Cars Moved Sanatoga Back In Time In Saturday’s Show
Cars Moved Sanatoga Back In Time In Saturday’s Show
Posted on 18 June 2013.
This 1947 Chrysler Town Country won a People’s Choice Award at Saturday’s show
SANATOGA PA – Dozens of proud drivers and their vintage automobiles, trucks and vans – and hundreds of spectators – arrived Saturday (June 15, 2013) in Sanatoga for the ninth annual open house and cruise-in at Blast From The Past Street Rods Inc., 2965 E. High St.
As he has in the past, company owner Bill Borneman dedicated the event to assist Helping Hands Inc. of Boyertown PA, an area non-profit that assists individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities. Activities at and registration fees for the show raised more than $2,800 on its behalf.
Car owners in attendance “oohed” and “ahhed” at some of the prizes being offered as participation incentives, including a gift certificate for $1,000 of work to be done in Borneman’s garages.
Visitors, meanwhile, expressed similar sentiments for the sheet metal eye candy on display across the shop’s lots. Smooth lines, bright color of every hue, and gleaming engines (in photos above and below) caused guests to pause, linger, and talk about their own favorite rides.
See more photos at the Facebook page for Blast From The Past, here.
St. Eleanor’s Community Carnival (Collegeville PA)
St. Eleanor’s Community Carnival (Collegeville PA)
Posted on 18 June 2013.
Date/Time
Date(s) – 06/18/2013
5:30 pm – 10:00 pm
Location
St. Eleanor’s Church and Holy Cross School
Category(ies)
Tuesday through Saturday, June 18-22, from 5:30-10 p.m. at 6th and Locust streets, Collegeville PA
For its scheduled:
More 422 Speeders Ticketed Sunday In Construction Zone
More 422 Speeders Ticketed Sunday In Construction Zone
Posted on 10 June 2013.
SANATOGA PA – Ninety-four citations for speeding, tickets for three other moving violations, and a misdemeanor drug arrest were the fruits of labors by the Lower Pottsgrove and Pottstown police departments and Pennsylvania state troopers as they wrapped up two weeks of speed enforcement details Sunday (June 9, 2013) within the construction zone of U.S. Route 422 at near the Armand Hammer Boulevard interchange.
More speeding tickets were issued Sunday in the U.S. Route 422 construction zone
For drivers who got caught during three separate exercises held over the 14-day period, they proved to be expensive lessons in obeying signs, Lower Pottsgrove Sgt. Robert Greenwood said. His clear message, via e-mail: “All motorists traveling 422 in the 40 mph construction zone are warned that the … speed limit is ALWAYS in effect and will be enforced with NO warnings.”
There were alerts of a sort. Social media networks were aflame Sunday as drivers or their passengers saw law enforcers out on the highway and broadcast a flood of messages about their presence. They apparently were ineffective.
The same networks carried occasionally profanity-laced grumbles of those stopped. They complained that, when construction work was not active, speed enforcement should be unnecessary. But work crews aren’t the only ones being protected, Greenwood countered. “This is to ensure the safety of all highway workers and motorists traveling in the limited-lane construction zone,” he said.
Lane restrictions are becoming more frequent and complicated, the state Department of Transportation warned last week. Intermittent traffic stoppages are likely to occur on 422 throughout June as road and bridge improvements continue between the Sanatoga and Stowe interchanges, PennDOT announced. The 8- to 10-year duration of those upgrades mean enforcement details will be a long-term condition for motorists.
The enforcement details were funded in part by Pennsylvania’s Click-It-Or-Ticket seat belt awareness program, Greenwood added.
Photo from Google Images
Pottsgrove Locks Down High School After False ID Alert
Pottsgrove Locks Down High School After False ID Alert
Posted on 12 June 2013.
POTTSTOWN PA – Pottsgrove High School went into lock-down mode early Tuesday morning (June 11, 2103), as teachers and administrators searched for a young man who used a false name to sign into and enter the Kauffman Road building.
He was quickly located in the company of another teacher, and was interviewed and searched by administrators as a precaution. They then deemed no threat existed to students and re-opened the building, the Pottsgrove School District announced on its Facebook page.
Neither the true name of the individual involved, or of the teacher he visited, were revealed. No reason was reported why the visitor chose to falsify his name. It was not disclosed how the falsification was discovered, if the young man was allowed to stay on the premises, if Lower Pottsgrove Township police were alerted or involved, or if charges were contemplated or filed.
