Tired Hands Fermentaria

I visit my brother and his family once or twice a year at their home just outside Philly - we usually go out for dinner at a local place he thinks we'd like. Knowing that Leah and I are beer lovers, on this visit we headed to Fermentaria, the casual eatery run by the local Tired Hands Brewery.

The food was hit or miss, but we quite enjoyed the beer, especially their outrageous Extra Vanilla Milkshake IPA!

Tired Hands Fermentaria
tiredhands.com
35 Cricket Terrace, Ardmore, PA 19003

Panorama of the spacious eatery, along with the bar area. Some good looking options up there!

We tried a variety of beers between our group. Most were really great, though we were especially wowed by their absolutely wild Extra Vanilla Milkshake IPA, pictured here. The sweet creaminess of the milkshake flavor really came through and was cut surprisingly nicely by the bitter hops. We loved it so much that Leah and I picked up a few 4-packs of cans to take home!

While we were waiting for our table, Leah and I ran down the block to the Tired Hands General Store, where we perused their larger bottles. We selected three to take home, though only enjoyed one. The other two were a bit too experimental and weren't very drinkable. 

Tomatos & Fresh Cheese

A nice fresh opener, the timeless combination of tomato and cheese. A little plain but still pretty good!

Hush Puppies

Crispy and hot - everything a proper fritter should be!

Tacos

Pork Belly

Fried Oysters

These were pretty tasty, though I recall the pork belly being a little bland and the oysters a little dry.

Burger

This was a major disappointment. I expect a brew pub to have a great burger, and this was pretty sad. It was bone-dry and tiny, only about half the size of the bun. Great fries though.

Ebi-Katsu

My sister-in-law's fried pork and shrimp patty was way better. I regretted not ordering this instead of my little hockey puck burger!

Gnocchi

These homemade gnocchi were delicious, with corn, peaches, and fresh ricotta. A major standout of the menu that night, though the peaches were very under-ripe unfortunately.

Corn

This dessert sounded amazing on paper - so much so that we ordered two of them! In reality it was pretty terrible. The corn ice cream was good, but the crumbled pieces of cornbread were completely dried out and the kettle corn was stale. We left most of it on the plate after eating the ice cream. Ugh. 

Vegan Key Lime Pie

Unfortunately this dessert was memorably bad as well. I'm really tired of service staff trying to sell customers on vegan key lime pie by insisting, "It's amazing - you can't tell the difference!" Guys, we can tell the difference. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that restaurants make offerings for vegans to eat, but the texture here was just terrible, like an entire pie made of solidified pudding skin. I try not to be very negative on this blog, but...yuck.