Yuengling Brewery

All of us are fans of Yuengling Lager, brewed in Pottsville, PA. During the Barn Raising we tried to get there for a tour, recommended in the "1000 Places to See Before you Die" as the best brewery tour in the US. Yuengling is the oldest brewery in the US, having started in 1829. The founder came over from Germany and set up a brewery which burned down after two years. He then built this brick brewery, which is still in the family (fifth generation). In German tradition, you don't inherit a family business, you have to buy it at fair market value. This facility is one of two in Pottsville and there is a third brewery in Tampa, FL. It only takes 50 people to run the brewery. The price of a Yuengling beer in Pottsville is still 40 cents. The tour is great. You have to wear closed shoes (they have loaners) because you are right out in the production area. This stained glass ceiling was built because the kettles were originally copper and the sun coming through the windows blinded the employees.

This photo is of the inside of the only remaining copper vessel, which was being cleaned. It is in this vessel that the liquid beer is separated from the mash. During prohibition Yuengling remained viable by brewing near beer, Porter (a medicine for nursing women) and ice cream. Interestingly, the day after Prohibition ended Yuengling delivered a truckload of beer to President Roosevelt. How that was possible since it takes 24-28 days to ferment beer is unknown, though there are various theories that the beer was being stored in the cistern or in the nearby church or in the town hall.

This original facility both bottles and cans, though we were there when they were canning the Lager. It produces 600,000 barrels a year. There was one guy on this machine and one more guy at the machine which loaded the cases of cans. You could get right up to the canning line. Yuengling originally dug caves under the brewery to store the beer. They are no longer in use. During Prohibition the government bricked up the caves to prevent brewing.

After the tour you are allowed to try two different types of beer. It worked out perfectly since we didn't need to taste the Lager or Light Lager and didn't want to taste the Light Premium. That left Premium (yuck!, no hops), Porter, Black and Tan (60% Porter and 40% Premium) and Lord Chesterfield. We liked the latter a great deal. After the brewery we walked around Pottsville and visited the Yuengling family mansion (which had a great gate house and is now the historical society) and looked at some nice buildings downtown. Pottsville is clearly economically depressed, but it has a huge, gorgeous county court house and and old jail (1851) which looks like a castle and is still in use. Afterwards we drove to the Dutch Kitchen, recommended in Jane and Michael Stern's Road Food. It had a great salad bar with pickled vegies and good, hearty Pennsylvania Dutch Food. I had a pot pie casserole (no dough) and Bob had turkey croquettes. We would definitely recommend Yuengling, both for the tour and for the beer.

Tunkhannock East West Pow-wow

August 15 and 16 was the East West Pow-wow and Camp Lackawanna west of Tunkhannock. The camp is at the end of the long peninsula between a loop of the Susquehanna. Markus, Carol, Bob and I drove down about 6 p.m. We were almost the only white folks present. There were about 100 people camped in the trees around a fire circle and about a dozen vendors. One person was selling buffalo burgers and Indian tacos (fry bread with pinto beans, lettuce, tomatoes and cheese). The rest were selling items, some handmade, but many made elsewhere. We just soaked up the scene. The above photo shows the trading blanket. Anyone can come and place an item in the center of the blanket and in turns people can put other things on the blanket that they are willing to trade for the first item. A description of the item is made and if a trade is successful, the parties will shake hands. The trading blanket starts with feathers. Rocks, feathers, porcupine feet, handmade chokers, beaded bobbie pins and other items were traded for several hours.

This woman from near Wilkes Barre where she works as a hospice worker was beading a barrette which will then be danced in. Her 19 year old dog is at her feet. she was very willing to talk to us and explain the various traditions.

The big event of the evening was the fire dance. There had been a procession and dancing from 1-5:30 and the Fire Dance began at 9. The drummers at the this pow-wow include women, so many chiefs would not come as this is not traditional. The man in black to the right of the fire was the chief who explained the fire dance. First various men went in and lit brands from the central fire and lit tiki lamps around the perimeter. Then, women entered the circle. Lastly, everyone was invited to dance. Bob and I got up to join the group.

It was a really interesting evening. We were struck by the community of the people there. Clearly they travel to various pow-wows during the summer. An incredible number of people smoked, an indication of their traditional use of tobacco and the fact that most people appeared to be quite poor. Alcohol wasn't visible, but there appeared to be some people who were under the influence. Kids ran around and swam in the Susquehanna and people clearly cared for each other. At one point during the evening a young woman had a grand mal epileptic seizure and though Bob got up to assist, they took care of it themselves. A woman talked and held the young woman under a blanket so there was some privacy and the flashing lights, which could trigger a seizure, wouldn't be visible. Eventually six men carried her on a blanket to her tent where she rested a short while before joining the Fire Dance.

More Tunkhannock Projects

Bob and I spent a total of three and a half weeks in Tunkhannock. The first two days were spent preparing for the arrival of the Barn Raising crew. The next week we all hung out together, though the weather didn't cooperate. One day it rained 4.6". After everyone left Bob and I stayed on to work with Markus and Gary, the 19 year old local man who is learning to be a carpenter at Johnson College in Scranton. The projects included various maintenance operations performed by me, including replacing shingles on the roof where they had blown off during the winter. There are multiple layers of shingles just tacked over each other. I also did a lot of weed whacking around the frog pond and the three of us mowed around the 700 trees Markus and Elizabeth planted several years ago. Unfortunately, only about 35 survived the porcupines and the lack of sunlight due to the lack of bush whacking. The above picture shows Bob's project along the outside of the laundry room in the basement. It is not an optical illusion that the back looks thinner than the front - it is. The bottom piece of wood also slopes down. The project involved digging out down to the bottom of the foundation (about 3' of mainly rocks), installing insulation and then building the frame. The frame is necessary because after Markus straightened and leveled the house the porch ceiling extends past the edge of the wall by almost 4". It was a lot of fussy cutting and fitting. When completed Bob added insulation and Gary attached pressure-treated sheathing. It does insulate the last exterior wall in the cottage.

Markus and Gary had framed the basement and Bob and Gary had installed the sheathing on the porch over the joists Markus installed. The next job was to wire the 12 lights and install insulation. While Markus wired, with some help from all of us when he had to run wire through the joists, I installed insulation, a hot and prickly job. However, new construction is square and the space between the joists was exactly 12" so the 24" fiberglass could be folded in half and stuffed in.

Then, Bob and I stapled vapor barrier over the insulation and the lights. Bob built the jig in the rear to hold the plastic up while we worked along the ceiling. I then went and cut out the lights.

On the last day Markus and Bob began installing fireproof 5/8" sheetrock. It's very heavy, so they built the extensions on the platform out of wood and would raise the sheetrock and put in shims until it was almost at ceiling level, before screwing it in. This was all in preparation for the installation of the garage doors, door and two windows to fully enclose the basement. That all has to be done by Markus and Gary.