The lock-down began at 7:58 a.m., according to the Facebook status update, which added that “safety is a primary concern for the high school staff.” Parents of high school students reportedly were notified of the situation by e-mail.
Photo from Google Images
Gonzo Home Brewing – Baltimore Post
I wasn’t planning on writing this article, but something happened Tuesday that I found compelled to write this while the memory was fresh.
A few weeks ago, I drove out to Flying Dog Brewery in Frederick, MD to pick up a Stove Topper. What’s a Stove Topper you ask? A Stove Topper is a homebrew kit offered by Flying Dog Brewery to clone one of their beers. Each month a different selection drops at the brewery and a few select stores.
The monthly selection usually matches up pretty well with the brewing calendar for appropriate styles. For example, their August selection will be The Fear Imperial Pumpkin Ale which should be ready around October if you brew it immediately. Perfect for fall.
The selection for May was Single Hop Imperial IPA with Citra. Flying Dog’s Single Hop Series has been one of my favorites for a while. Sure I like some varieties of hops more than others, but I haven’t had one from this series that I didn’t like. Since this month’s selection was the Citra varietal, I was really excited. As Citra has become very popular, and can be hard to come by.
During Frederick Beer week I ran into Ben Savage, Flying Dog’s VP of Marketing, and he told me that some homebrewers had been purchasing the Single Hop Citra kit just for the hops inside. I thought this was silly, since there are easier ways to get Citra. In fact, the day I purchased my Stove Topper kit I also stopped by Flying Barrel in Frederick for some home brew supplies, and noticed that they had Citra in stock.
I think it is extremely cool that a brewery is reaching out to the homebrew community with brewery sponsored clone recipes. Now, this kit isn’t perfect, and I will touch on that later. For now, let’s walk through what you get.
All kits will be different, but here’s what was in mine. 2 (large) malt bags, with Pale, Rye, Carapils, and Biscuit Malt. 5 portioned bags of hops. A packet of yeast nutrient and kettle finings. Some gypsum if you need to make water ion adjustments. 2 vials of yeast and 50 Flying Dog bottle caps. And of course instructions.
One thing you will notice in what was in the box, or what was NOT in the box. No Dry Malt Extract or Liquid Malt Extract. While DME and LME are prominent in the bulk of home brew kits made, it is not a part of this. Flying Dog calls the Stove Topper series “A Home Brew Clone Kit for Advanced Home Brewers”
One of the obstacles that home brewers face that professional brewers do not, is finding the time to brew. For the professionals, it’s their job, and many breweries are 24 hour a day operations. My home brewery is not a 24 hour operation. Mostly because I do not operate for 24 hours, and my day tends to get pretty carved up between work and my family. I am mentioning this because finding the time to brew this particular batch was becoming difficult. Every weekend had something that needed to be done. Whether it was a social event, cutting the grass, or watching my kids while my wife is working, there was always something in the way. I was starting to lose hope for finding a 6 hour block of time.
Then while talking with a co-worker he mentioned that he likes to brew at night after work. Why didn’t I think of that? So I found a Tuesday that I could brew. I had to skip my homebrew club meeting to do it, but I figured what is more in the spirit of homebrew than actual brewing? Nothing.
Five o’clock is here. Time to stop working, and start brewing! Those of you that brew, especially all-grain brewers, know that brewing is work. Actual physical labor too, which is a change for us Millennial Information Workers.
Here’s where I’ll mention some of the flaws of this kit. They are mainly in the instructions. The instructions are detailed, but a selective in what details are provided. For instance, there is no breakdown of the ingredients. I have no idea how much Rye Malt I added or Carapils or even Pale Malt which was the bulk of it. I understand that Flying Dog is trying to protect their product, but this made things a little more difficult for me. Only because I, like many brewers, basically take the instructions from a kit like this, and throw them in the trash. I am being figurative of course, there is still some very important information contained in those pages. But I like to add all of the ingredients into my brewing software, which is customized for my equipment profile and brewing style.
My garage brewery
I’ll provide a couple examples: “Increase mash temp to 160° F and rest for 5 minutes” That’s great if you are someone that uses a Mash Tun with a heat source. But many of us use a more passive approach with cooler and other similar apparatus. When using software I am able to calculate how much water, and what temperature to add to achieve a suitable temperature to “mash out.” For those unfamiliar, mashing out is raising the temperature of the mash to stop the conversion of sugars. This prevents unwanted off flavors. Next I was told to head 2.5 to 3 gallons of sparge water. Which for my equipment is not enough. This was to collect 6.25 to 6.75 gallons of water in the boil kettle. Once again, this is too low for my purposes. I calculated I would need 8.27 gallons of water in my boil kettle to have 5.5 gallons remaining post-boil.
