In Local Brews - A Review of "Birthright Brewing"

In Local Brews is all about highlighting popular local spots to grab great drinks in the Lehigh Valley area. Matt and his wife Jen explore and review one of their favorite local spots in Nazareth Pennsylvania.

Transcript

Matt 0:17

Welcome to Matt and Friends Drink the Universe! Hello everyone and welcome back to Matt and Friends Drink the Universe. The theme for today's episode is In Local Brews. The idea behind In Local Brews is that I'm going to go out to some wonderful local spots with my friends to find you some great places to go drinking with your friends. Matt and Friends Drink the Universe is located in the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania, and here we have a very vibrant and diverse drinking scene. We have 30 microbreweries, 15 wineries, and 15 distilleries in a 25 mile radius in and around the Lehigh Valley. We're really excited to go out and highlight these wonderful spots in our local community. Please keep in mind, we're not professional food or drink critics. We're just here to have a good time and to relay our experiences to you. Now that said, I will admit I'm a bit of a picky eater, and so is my guest that is with me here today. Really excited to have her with me. So let me introduce to you not only one of my great friends, but my best friend.

Jen 1:19

Hello, listeners. My name is Jen. I'm also known as Matt's wife.

Matt 1:24

So yes, I have a wife. During the first couple episodes that we recorded, everybody that was here were introducing their spouses. Chris and Siobhan brought each other along to record the first episode. Rob was talking about his wife, Dorothy, and I got to the end of my first recording and realized I didn't even mention Jen. And she really wasn't happy about it. Because you're an idiot. Well, that's also true for anybody that's listened to the Drinkables episodes. That's pretty obvious.

Jen 1:54

Yes, he totally forgot to mention any of our snorkeling trips in that first episode or anything that we did together really for that time.

Matt 2:07

Jen and I have been to a few really nice places, snorkeled in some really nice places, and I was so concentrating on just having good episode content and making sure that everything was running. I totally neglected to mention my favorite snorkeling story with Jen, which is we were down in St. Martin. We were snorkeling in a beautiful reef and enjoying the scenery, and there were a bunch of sea urchins underneath us, and we were over top, and Jen was a little skeeved out because I mean, you know, it was shallow. It was shallow. There were one or two foot spikes on these sea urchins. They were rather large, they looked a little scary. They looked terrifying. Yes, and I reached over and just kind of pinched her on the rear end.

Jen 2:47

Because he thought that was a great idea, everyone. He thought that would be so funny. Well.

Matt 2:52

If I could go back and do it all over again.

Jen 2:54

He almost got hit in the face in the ocean.

Matt 2:57

She did take a swing at me. It was a good right hook. And I will tell you screamed. I will tell you, if I could go back and do it all over again, I'd still pinch her. So, Jen, what are we talking about today?

Jen 3:11

So today we are going to talk about birthright brewing in Nazareth, PA, and talk about their menu a little bit, some of the items that we eat there, some of the beers that you drink there.

Matt 3:24

Why aren't you gonna talk about beer? What do you have against beer, lady?

Jen 3:27

I don't have anything against beer. I wish I could drink. Unfortunately, I cannot drink due to medications that I'm on. I wouldn't be very fun if you it would be a hospital trip. So we're just gonna skip the drinking. You drink the beer, and I'll drink the beer cheese.

Matt 3:45

There you go. That'll work. I prefer all of my drinking excursions. Heavy on the alcohol, hold the insurance deductible. Yes. With that being said, I want to talk about the beer that I have today. I do have a beer from Birthright Brewing. And as is customary here on Matt and Friends Drink the Universe, when we open the first one, it's gotta go into the microphone a little bit. At the very least, at the end of the first season, we're gonna have a lot of recordings of beer being opened. Maybe I'll put those all together. Today I am drinking from Birthright Brewing the Dark Migrations Porter, which I really enjoy. I'm a big fan of darker beers, porters, scouts, things like that in general. This particular porter is really, really good. It has some heavier notes of coffee in it, but overall it's very smooth. Even though when you see it poured into the glass, it is pitch black. It is very, very tasty. There is plenty of flavor in it. It's got a nice finish. It doesn't have a nasty bite or bitterness on the back end at all. When you drink it, it finishes out with a very smooth flavor of cinnamon and brown sugar, and it's very enjoyable. It's very drinkable. A lot of dark beers, you have one, and that's pretty much it. You might want to change out to something lighter. You might not want that heavy flavor multiple times in a row. This particular one, you can sit and you can have a couple of them, and it doesn't feel too heavy either.

