Photo | Harvey J. Wallbanger
“Media has turned into a pretty good beer town,” Bob Barrar told me. He should know.
Bob has been the brewmaster at Iron Hill Media for the past 11 years. “Our sales have climbed every year. It says a lot about the people in Media. I think we were the first ones around and then Quotes (Quotations) came in and now Tim and Dan are doing their thing over at Pinocchio’s. You can go over to John’s Grill around the corner, and they have some good beers.”
Bob cleaned the mash out of a huge tank as we spoke in the brewing room at Iron Hill. He wore an old t-shirt, shorts and Wellington boots. His project on this day was a Triple Belgian Golden Ale, which he expected will be available in mid-February.
“We extracted all the sugars and transferred them into the kettle,” he explained as he sprayed down the equipment. “This will get a hundred pounds of candy sugar too, so this will be a pretty golden ale.”
All Iron Hill Breweries carry certain standard beers, but the brewers at each site are also free to create their own special brews.
“There are five beers we keep on tap at every restaurant. Anything else is pretty much free game,” Bob said. One recent beer Bob enjoyed was a collaboration with Pinocchio’s Pizza to celebrate the second anniversary of Pinocchio’s beer garden.
“We did a collaboration with Tim from Pinocchio’s called Real Boy. It’s a 2X IPA. We released it for their two year anniversary – they blew through it in two days and we sold out in 14 days. It’s an Australian hop and it’s hard to find. Since the hops are really hard to get I don’t know if I can do it again, but I’d like to.”
“We also did a collaboration with Ithaca Brewing Company called Dark Humor and we aged most of ours in wood. The one we brewed up in Ithaca they put it on draft. Ithaca came down here and brewed it with us and we have all these different barrel aged versions of it we’ll do something big with it at some point.”
Another beer Bob is fond of is Iron Hill’s Russian Imperial Stout.
“It’s big, roasty and chocolatey and has a hoppy backbone. It’s won a couple awards at the Great American Beer Festival,” he said modestly.
Only later, did I learn Bob has a stellar history at the festival, or as beer blogger Bryan Kolesar wrote “Iron Hill’s Bob Barrar continued to validate his nickname, ‘the medal machine,’ winning his fourteenth total medal, including 10 gold medals.”
When not at work, this award-winning brewmaster will sample any beer.
“At home I drink Sierra Nevada Pale, Allagash White, or I’ll drink any beer on tap. Even if it’s not the greatest selection at the bar, I’ll try any beer. Yuengling. Another good one you can drink is Guinness. I like imperial stouts and double IPAs.”
What’s the best part of being a brewmaster?
“Spraying a hose and wearing boots,” Bob says with a grin. “I get to taste the product on a daily basis. There really aren’t too many bad things about being a brewer. I get to drink. People think that it’s a glorified job, that all we do is drink beer all day but it’s not the case. It’s cool we get to taste the beer, but we’re not drinking pints of it. We are making sure it tastes good, so that’s a pretty good benefit. You have to taste it along the way. Today we’ll drink the wort before the fermentation takes place. You can taste it if something is off, not right.”
Find Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant of Media at 30 East State Street or online at ironhillbrewery.com/media.