So despite my petty complaints about the instructions, I was able to getting 8.27 gallons of wort into my boil kettle to begin the final 90 minute boil. This is where I really enjoyed the simplicity of this kit. All of my hop additions were in clearly marked bags ready to be dropped in the kettle when the time was right. As the boil went on, I started to become very concerned that my calculations of 8.27 gallons was way too much. Oops. I started making contingency plans for a longer boil or just resigning myself to the fact I screwed up. And then my 90 minute boil was up, and the moment of truth was here. 1) What would my post boil volume be and 2) What would my SG (starting gravity) be?
It took the water a minute or two to settle down to where I could get an accurate volume reading. And behold! The post boil volume was exactly 5.5 gallons! I was very happy. The next step was to get the wort cooled, and get a gravity reading. Woohoo! The target SG for this kit was 1.082 and to my wonderment and surprise I was slightly more efficient and had a reading of 1.084. Wow. I really couldn’t be happier. That isn’t really true, I had blood running down my thumb and all over the ground. For some reason Blichmann Engineering makes the treads on their plate chillers razor sharp. This is not my first cut on that piece of equipment, and likely not the last.
So at that moment, I was ecstatic. Time to pitch the yeast, clean up, and go to bed. I had made a yeast starter the night before with the Flying Dog Chico Ale yeast they had supplied. Unlike store bought yeast, it was not brown, it was a bright green. As it was harvested for Flying Dog’s fermenters. I pitched the yeast, and aerated the wort well, and went to bed.
What I hope to see
Upon awaking, I wanted to go check on my baby. I have become accustomed to seeing beer fermenting wildly after just a few hours since I have begun making yeast starters and a stir plate. This was not the case. I had an inch thick film of yeast cake on top, but not the 6-8 inches that I am used to. I haven’t made a decision on what to do yet, but I really need to figure it out, or I may have wasted 6 hours in my garage this past Tuesday.
Overall, I would say that this is a great product, and a great brewing experience. Many brewers will reach out to the home brew community by holding home brew competitions. Some, like DuClaw will even brew the winner’s beer. Some might work with a retailer to sell a clone kit. But this is the first time I have heard of a brewery making their own kits, from their stock of malt, hops, and house yeast. Truly Awesome!
Where to find:
Flying Dog Brewery, Frederick, MD
The Flying Barrel, Frederick, MD
Gilly’s Craft Beer Fine Wine, Rockville, MD
Nepenthe Homebrew, Baltimore, MD
Pottsgrove Seniors Smile, Wave Goodbye To High School
Pottsgrove Seniors Smile, Wave Goodbye To High School
Posted on 13 June 2013.
All those caps, thrown by all those happy Falcons
POTTSTOWN PA – With lots of smiles, cheers and air horn blasts, and a tear or two as well, the 2013 graduates of Pottsgrove High School said farewell Wednesday (June 12, 2013) to their alma mater, under bright blue and lightly cloudy skies and in pleasant temperatures with a cooling breeze inside the stadium on School Lane. The school’s 57th commencement produced a class that Principal Yolanda Williams said was among the best and highest achieving of the past eight years, with a significant percentage bound for colleges bearing more than $2 million in awarded scholarships.
Class president Ian Yanusko receives his diploma from Board of School Directors’ President Scott Fulmer and Pottsgrove School District Superintendent Shellie Feola
Diplomas stacked next to the speaker’s dais awaited distribution
Commencement guests were entertained by several musical numbers, including one by selected members of the high school choir
Graduates, teachers, performers, and the stage across which those receiving diplomas walked, all filled the stadium’s south end
Parking spaces – ANY parking spaces – were at a premium as usual, as crowds of parents, friends and well-wishers filled the risers on both sides of the athletic field
A commencement program lies on the ground, weighted in place by a pair of glasses
Top photo from Bill Ziegler via Twitter
New Bursich Website Makes Engineering Understandable
New Bursich Website Makes Engineering Understandable
Posted on 13 June 2013.
The Bursich home page
SANATOGA PA – Bursich Associates, the Sanatoga-based civil engineering and surveying firm, re-launched its website with a new design and extra content, Director of Business Development Brian Fraley said Wednesday (June 12, 2013).