Jen 5:08

I find that interesting that you like it just because you're not a coffee drinker, but you're saying it's good in the in the beer.

Matt 5:14

Yes, I do like coffee flavor. Although coffee in general, dear listeners, upsets Matt's tummy. So I don't have it a whole heck of a lot, especially not for breakfast or anything like that. My last cup of coffee was approximately 10 years ago.

Jen 5:28

I believe when I was in the hospital and you had one, do you remember that? You were so jittery.

Matt 5:33

I did hyper for like a week. I was so jittery. Yeah, I probably could have Spider-Man up the outside of the hospital that day. Glad you're okay, by the way. But I don't. I get very jittery. I get very hyper. I can't sit still. I just don't like the way it really makes me feel. Caffeine just doesn't do it for me. Coffee beer, on the other hand, definitely does it for me.

Jen 5:53

That actually sounds amazing. I wish I could have some. So you're just gonna have to drink some for me.

Matt 5:59

I do try every time we go out to make up for what you can't drink. I'm always trying to drink for two. I've been doing that since you were pregnant. It's just what I feel my duty is as a husband and to support the fine places we go out to drink at. So Birthright Brewing is located in downtown Nazareth, Pennsylvania. It's very close to where we live. We like to pop up there for a quick lunch or a dinner or something like that. It's becoming one of our go-tos. One thing we will tell you if you're gonna go check out Birthright Brewing, just be aware that it's metered parking on the street. There's a little parking lot just down the street from there, but in general, it's metered parking. But the meters in Nazareth are very, very affordable. So bring a couple of quarters, you'll be able to park all night. Nazareth in general is a pretty small town. It seems like there's a lot of people in the Nazareth borough and surrounding area. But as a resident, I can tell you we all get to know each other pretty quickly after you've been here four or five years. Right.

Jen 6:52

You're always gonna see somebody you know when you're out.

Matt 6:55

And and for you, I feel like that's worse than it is for me because you grew up here.

Jen 6:59

Yeah, but surprisingly, sometimes, even though a lot of people are still here, I don't see them as much. I see other people through other things that I was a part of more than actually people from like high school and stuff like that.

Matt 7:15

I feel like the atmosphere of birthright brewing is very relaxed. It's not high intensity, it's very casual dress, that sort of thing. The tables are held up by barrels, that sort of thing.

Jen 7:26

It's very calm, it's chill. You can bring your kids there and not feel like you're bringing your kids to a brewery.

Matt 7:33

Yeah.

Jen 7:34

There's a lot of games there. They have a golf game there. That's why you have to bring quarters because last time we were there, we forgot the quarters, and our daughter did not let it go. So when we went again, she made sure to remind us to bring those quarters because she wanted to play the golf game. And I believe she won.

Matt 7:54

Yeah, she did. She was under par on all of her golf shots. It's worth noting that she's six and a half years old, rather seasoned gamer at six and a half years. Loves games. Oh, there's a pinball machine. So they have a couple of arcade cabinets. They have the golf machine, they have a pinball machine, and they also have a shuffleboard table, which is really cool too. Although, piece of advice if you're looking for the pucks to play shuffleboard, you need some extra sand on the table. They don't leave those out, so just ask your waitress and you'll be able to get a game in while you're waiting for your food. I almost lost to a six and a half year old, which is a little embarrassing. She's good. She is, she puts up a good fight.

Jen 8:30

I'm gonna start with talking about the appetizers that we get when we're there. We always get the pretzel with the beer cheese. That's our absolute favorite appetizer. You definitely can share these items.

