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Monthly Archives: December 2024

Christmas Spectacular: Lower Paxton Christkindlmarkt and Independent Ground Coffee

That was a mouthful. As it turns out, so was the coffee. So were many things at Lower Paxton Christkindlmarkt last Saturday in downtown Linglestown, PA. A bit of background is in order here. Around this time of year, we start preparing for the holidays and begin shedding festivals. The second part of that sentence is the bothersome one. There isn’t much to do out and about after autumn and its pumpkin spice glories have passed. Cold weather and soaking rain keep people indoors. Then, the snow comes.

I, for one, would be thrilled to attend an outdoor event in the middle of winter. A beer tasting in a snowy field on a crisp clear day sounds like heaven. Give a band some heaters, and we have a plan. There is a festival near here like this in some respects called Ullr Fest. That happens in early December at Ski Roundtop. Vikings lighting a bonfire combine with endless food in a Yule extravaganza. But I want a summer festival in winter. I want tents and vendors and food trucks. I want beer, wine, and free samples of everything.

Enter Lower Paxton Christkindlmarkt. Scroll down to the photos, and you’ll see what I mean. Over a hundred vendors crowd the main drag in the middle of winter for one long day of shopping in a winter wonderland. I waited all year for this festival. I thought it was huge last year, but this year they outdid themselves. The fire hall housed an awesome craft beer far, hot chocolate was plentiful, and extra tents spread well beyond even last year’s expedient expansions. Also, there was coffee. Good coffee. Independent Ground Coffee.

We’re getting in on the ground floor of something very new here. Independent Ground has only been in operation since September. Apparently born of the Rational Republic podcast, Independent Ground Coffee is a homegrown institution in the making for Linglestown. Linglestown is (of course) already known for successful coffee operations. I’ve made no secret that my favorite coffeehouse, St. Thomas Roasters, is also here.

Thankfully, Independent Ground offers something entirely different from St. Thomas, giving the business a role in this otherwise crowded market. First, they’re not technically a coffeehouse…at least, they’re not a coffeehouse yet. Operating out of a building in downtown Linglestown, they ship their coffee everywhere, with free shipping for local deliveries. The various roasts are sourced from a diverse array of roasters all across the county. That’s apropos since Independent Ground fills a specific niche: They’re overtly and proudly patriotic.

That’s not unknown in the coffee community, though it does position them as outsiders given the nature of coffeehouse culture as an institution. Traditionalism is often shunned or reduced to aesthetics in favor of embracing headlong change in all its forms. Not all coffee culture is quick to discount historical cultural expressions, though. Black Rifle is another famous patriotic coffee outfit. They’re well known for opposing certain postmodern policies and supporting police and the military, for example. It’s not as if the past and future are incompatible, though some believe them to be.

Independent Ground is a bit more mellow and universal in its patriotism, mentioning up front on the website a desire to unite people. Ironically, recognizing a common core of humanity beyond tribal identity used to consistently be the heart and soul of a progressive worldview. That’s a discussion (a rant, rather) for another time. Let’s let the beauty of this day and the pure joy of this Hallmark-esque event transcend the manufactured banality and absurdity of politics.

After all, the spirit of the Enlightenment, born as it was in continental coffeehouses, was nothing less than a revolt against ideology itself; a rebellion against both unquestioned/unevolved tradition and unreasoning desire, all in the name of the fact that objective truth (moral and physical) by definition unites us regardless of religion or heritage; the true nature of E Pluribus Unum. Food for thought.

Speaking of consumables, the coffee I had this afternoon was called (appropriately) the Small Town Brew. Unlike most coffees, it blended dark (Columbian), medium (Costa Rican), and light (Guatemalan). Normally, a roast that falls into one category will venture into the next to offset some of its more distinctive characteristics with additions from an adjacent kind. A dark roast will be blended with a medium roast to add balance and nuance to an otherwise bold profile. Blending three together is a little perilous.

It was also delicious. An ambitious blend like this could have gone incredibly bad or very good. In this case, it went splendidly. What happened was (as near as I can tell) the addition of a light roast permitted the flavor of the original beans to shine while the dark roast added hefty acidity which was then balanced by the inclusion of the creamy medium. Whew! It’s nice to be on a roller coaster that doesn’t make me sick. I’ll be looking for this blend again. A few were being offered and I didn’t have the chance to try them all. Something tells me there’s much more to come from these fine folks in the future. For now, it’s back to holiday shopping for me.

I’ll return to the road after Christmas, assuming the car survives repeated freezing and thawing. Until then, I wish all my readers Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Yule, Solstice, etc. The magic of this time of year, after all, is universal. Savor it.