The new site is built around six general categories that represent the firm’s services: land development, municipal, transportation, wastewater, construction services, and 3D-laser scanning. It also adds dynamic features.
“Our goal was to create a website that is visually appealing, succinct, and easily navigable,” Fraley said. Because Bursich clients represent a variety of industries from state transportation agencies to private residents, he added, “we wanted to create an online experience that makes complex services we offer understandable to all.”
Bursich Associates, Inc., founded in 1972, has a staff of 30 professionals and operates an additional location in Bucks County.
Photo from Bursich Associates
Lower Pottsgrove Thief A Cool One, With Chiller Missing
SANATOGA PA – A Lower Pottsgrove business is missing a 7-1/2-ton chiller, and township police are hunting for someone with nerves icy enough to steal it, Chief Michael Foltz has told the Board of Commissioners.
Ofc. Chris DiPiano, one of the police department’s two criminal investigators, “is actively working (the) theft case” from the property of ValTech Corp., 2113 Sanatoga Station Rd., Foltz told board members in a report during their June 3 (2013; Monday) meeting. Valtech, a global manufacturer of detergents, adhesives and polymers used for high-technology devices like solar cells and computer hard drives, operates its headquarters here.
In the bustle of police activity that surrounded the Sanatoga Station Road murder last month of Pottsgrove High School graduate Kareem Ali Borowy, which occurred near Valtech’s operations, corporate officials noticed and notified police that the chiller had disappeared. It apparently was being operated at the time; Foltz said it was “previously used for cooling water” at the facility.
The more than 7-ton rating for the York-brand chiller does not refer to its actual weight, but to the amount of cooling power it supplies. Foltz said Valtech estimated the unit’s value at $2,000.
Walking away with a chiller of that size, however, may have required special equipment and the involvement of more than one individual, online experts indicated. Other chillers with the same tonnage rating were estimated to be roughly 3-feet wide and 5-feet long, and to weigh more than 1,000 pounds.
The investigation remains active, and is unrelated to the Borowy case, Foltz said.
Photo from Google Images
MidWeek MashUp: Beer from Start to Finish at Lexington Beerworks
Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA being infused with Citra hops
BY CHRIS CAMPBELL
If you’re a male (or an extremely un-evolved female) between the ages of 18 and Larry King, chances are you’ve sat around with a group of buddies and decided that you will one day open a bar. Logistics be damned! This is indeed both the best and most original idea yet conceived by western thought – besides, of course, graciously offering up your telephone number to your server. This scenario is most often punctuated by a taxi ride home, headache, and no business plan…and definitely no call from a number you don’t recognize.
There is, however, a very small portion of the population who has had such ideas, and actually come up with some sort of strategy to make this boozy dream a reality. I’m talking about the bar idea, not the “number on the receipt” trick. Though you may pass Greg Leimer, Mike Vincent or Jason Wolf in the Meijer produce section one day and not think twice about their penchant for star fruit or their amazingly diverse selection of cheeses, take this opportunity to now pause and give adulation. These dudes did what you said you would do and then forgot about. They’re better than you. They opened the Lexington Beerworks.
Greg, Jason and Mike, work buddies, would find themselves musing about being the proprietors of an establishment of some sort. Jason Wolf, self-described “beer guy” of the triumvirate, elucidated on the genesis of LBW.
“We would sit around and talk about entrepreneurial crap….business plans, strategies….but we one day realized that we were always doing this while enjoying craft beer.”
The three all decided that the beverage that accompanied all these discussions – craft beer – would not only be the driving force behind their brainchild, it in fact, would be brainchild itself.
Wolf continued. “We decided that Beerworks would be a comprehensive entity: Beer from start to finish.”
What does that mean? Well, in some circles that would involve the beer glass first being full, and then being empty. These guys had a bigger plan. At Lexington Beerworks, you can find a selection of at least 10 craft beers on tap (and many more in the bottle) or you can find a wide selection of home brewing supplies. Here, you can literally buy the ingredients of the product you hope to create for consumption, or consume a version of the finished product itself. It’s like being Johnny Cash in the song “One Piece at a Time” and going to the car dealership all at once.
LBW is the homebrewer’s source for ingredients, apparatuses, advice and even tutorials. While it’s not the only homebrew source in Lexington, it definitely is the most comprehensive, and plans are to increase the scope of supplies in the future.