Matt 8:43

Gigantic.

Jen 8:44

Yes. There are two different dipping sauces that you could. There's three.

Matt 8:49

There's actually three. You can get it with ranch, you can get it with beer cheese, or you can get it with cinnamon butter.

Jen 8:54

And we don't do ranch, so we always do the beer cheese. You do the cinnamon butter one.

Matt 9:00

You love that. So good.

Jen 9:01

I I like that too, but the beer cheese to me is just amazing. I want I could just drink it out of those little cups. They can just feed me that all day.

Matt 9:10

That's amazing to me. There is another establishment in the area that serves beer cheese soup straight up, and Jen has been known to ask for it in a barrel-sized container, wondering if she can get the whole pot of it to go on the way out. The beer cheese at birthright is outstanding. It's so good.

Jen 9:28

So we usually get that. Last time we needed food quickly because our daughter was starving. So we asked if they could just bring out some fries for her. Yeah. And they did. And they have two different types of fries there. They have one with the Cajun spices, which is amazing. One that you can get, I believe, with cheese on it. And then they have just plain. So we got her just plain salt and pepper fries. She thought they were the most amazing fries she's ever had in her entire life.

Matt 9:59

And she is a fry connoisseur. She's bounced all around most of Pennsylvania and a good chunk of Florida at this point.

Jen 10:06

It's her main, pretty much part of her uh food pyramid fries.

Matt 10:10

Don't judge us.

Jen 10:11

They're right at the top.

Matt 10:12

No, it's the base. It's definitely the base holding up the rest of the pyramid.

Jen 10:15

Yeah, that's true. Obsessed with fries. So they were. At the top is chocolate ice cream. She's yes, and ice cream. Those were the best fries she's ever had. And they are amazing. They remind me of like boardwalk fry at the beach. So I'm not surprised that she loved them so well because she does like the boardwalk fries. And I could actually eat the fries there because they do not fry in peanut oil. I also have a peanut tree nut allergy. So note to anyone who else has allergies and has to ask about menu items, they do not fry in peanut oil, which is nice. So I can have all the things that I love.

Matt 10:48

I know also you've had something there that I haven't had, and it's very easy to notice right when you walk in. There's a big pizza oven right on your left. It's like a brick pizza oven. It smells fantastic. You can normally smell it when you're approaching birthright before the door is even open. I've never had the pizza there though, and I'll explain why in a minute. But I think you have had it at some point.

Jen 11:10

I've had some of it. Our daughter, like I said earlier, she is an extremely picky eater. And it was like really crisp, light type of crust. She really liked it. I was surprised because she is also super picky when it comes to pizza, one of her other favorite food items, and she ate half of it. So that's how we know that she likes it. Because if she doesn't really touch it when we go out places, you know, something's wrong with it. It's not her brand, or she doesn't like something in it, but she really loved the pizza and raved about it. I tried it, I thought it was really good.

Matt 11:43

Yeah. So if you're paying attention so far, that means that we are on the same page food-wise as our six and a half year old. So when we say we're picky eaters, we all like the same types of things. Yeah, we all have things a little on the plainer side.

Jen 11:57

It was good. I was good. I definitely get it again for sure. I've had other things there as well. I had the macaroni and cheese, and that was amazing. You can top it with different items. I chose the bacon because I mean, who doesn't love bacon? It makes everything better. So I had bacon put on it, and I believe there's like a buttered bread crumb on top, something, something like that. It was so good. It's super cheesy. It comes out burning hot, and that's great because I love when I go to a restaurant and their food is burning hot. If it's not burning hot, I will send it back. So they bring it out in like a crock, and it was just, it was so good. You could share this, by the way, because it was huge. I couldn't eat it all. I took half of it home. If you're gonna share, you might not want to share when you're out. Sometimes I don't like to share my food.

