Golden Sour 8 Track Dreams. 8 Track Dreams is the perfect combination of “barnyard funk + subdue citrus ” to set a mellow and zen-like tone after a hectic holiday weekend. Assemble your board with some cheese, crackers, and meat slices along with your new favorite sour in your hand, and kick your feet up. Throw in some olives if you’re feeling especially ‘euro’.

Kebabs and Misplaced Dreams (July 16-18)

After taking a week off from grilling, maybe you want to get back into it but you don't want to do the burgers and hot dogs again. Putting together some kebabs and tossing them on the grill is a perfect compromise and Autumn Arch’s Misplaced Dreams (8.8%, DIPA) is the perfect brew to pair with it. This double IPA has juicy notes of tropical fruit, ripe succulent mangos, and subtle cotton candy fluff all mingled with a resinous piny finish. Basically, it’s the perfect pint to pair with a light meal like kebabs.

Gas up the grills, it is a huge weekend (July 23-25)

Get your buns and mustard ready because July 23rd is National Hot Dog day, and we definitely have the right lager to wash down that dog. Plan the ultimate cookout to celebrate a uniquely American holiday, and pick up Arcane Elements Lager to partner with your medley of dogs. It’s the perfect sidekick for the weekend. So head to the grocery and grab those glizzies - we have your drink of choice covered.

Last weekend in July calls for the Perfect Salad (July 30-31)

For the last weekend in July, pair together a summer caesar salad and a fresh French baguette with our favorite golden ale, Unconditional Summer. A light summer meal with friends and family on the back porch will rival the most epic summer activities…mostly due to the chill nature of the food + beer. Unconditional Summer is brewed with orange and lemon peels and conditioned on key limes and tangerines to yield a genuine porch rocker.

For anyone interested in taking a sip on the sour side, our High Viscosity Mango and Fruit Punch Smoothie Sours were recently added to our tap options starting July 1st, and are also available for crowlers/growlers.

Even though Independence Day is in the rear view, there’s still plenty to take advantage of. Celebrate summer with the people, food, and brews you love.   

Besties & Beers: Celebrate National Best Friends Day the Autumn Arch Way

Cheers to National Best Friends Day taking place on, Tuesday, June 8! If you haven’t found the perfect place for you and your posse to enjoy the festivities, consider observing the ‘holiday’ and joining us at  Autumn Arch.  We have you covered with where to celebrate (with us, of course) and (most importantly) what to drink, based on the brews that were seemingly made for you. 

There are few things that top a night spent sipping on Local - Authentic - Funky, house-brewed pints & flights with friends, so kick back and enjoy a beer (or two) with us and see how our curated suggestions measured up. Check out the line-up below! 

The Reliable, “Always Got Your Back”  Best Friend 

We all have that faithful ride-or-die friend who is sure to show up no matter the situation. They’re the type to have your back, so we’ve selected a brew for them that always hits the sweet spot: our 4.5% American Blonde. This light lager is refreshing with hints of sweetness from honey,  and pours with a light copper color and a solid head. 

The Wildcard Best Friend 

Ah, the wildcard friend. The firecracker in everyone’s social circle who colors outside the lines and is always down for an adventure. In fact, this person usually leads said adventure.  While the wildcard may be a little crazy, we always look up to their authenticity and boisterous chutzpah, which is why we’re pairing this pal with our Inspiring People 9.5% Double IPA. The brew features notes of resinous tree sap, pine needles and grapefruit, which may seem like an unorthodox combination, but has proven to be a brewery favorite. 

The Workaholic Best Friend 

The Workaholic Best Friend has a special place in our hearts because, let’s be honest, we (the brewers) very much fall into this category. While juggling careers as engineers and brew-focused entrepreneurs, we are sick of Zoom, rarely off email, and have to schedule time WAY in advance to hit our favorite local hiking trails, attend picnics, or begin never-ending house projects. Despite all the controlled chaos in our lives, we’re somehow able to remain reliable friends, mainly thanks to the perfect ratio of coffee and beer -and our Silent Space Black Lager fits that mold exactly. Made with dark roasted malts, this lager is deliciously light with nuanced layers of fresh baked bread and coffee. This lager is the perfect drink for that friend that seems to be constantly going. 

What we’re trying to say is that Autumn Arch has a brew for every bestie. We also happen to have a fun tap room with awesome employees and regulars, making us the perfect hosts for your next friendly catch-up or group gathering. Come grab a flight on National Best Friends Day, and tag us @autumnarchbeer on Instagram in your celebratory pictures and posts to let us know which beer suits your bestie the most!

SUMMER IS ON THE WAY, LIVE MUSIC IS ALREADY HERE

With the summer sun creeping in and the excitement of warmer weather (finally) on the door step, we can’t help but picture the perfect summer evening with live music and a craft beer in hand.

For the Autumn Arch crew, close friends, cool drinks, stellar food, and superb music are what can make up some of the best summer memories. With COVID-19 impacting the world in so many ways, we unfortunately had to pause to our live music last year.  We were really bummed about this.

But we are excited to announce the resounding relaunch of Live Music Fridays at Autumn Arch!  Check out the schedule here (and note that we have both indoor and outdoor seating!). Beer and music lovers alike are encouraged to sip and savor these live music moments and enjoy food from our awesome food truck partners

Live Music

This Friday (May 7th), we will be hosting Eric Paul Levy from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m with Molto Bene Italian food truck on premises all evening.

