Lost Tavern Brewing

Local folklore says that when Pennsylvania German settlers established a community in the 1740s in what is now Hellertown, one of the first buildings commissioned was a tavern. That wasn’t surprising for the colonial era—it was in the tavern that the most pressing business and political issues of the day were discussed.

While the location of Hellertown’s first tavern has been lost to history, Moravian alumnus Ken Rampolla ’79 decided to honor that legend by forming a partnership to open a craft brewery called Lost Tavern Brewing in the Hellertown building that houses Rampolla’s sales and marketing company, Responsive Marketing Inc.

The partnership began when childhood friends Robert Grim and Anthony Gangi, after years of home brewing and honing their craft, brought the idea to Rampolla and his son, Kenny. “Anthony went to high school with my daughter, and he approached us because they thought [our building] would be an ideal place to have a craft brewery,” Rampolla says. “My son is a beer lover and knew the industry a lot better than I did, so we thought it made sense.” losttavernbrewing.com

Taproom hours

Monday, 5–9 p.m.

Tuesday, closed Wednesday & Thursday, 4–10 p.m.

Friday, 3–10:30 p.m.

Saturday, 12–10:30 p.m.

Sunday, 11 a.m.–7 p.m. (brunch served)

444 Main St. Bethlehem, PA 18018

610-419-0346 losttavernbrewing.com

Taproom hours

Monday, closed

Tuesday–Thursday, 3–10 p.m.

Friday, 3–11 p.m.

Saturday, 12–11 p.m.

Sunday, 11 a.m.–7 p.m. (brunch served)

After the meeting, Rampolla—a longtime member of the Moravian University Board of Trustees—became CEO of Lost Tavern Brewing, with Grim as president, Gangi as head of operations and brewmaster, and Rampolla’s son Kenny as vice president of sales and marketing.

That was seven years ago. Since then, Lost Tavern Brewing has been voted the Lehigh Valley’s number-one brewery a couple of times and continues to expand into new markets and venues. “If you go into the Moravian Book Shop, there’s a restaurant and a taproom in the space,” Rampolla says. “That’s our craft brewery.”

For the first four years of its existence, Lost Tavern Brewing grew at a fast pace, with only limited distribution outside of its own taprooms because it didn’t have enough capacity. But with the addition of a new production facility located just down the road from the main taproom in Hellertown, Lost Tavern Brewing is poised for a substantial increase in the availability of its beer, says Rampolla.

“Kenny and his team have now opened up some significant distribution chains that weren’t there before. We make the signature beer for Saucon Valley Country Club, Wind Creek has made a major move towards us, and several local country clubs are now looking at private label beer from us, as is Blue Mountain Ski Resort. Those are significant growth opportunities that will push us ahead pretty significantly in the next year or so.”

Lost Tavern Brewing’s motto is “honor the past, craft the future,” so customers can expect a wide range of brews on tap, from hoppy IPAs to refreshingly tart wheat beers to fruited cider. Rampolla’s personal favorite is Odd Fellow, a variant of a Belgian ale that tends to be about 8 percent alcohol.

“It’s so flavorful,” Rampolla says, “and I think the name fits me pretty well.”

Kelly Unger ’93 owns a popular cooking studio in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Our writer joined Unger for a hands-on baking class that was sprinkled with culinary tips and recipe ideas so you can level up your kitchen skills, too.

BY KAREN CICERO PHOTOGRAPHY BY KRISTINA GIBB

It’s a rainy Friday afternoon, but there’s nothing dreary about The Rooster & The Carrot, Chef Kelly Unger’s cooking studio in Bucks County. “I feel like I’m in Europe again,” one seasoned traveler tells me as we mingle in a well-equipped, airy space that gives off major French country vibes.

For the next two hours, we’re going to take an often-sold-out hands-on baking class with six other students—most of whom expressed their delight at landing one of the coveted spots. Unger, who graduated from Moravian University in 1992 with a business management degree, runs an überpopular series of cooking classes in a renovated building adjacent to her home in Doylestown. Some are demonstration-style (you watch her do all the work), but for many, like this one, you roll up your sleeves, put on an apron, and handle the ingredients yourself.