Matt 12:46

But that speaks to the portion sizes for birthright in general. They're not small portions, they are large. It is very pub fair. You're gonna have plenty to eat. Yeah, most of the appetizers, if not all, are very shareable. If you want to share, if you want. For those of you that have ever seen friends, which I feel like as I'm saying that everybody's seen friends, or at least, or you've been living on another planet or under a large rock, there is a wonderful episode where Joey yells at everybody around the dinner table. Joey does not share food. That is Jen. That is me. Yeah.

Jen 13:17

Yeah. If you take something off my plate without asking, I'm gonna freak out a little bit. Or if you put your fork in my food and you eat off my plate, that happened one time where I used to work. I literally just gave the girl my lunch. I said, just take it because I think that's gross. I just don't do sharing food that way. No, I'm not gonna go.

Matt 13:36

I can't even share food with you. No, that applies to me as well. Absolutely will not share food with me after 11 plus years of marriage. Or drinks.

Jen 13:43

I feel like, I don't know, if somebody's eating something I don't like and then they're like, try my drink.

Matt 13:48

I'm afraid like something's gonna be floating in it, and I just as I've said to her many times, we've made a baby, but she won't share a fork.

Jen 13:55

I'll share with our baby. That doesn't bother me, which is weird because kids I feel like are more germy, but I don't know.

Matt 14:03

So I mentioned before that I've never tried the pizza, and that's because every time we go, I do try different things, but I tend to go back to the birthright burger because it is fantastic. And you're a burger guy in general. You love burgers. Yes, I tend to love to try the cheeseburger wherever I happen to go. If I'm in an area and I'm going back to the same restaurant multiple times, guaranteed cheeseburger is always night one. If it's a good cheeseburger, it's gonna be night two as well. I can tell you the best cheeseburger though I ever had, Gen and I's Honeymoon on a dock at a place called Moritz Resort in the Cayman Islands.

Jen 14:37

That's amazing.

Matt 14:38

I don't know what was in that burger.

Jen 14:39

They put mayo on it, and we normally do not like mayo, but it was the best mayonnaise combination with the burger I've we've ever had.

Matt 14:50

That being said, in the top 10 of burgers for me, birthright burger right there, because it has something on the burger that I really enjoy. And a lot of people sometimes go, eh, you can get it with a sunny side up egg. It is a half-pound Angus burger topped with cheddar bacon, arugula, and bacon jam. And as I said, I will get it generally without the arugula and bacon jam. We'll go with the sunny sign-up egg, the bacon, the cheddar cheese. They just cook it to perfection. There's so much flavor in it, and it's it is a half-pound burger. I'll give you a little background on Matt. Matt, at one point in his life, worked for Fudruckers. I was a line cook for Fudruckers. I made burgers for a solid year for Fudruckers. And I can tell you, we weighed out the patties. We made sure they were accurate as to their size. A lot of places you go and they're like, this is a half-pound burger. Yeah, it's an eighth of a pound worth of burger. And you need to order another burger. Yeah, generally you're not full yet, and you're looking at it going, what is that tiny little hockey puck? The Birthright Burger is every bit of a half-pound burger. It is thick, it is juicy, and just I won't remind now because I'm talking about it. We might end up there for dinner, but that sounds great.

Jen 16:00

I think I could just eat beer cheese with the side of the bacon jam. I could probably just make a meal out of bacon jam and beer cheese.

Matt 16:08

That's I mean, as long as you had something to dip in it, maybe that pretzel to dip in there or something. I don't even need it. Just give me a straw and I'll just drink it. So interestingly, something we didn't know before we went and we kind of looked at the menu just to refresh our memories because when we're there for dinner, we look down the dinner menu and that's it. I looked online, they have a brunch menu. Ooh. They serve brunch 10 a.m. to one Saturdays and Sundays. I did not know that. And they have delicious-looking things like a brunch pizza. What's a brunch pizza? It says ham, goat cheese, apple, sage, and eggs on a pizza. Wow, that's interesting. They have cheddar bacon biscuit sandwich. Okay, you have me at that. I'm good. They have one called biscuit love. Biscuit Love has housemade buttermilk biscuits served with fresh strawberry preserves. You can add sausage, gravy, or eggs. They have some bacon French toast with caramel. Okay, I gotta go check that out. That sounds like the best thing ever. We have two or three different kinds of fritata on here. Avocado toast. What's a frittata? I'm not sure what that is. I know it has egg in it. Okay. And other stuff. I'm gonna say it's kind of like an omelette, and I know that's wrong. And anybody who's knows more about food than me is probably listening, going, oh my god, it's nothing like an omelet. And I yes, I'll give you that. Well, so I'm looking here. They also have the breakfast classics like Bloody Mary's and mimosas. So if you want to re start recreating that mimosa episode we did for drinkables, this is a good place to start and find three items that go really well with your mimosa as opposed to what we did.