Until next year, stay caffeinated.

the crowd…

the endless tents…

the coffeehouse…

the spread…

the coffee…

the extra coffee…

Roast & Refuel (in Muncy!)

09 Dec

Into the Wilds. After many fits and starts, the Journey is heading into the Pennsylvania Wilds. I’ve been teasing it for a long time, but something always conspired to keep me in the valley. This time, I found the perfect excuse to get me on the road: a road trip with my Mom taking us through our family’s ancestral home in the hills to the north of where the West Branch and North Branch of the Susquehanna River connect.

The coffeehouse we visited today was located in Muncy, a town best known for being an attractive stopover on the way north to Williamsport along Route 180. It’s also known for SCI Muncy, a women’s prison known for housing some of the loveliest female inmates outside Texas, Florida, and Kentucky. OK, there’s more to Muncy than a prison and a gas station. We’ll get to all of that later. Let’s talk coffee.

Roast and Refuel is in the part of Muncy that lies on the east shore of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. It’s located at the far northern end of town, at the intersection of Water Street and Main. The thoroughfare leading into town is stunning, by the way. Tree-lined streets and old stone houses are everywhere. For its size, it has a surprisingly vibrant downtown, at least in the core of it (in the previously mentioned intersection). The building housing Roast and Refuel has been part of that scene for a long time. The coffeehouse is built into an old theatre called The Ritz.

Fantastic news: They left the theatre lobby largely intact. The outside has been kept in its Art Deco glory, but I wondered what had been done to the interior. Not much, really. Two features really stood out: The first was the lounge area that looked much like the green room at the television station where I formerly worked (albeit with a few artsy accoutrements). The second area of note was the long hallway leading to the restrooms. Here, you can see old photographs of Muncy’s past beauty. Like most small towns in Pennsylvania, it’s had a long past, including Quaker settlements in the 1700s and political throwdowns over abolition in the 1800’s.

The coffee was a proprietary roast by Gnosis Coffee Roasters in nearby Lewisburg. We’ve been to Lewisburg before on the Journey. That town and nearby Milton are home to a series of brilliant cafes detailed elsewhere on this blog. It shouldn’t be surprising that Lewisburg is home to a craft coffee roaster. The town hosts Bucknell University and embodies the conventions of college towns everywhere, including a burgeoning coffee scene.

The House Blend was a true mixture of flavors. It synthesized these features through balanced acidity and a general smoothness. The beans hailed from Guatemala and Brazil. They were excellent examples of what these specific locales offer in a cup. In other words, if you enjoy the qualities of these beans specifically, you’ll view this blend as an epitome. The Brazilian beans showed off their dark and velvety aspects and the chocolate and nut flavors and aromas for which they’re famous. Fun fact about Brazilian beans: Usually, they’re optimal for dark roasts, but they can skew medium depending on how they’re brewed. Guatemalans, like most Central American offerings, make balanced medium roasts. Combining the two stiffened the Guatemalan while mellowing the Brazilian. I’m really going to have to pay a visit to Gnosis.

I asked about events here, and the truth is that they’re rather sparse. That said, Roast and Refuel is clearly a center of the artistic community here. A local art studio called Centered Earth holds a painting class in the cafe. I’ve never been there, but with a name like ‘Centered Earth,’ it has to be a bit of a hippie haven. As you can see in the pics below, creative energy oozes from the very walls of Roast and Refuel. Statistically speaking, even if only one in a few hundred people is interested in the arts, every village and hamlet has a secret underground of people who think outside the box. When I think of that, I think of places like this coffeehouse.

On the way home, all I could think of was how massive the landscape was. Yes, that’s the word I’m using despite Grammarly’s protests: massive. The bridges were bigger. The fields were bigger. The entire region took on a traditional quality as if everything was between here and elsewhere. That’s not far from the truth.

Look at a map of the Wilds, and you’ll see only a few major roads crisscrossing the otherwise endless forests and fields. State and national parks sprawl for thousands of acres and getting a signal on your phone is anything but a give. This is a land of adventure, plain, simple, and in the traditional sense of the phrase.

The next leg of the Journey will either be to the northwest (into the center of Pennsylvania), to the north (to Williamsport and deeper into the Wilds), or to the northeast (into the Poconos). I’ll try to keep us in the Wilds this time. If this is what one segment of its creative coffee scene has in store for us, imagine what else there will be. Until next time, stay caffeinated.

Oh, and if I don’t post in two weeks, happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Io Saturnalia, and all the rest!