Unger calls all of us over to the studio’s centerpiece—a massive kitchen island where there’s a stool and small baking tray lined with brown parchment paper waiting for each of us. She explains that we’re going to be using the trays to make Cream Biscuits, using a recipe that doesn’t require yeast. “All the magic comes from the baking powder,” she says. It’s a relief for a few of us (myself included) who confess that we’ve had drama when we jumped on the pandemic breadmaking bandwagon. We’re also thrilled to hear her response to another question about whether we’re going to need to weigh our ingredients on a kitchen scale. “Only if you want to be a Michelin chef!” she says. “We’re all about family cooking.” Phew!

A natural storyteller, Unger dives into the fascinating background for the class’s second recipe—Naan au Fromage, or cheese-stuffed naan. While traditional Indian cooking doesn’t include flatbread with cheese, some Indian restaurants in Paris added the twist. A cookbook author did some detective work to figure out what kind of cheese they use, and Unger shows us what it turned out to be. Not Brie. Or Camembert. Or Roquefort. As she holds up a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese, the room erupts in laughter.

"How long can you keep baking soda once it's opened?" asks a student as the class mixes dry ingredients for the biscuits they are making. "Six months," replies Chef Unger.

For today’s class, Camembert makes an appearance only as a snack along with sliced radishes that look almost too pretty to eat. We munch while we work. Unger explains mise en place, a French term that basically means you have to get your act together— lay out your ingredients and do all the prep work—before you start the cooking process.

Unger did this for us. To save time, she prepped all the biscuits’ dry ingredients in a bowl for each of us. She instructs us to mix them together, giving encouragement (“you’re good”) and guidance (“you need to dip your hands in more flour”) along the way.“It’s going to be such an easy dough to work with,” she promises.“You’ll love it.” As we stir, we pepper Unger with questions, like

Cream Biscuits

graduating from high school in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, she headed off to the esteemed Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island. She received a culinary degree in 1988.“I could have stayed another two years to get my bachelor’s, but I wanted a broader management degree,” she says. At Moravian, she was a self-described “nontraditional” student taking night classes while holding down a job.“I especially enjoyed my marketing classes at Moravian— so much so that I dropped cooking after graduation and took a job as a marketing director for a nursing center,” she recalls.

After working in her position for about five years, Unger put her career on the back burner for her husband’s job and to raise her two daughters.“We moved around a lot early in our marriage,” she says. In 2014, a friend asked her to teach cooking classes at a farmers’ market.“I fell in love with the culinary world all over again,” she recalls.

When the farmers’ market gig ended, she taught classes in people’s homes for about six months before launching The Rooster & The Carrot Cooking Studio in 2018. “This building used to be a horse stable. Everywhere there’s a window, that was a stall!” she says.

In addition to the cooking classes, Unger maintains a food blog, which focuses on farm-to-table eating and seasonal ingredients.“I’m a one-woman show, and all the knowledge I have about running and marketing the business came from my time at Moravian,” she says.“It helped me critically analyze my options and make decisions.”

Unger runs one to two classes a week, except during summer when she focuses on testing recipes for future classes. For instance, she recently made a pumpkin pie out of phyllo dough that will appear in a fall session. Puff pastry is also a key ingredient in one of her favorite dishes to teach—an Apple Camembert Tatin (recipe on page 43).

“How long can you keep baking soda once it’s opened?” (six months) and “What’s a good store-bought vanilla extract?” (Watkins).

Not long after, we’ve each created little balls of dough that we’re going to flatten and eventually shape into three homemade biscuits. She gently guides us to press down with our palms and keep the dough an even size. We use a bench scraper to divide our dough into three pieces, and then doublecheck the edges.“If it’s higher on one end than the other, it’s going to bake unevenly,” she says. She also warns us not to touch the cut side of the dough with our fingers. Five minutes later, everyone has their dough on the baking sheet ready to pop in the oven for about 15 minutes.

Taking just a half-hour from start to finish, these yeast-free biscuits will make even a regular weeknight dinner feel extra special. You can double— or even triple—the recipe if you’re having company.

Active Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Makes 3 or 4 biscuits

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

⅔ cup (5 ounces) heavy cream

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon melted butter

Make It

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a small bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt with a fork.

3. In a measuring cup, mix the vanilla extract into the cream. Add the cream mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just combined.

4. Turn the dough out onto a floured counter or cutting board and sprinkle with flour. Flatten with your hand and fold the dough over on itself. Flatten again, repeating one or two more times.

5. Pat the dough into a rectangle about ½ inch thick. Cut into three or four even pieces using a bench knife. Place on the prepared baking sheet and brush the tops with butter. Bake for 12 to 16 minutes, until light brown on top and cooked through.