Jen 17:44

I drink a non-alcoholic mimosa. It's not as good, but it gets the job done. It gets you the flavor, right? Yeah, it gets the flavors. So that sounds good. What else they have?

Matt 17:53

They also have, for those of you with little ones that might be listening, they have kids' pancakes and kids' French toast, so tiny little kids' menu there. And then you can add any side you want, bacon, breakfast, potatoes, that sort of thing. Nice. That sounds really good. We're gonna have to try that. You also had the macaroni and cheese there. I think I stole some off your plate and almost got stabbed in the hand.

Jen 18:14

Yes, we did talk about that, but I wanted to add you can also put chicken on the macaroni and cheese. I've never tried that. I do love chicken, but I always usually get the bacon on it. I mean, I guess you can do a chicken bacon uh maybe I'll try that next time. That does sound pretty good, but I kind of just always tend to lean towards the bacon on everything.

Matt 18:34

And you know what? I I mentioned the burger before and I neglected to do something I really wanted to do. So, as is Matt and Friends Drink the Universe tradition here, when we have something that's really great or we really like, we take that as an occasion to make everybody sip their beer. So I'm gonna give the Birthright burger my Stellar Sip. Stellar Sip. Yeah, and we also noticed that Birthright does have some activities going on. They have open mic nights every once in a while. They seem to be scheduled on Wednesdays when they do happen. And they have stand-up comedy nights as well. I've seen at least two or three of those in the last couple of months. That's interesting. Yeah, so if you're under a little stand-up, that'd be a good place to start. Oh, we'll have to check that out. Date now. That sounds good. It seemed like the mix of comics they got were some local, some maybe coming in doing like a little mini tour or something like that.

Jen 19:30

Okay. That's interesting. I would want to check that out, definitely.

Matt 19:33

And it's a small enough venue that it would be an intimate setting. You wouldn't be sitting 40, 50 feet back from the comic. You're gonna be pretty close.

Jen 19:41

Well, I'm wondering where how they set that up because they do have two different rooms there, because they bought out that other section of the building not too long ago, and they also hold events. So people can have private events there, parties. So they do have two different sections where the game and shuffleboard table is, that's where they do their events.

Matt 20:01

Yes, yes. On the so when you walk in, there's kind of a main dining area and the bar, and then to the right, there's a doorway with a newer section, and in there's the the games and the shuffleboard table. There's also an old phone booth in there, which is super interesting to explain to my kid what a phone booth was. She couldn't comprehend the fact that at one point in human history people didn't just carry their phones in their pockets.

Jen 20:22

She didn't want to go in it. She was like afraid. She's like, What do you mean you go in it?

Matt 20:26

Shut the door. She's like, No, she was very weird. Like, why am I going in this tank-like thing? Why would I get locked in? I don't want to do that. But I don't really think you should go in it either. There, I think there was a sign on it. Um, I I didn't let her, just so the universe knows. I didn't let her go in it, but she did ask. People go in that. It's weird. I don't want to go in that thing. Any closing thoughts you got over there?

Jen 20:50

I think in general, it's a great place to go. It's like I said earlier, it's very chill. You can go in after work, grab a drink, grab an appetizer. We usually tend to go on a Saturday afternoon, Sunday afternoon. Yeah. We usually tend to go a little bit later, but I think overall it's a great place to go. It's somewhere you can just hang out with your friends.

