First Came Hades

On a clear summer day years ago in the parking lot behind Funk Etown (now Pine Creek), homebrewers from Central Pennsylvania gathered to share their beers. There were so many IPAs, some fruity lambics, golden and amber ales, and one very dark chocolate rye IPA.

That beer was named Hades, the beer Jeff entered in the festival. It wasn’t the crowd favorite. That award went to a lighter, drinkable-on-hot-day kind of beer. But it caught the attention of the festival organizers and was named Brewer’s Choice. And Jeff was invited to brew his recipe on a large scale with Mike at Moo-Duck Brewery, who put the brew on tap at Moo-Duck. 

As long as I’ve known Jeff, he’s had something fermenting, and occasionally overflowing (or as Jeff would say, “krausening”), in the basement, in the garage, in a closet off the dining room.

Krausen
Pronunciation: krȯizᵊn
Definitions
:vigorous fermentation of wort to produce natural carbonation in beer
:the natural process that forces beer out of the fermenter and all over the floor of the closet where Jeff is hiding his fermenter, resulting in the fury of his wife

Last year’s barley wines would be tucked away in the back of cupboards, awaiting the proper celebration to break them out for a crowd to taste.  But after he saw his beer brewed on a five-barrel system, he had a look in his eye I recognized. Participating in a large-scale brew planted a seed - he wanted more and bigger brewing and he knew the beer he was making was commercially viable. 

A few years later when Matt moved to Pennsylvania, the first discussions about the tasting room that would become Hell in a Bucket began. I wasn’t an immediate convert, but I came around. And on a positive note, nothing’s krausening in our closets at home anymore.