The Beerworks is “right about expected” in terms of sales as they start their 18th month of operation and though the homebrewing section provides a niche, the crux of the Beerworks’ business is still serving the finished product. Kentucky is the 8th fastest growing state in terms of craft beer production in the past calendar year, and Lexington’s Alltech, Country Boy and West Sixth breweries are major players in that upward trend. But places like Lexington Beerworks and The Beer Trappe (Lexington’s first exclusively craft beer grocery and taproom and the subject of an upcoming article) have the challenge of staying current and interesting to the beer connoisseur without offering their own in-house product. LBW has an interesting, alliterative answer to that challenge: Mid-week Mash-up.
Starting on Derby Day, LBW began utilizing an apparatus made by the Dogfish Head brewery called the Randall. According to Dogfish, the Randall is “a…filter system that allows the user to run draft beer though hops, spices, fruit, etc. so that the alcohol in the beer strips the flavor from whatever you add and puts it in the beer.” Appropriately enough, that first Randall experiment implemented an infusion of mint leaves in Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale. While the Randall looks like something that your buddy in college who listened to Bob Marley kept in his dorm room next to his lava lamp, the Randall is both legal and harmless.
The Derby Day experiment turned into a weekly Wednesday night event. Each week, a new beer will be offered up for infusion, and Wolf hopes that the mash-up will keep longtime patrons interested as well as attract new customers who may have never have had anything really draw them to try craft beer.
“We will rotate different beers every week so we’re not infusing the same style every week” says Wolf. “Certain beers lend themselves to different types of infusions. We will rotate with dark beers (coffee, chocolate, fruits), hoppy beers (hops), and lighter beers (fruit).”
While Beerworks isn’t brewing their own beers, they are literally putting their own flavor on an amazingly fast growing industry that has caught fire in Lexington. While the closest you may have ever come to infusing beer with anything may have been when you put a Jolly Rancher in your Zima in the summer of ’94, don’t be surprised to see Werther’s Original, peppers, chai tea, peaches or apricots adding flavor to your favorite brew sometime soon.
The three owners of LBW had an idea much like many of us have had: to open a bar. They followed through. And, they’re putting a unique slant on the craft beer scene in Lexington without brewing their own beer. The mid-week mash-up every Wednesday provides an opportunity to try new beers or to put a twist on ones that you know well. Who knows, the next time you and your friends sample an Anderson Valley Summer Solstice with blueberries and raspberries or a Founders Imperial Stout with cocoa nibs and vanilla beans, you may come up with the next big business plan. When you leave, tip the Lexington Beerworks bartenders well. Don’t leave your number on the receipt though. They won’t call you back.
This article appears on page 4 of the June 13, 2013 print edition of Ace.
Click to subscribe to the Ace e-dition (delivered to your inbox every Thursday), and stay tuned for more Lexington craft beer news from Chris Campbell.
This Week: Go Fish, Go Play; Pottsgrove’s Done (Hooray!)
This Week: Go Fish, Go Play; Pottsgrove’s Done (Hooray!)
Posted on 10 June 2013.
SANATOGA PA – The following events are scheduled to occur this week (Monday though Sunday, June 10-16), as provided to The Post calendar:
- June 10: Lower Pottsgrove Sewer Authority (Sanatoga PA)
- June 10: Seniors’ Center Golf Outing (Gilbertsville PA)
- June 10: Steel River Playhouse Open House (Pottstown PA)
- June 10: Job Seekers And Legal Issues Seminar (Downingtown PA)
- June 11: YMCA ‘Yoga In The Yard’ (Pottstown PA)
- June 12: Summer Playground Registration Due (Pottstown PA)
- June 12: Schuylkill Trail Connector Discussion (Phoenixville PA)
- June 12: Pottsgrove Last Day Of School (Pottstown PA)
- June 12: Pottsgrove High School Graduation (Pottstown PA)
- June 12: Summer Play Group Session (Pottstown PA)
- June 13: Health Care Reform Discussion (Pottstown PA)
- June 14: Play: ‘La Cage Aux Folles’ (Pottstown PA)
- June 15: Play: ‘La Cage Aux Folles’ (Pottstown PA)
- June 15: Sunnybrook Reopening Fifth Anniversary (Sanatoga PA)
- June 15: Soap Box Derby 2013 (Pottstown PA)
- June 15: Fishing Derby (Sanatoga PA)
- June 16: Weight Loss Surgery Seminar (Phoenixville PA)
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