Throughout the month of May, additional live music performers including Scott Testerman, Red Smith will stop by Autumn Arch to set the scene for chill Friday night vibes. To keep up-to-date with each weeks’ live music performers, food trucks and events, follow us Instagram and Facebook or sign up for our newsletter.

Beers Perfect for Summer

We have a few warm weather beers on tap to accompany our carefree summer setting - Law of the Few is a 7.4% orange grapefruit West Coast IPA with the classic combination of Cascade and Centennial hops.  This bone dry and bitingly bitter drink is pleasantly ripe with citrus sweetness.

Our vividly purple-hued Choose to Challenge Hazy IPA is another fitting beer for the early summer, as it’s conditioning on passionfruit and butterfly pea powder gives it a super smooth taste.

New beers land on the tap list weekly at Autumn Arch, so stop by for the music and see what we have to offer.

NEXT BEER CRAZE?

Newark, DE. The latest nascent craft beer trend seems intriguing - “performance beers” are light beers with added electrolytes, kind of like adult Gatorades. But there’s no way they can be nearly as effective in hydrating the body because the presence of alcohol (hello! It’s beer!) will always be a dehydrating factor.

Will these performance beers really take off and be the next hard seltzer? Not sure, but I suspect not. Although, feel free to call me out if we put Arctic Blitz Belgian Wit on tap this summer.

Over the last 20 years, I would argue that the lead beer in the craft beer charge has passed the baton per the following (approximate) schedule:

late 90s - Pale Ale and dry-hopped IPA
early 2000s - West Coast IPA
mid 2000s - New England / Hazy IPA
early 2010s - Barrel Aged Sours
mid 2010s - Dessert Stouts
mid 2010s - Fruit Smoothie Beers
2019 - Fruited Hard Seltzer
2021 - Performance Beers?

It’s easy to see that the 1990s Sierra Nevada Pale Ale craze was going to inevitably turn into hazy New England IPAs, even if a bunch of traditional breweries didn’t want to admit it. It’s a logical chain of evolution.

As the craft beer market grew and pulled in different and varied tastes, mainstream barrel-aged sours and dessert stouts were able to take hold and generate excitement. I think the craft beer market had really matured at this point, with 5000+ breweries in the U.S., it was common-place to find a few craft brews in the typical American’s picnic cooler. In fact, your peers may have been disappointed had you NOT included those craft brews.

Not everything lived up to the hype, and thankfully, a few strange beer inventions died a quick death (i.e. Brut IPAs). This is part of craft experimentation…some things just don’t work.

This all leads to my main point. At some point, you have to throw it against the wall to see if it’s going to stick. It’s fun and usually interesting.

What is Autumn Arch going to throw against the wall? We have a couple things in the works, but I’m not disclosing anything until after I finish this performance beer.

NEW YEAR, NEW THINGS

What’s up 2021?! It’s good to be here.

Last year was a quite an interesting journey for the entire craft beer industry, and unfortunately, Delaware lost at least one brewery (3rd Wave in Delmar, DE). But ever the optimistic state, DE gained a fancy new brewery in Middletown - First State Brewing - and Burley Oak opened up a spin-off “Loakal Branch’. So that’s a net gain of one, which isn’t too bad considering the ramifications of a world altering pandemic.

Coming out of the the unexpected craziness that was spring 2020, the Autumn Arch team sat down and made some decisions around ‘who we were going to be’ moving forward (and how to do that in the middle of a pandemic). What became abundantly clear during that work is that we were going to double-down on our mission to create and release complex and unique beers.

What does this mean in reality? It means delivering beers that make you say ‘whoa’ with just the aroma. It means crafting beers so delicious that you save the bottle and place it in location of high regard (as I do). It means trying some edgy and experimental things with adjuncts/barrels/ingredients that may or may not work. It means sending more cans and bottles out into the world. It means bringing in a full-time brewer (which we did) who shares the vision and has the tools and experience to execute.

Therefore, in addition to our can releases, you’ll see two new bottle series from us in the coming month - Cellar Series and Abstract Methods .

One half of the Valentine’s Double Sour Release

The Cellar Series is exclusively focused on our nascent sour program. After nearly two years of brewing and barrel-aging, the program is yielding some very interesting and unique flavor profiles, which hopefully you’ve experienced at one of our Sour Wednesday events. We have several fun sours and sour-hybrids currently bottle conditioning, as well as a few more in the works for a 2021 release. We are very excited about what’s in the pipeline, and in fact, the first two beers in the Cellar Series releases on Feb 6! More details on that little gem soon…

Abstract Methods is a series more focused on the ‘complex’ side of ales and lagers. No sours here. These will generally be high ABV (10%+), high character/interestingness, occasionally barrel aged, and rarer styles. In other words, not your typical Monday night after-work beer. Justin and Dan are actively working to release the first one of these in late February/early March.

Does this mean we are eliminating all the light/golden beers on the tasting room menu?!

Heck no.

The tasting room will continue to serve a broad range of ‘whatever suits our fancy’ which includes a nice selection of golden/dark ales and lagers. But you’ll start seeing the occasional Cellar Series and Abstract Methods beers sprinkled in, which is a good thing for 2021.

P.s. I made a resolution to post more than once per quarter on this blog, so hold me to it.