Matt 21:11

Yeah, it doesn't seem to get too crowded either. No. We've, I think maybe one time we waited five minutes for a table, but we've been there Friday, Saturday nights. And yeah, it's busy. There are definitely people there, but you're not ass is to elbows, unable to stand or anything like that. You're able to get a table and be comfortable and people aren't standing on top of you. Like we said, we we took our daughter there and uh we didn't feel uncomfortable or like we were too crunched or was too loud or anything like that. If your ears are a little sensitive, it doesn't get really loud in there. I was there one night though, where it was a little more crowded. They had a food truck out front uh serving some lobster. I love food truck lobster. And that night it was a little crowded, a little harder to get a table. So the friend of mine that I was there with and I just decided we were gonna sit up at the bar. We had an appetizer, we had a couple of drinks. And it was fun. Nice. And the one thing I will say about their beer menu is it changes every time I go. And I appreciate that because that means they're brewing, they're hard at work, not resting on any brewer's laurels. They are trying different things. They have some lighter IPAs that are really great. Some Citrus Sunrise IPA, a double mosaic mirrors that is really great. It's a little higher. It's an 8.5 ABV, but very, very good. Passion Fruit Pilsner. Right now, a venti pump cuccino. That sounds very interesting. Sounds very full. Yes, and they have a Toffee Nut Brown porter as well, which I'm wondering if that's an offshoot of the getting close or if it's close to the getting close. They also had a pumpkin ale, and I'm looking for the exact name of it as I'm talking, but they had a pumpkin Halloween-themed beer that was very good, very heavy on the ginger. It's a very good beer. Was it a dark beer? It was a darker beer. It was a darker beer. They had an Oktoberfest as well. I've never had a bad beer from birthright. If I go somewhere and I don't like a beer, I tend to be a little cranky about it. Yeah, especially because the craft beer scene, it's seven or eight dollars a beer. We've talked on this podcast before about the untapped app, and that some of us rely on the untapped app as our memory because we'll go someplace, we'll check in, we'll go, oh yeah, the next time we're back there. I remember that one. It wasn't that great. So I pay for it again.

Jen 23:24

For it again if you didn't like it and waste the money, get something else.

Matt 23:27

But I will say at Birthright, I've never had a beer that I didn't enjoy. They were all good. I don't think you're gonna go wrong trying different things. Food's good. Yeah, and to that, to that point about the beer, you can bring a diverse group of you know beer enthusiasts there, and you're gonna find something that everybody likes. And I'll leave you with this. They just brought out a bacon stout called Don't Go Bacon My Heart. Ooh. And the little description they give for that one key ingredients, smoky aromas, solid oatmeal stout base, uh, sung maple and bacon as the key ingredients. Wow. I have to try that one. So I think we're definitely going for dinner now. If that wasn't smell it, that's about all I can do, and just pretend I'm drinking it. I'll tell you what, I will drink one. You smell it, and if you think it smells good, I'll drink another one for you. Okay. Sounds like a well, thank you everybody for listening to us once again here at Matt and Friends Drink the Universe. We're always happy to have you as listeners.

Jen 24:28

And thanks again for having me as your special best friend guest today.

Matt 24:33

Super special. All the special. Absolutely very special friend.

Jen 24:37

Well, thanks for listening, everyone.

Matt 24:40

Yeah, and go check out Birthright Brewery, first chance you get here in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. This episode's boozy quote comes from English singer Dave Barry. Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcast from, like Apple Podcasts, Google, Amazon, or iHeartRadio. Like, follow, and push all the buttons for us on social media, Mat and Friends DTU. That's Matt and Friends DTU for Facebook and Instagram. For more information about the podcast, please visit MatinFriendsDTU.com.

Jen 25:16

Hey listeners, we're all here to have fun, and we'd like to take a moment to encourage you to always drink responsibly. Never drink and drive. If you have a complicated relationship with alcohol or any other substances and want to talk about it, you can call 1-800-662-4357 for support. Cheers and thanks for listening.