Cheese-Stuffed Naan

Fans of grilled cheese must try this genius twist on classic naan (a flatbread) that Chef Kelly Unger adapted from the cookbook My Paris Kitchen, by David Lebovitz. No sourdough starter or special equipment required!

Active Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Makes 6 flatbreads

Ingredients

2¼ teaspoons active dry yeast

⅔ cup tepid water

1¾ cup all-purpose flour, plus more for your work surface, divided

Pinch of granulated sugar

¾ teaspoon baking powder

5 tablespoons melted clarified butter (ghee), plus more for frying and serving, divided

2 tablespoons full-fat plain yogurt

¾ teaspoon sea salt or Kosher salt

12 wedges plain Laughing Cow cheese

Make It

1. In a measuring cup, mix the yeast and the water until the yeast is dissolved.

2. Place ¾ cup of the flour in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the yeast mixture and sugar and mix until combined. Let stand for 30 minutes; the mixture will become frothy.

3. Add the remaining cup of flour, baking powder, 3 tablespoons of the butter, yogurt, and salt. Mix on medium speed for 5 minutes. The dough will be soft. If it sticks to your fingers when you touch it, add another tablespoon or two of flour. Cover the mixer bowl with a kitchen towel and let the dough rest for an additional 30 minutes.

4. Divide the dough into six pieces. Dust your work surface with flour and knead each dough piece in the flour until the dough no longer sticks to your hands. Roll each piece of dough into a 4-inch disk.

5. Unwrap the cheese and place two wedges side by side in the center of each disk. Fold over the edges, pressing them to completely enclose the cheese.

6. Flip the disk so it’s seam side down and roll it out on a floured work surface until it’s about 6 inches in diameter. (You will hardly be able to tell the cheese is in there!)

7. Place a cast-iron skillet or wok over high heat and cover with a lid. Once the pan is hot, brush a thin layer of clarified butter over the bottom. Place each dough piece in the skillet, cover, and cook about a minute, until the dough puffs and the bottom is brown. Flip with a spatula and cook another minute, until brown. Remove from the pan and repeat with the remaining dough, adding more butter as needed. Serve warm.

While the biscuits are cooking, we turn our attention to the naan. Earlier in the class, Unger had demonstrated the doughmaking process. Since the dough has to rest for two half-hour periods, the class isn’t long enough to make it in real time. I write down a fantastic tip that may make my next solo attempt at bread making be more successful: “You always want to make sure your yeast gets going before you add your salt,” warns Unger.“Salt stunts the growth of your yeast.” higher “smoke point” than regular butter—meaning that it won’t burn as fast when cooking. “You could use regular butter to make the dough, but you couldn’t fry the dough in regular butter—you’d need grapeseed oil,” Unger says. The lazy cook in me silently likes that idea or buying a jar of clarified butter at the supermarket, where it’s usually called ghee. to see a step-by-step

In front of the mixer, Unger fields our string of questions about an ingredient she used in the recipe that was somewhat unfamiliar to the group—clarified butter. Someone asks what I am thinking: “Can you just use regular butter?” while another person wants to know how to make it or, better still, where to buy it.

Unger explains that she made the clarified butter (basically butter minus the milk solids) by melting regular unsalted butter on low heat for about 15 minutes and then letting it stand for about five minutes.

“I skimmed off the foam from the top and poured the liquid into this jar,” she says. The milk solids that have settled to the bottom of the pan may be discarded.

Once the dough is prepared, each of us reaches for the rolling pin we brought from home. After giving the dough a few rolls on our well-floured surface, we place our Laughing Cow cheese on top, fold over the dough, and roll some more. We’re all astonished that you can barely notice the cheese anymore. Soon, each of us takes our naan-in-the-making to one of the cast-iron skillets (Lodge is Unger’s preferred brand), where it puffs up and browns in a matter of minutes.

About 90 minutes into class, the biscuits are out of the oven and everyone has a plate of warm naan in front of them. We pass around jam for the biscuits, which are slightly sweeter than the buttermilk kind you might associate with Thanksgiving. The consensus is we love them—and think they’d pair well with tea.

The naan, however, is the real showstealer.“It tastes like the most delicious, comforting grilled-cheese sandwich,” pipes in a fellow student. I find myself instinctively nodding in agreement as I graciously accept a to-go carton to bring the rest of the biscuits and naan home to my family.

By the time I arrive at my house—more than an hour after class has ended—the naan isn’t warm anymore, but it still has a major wow factor.“That’s really delicious!” says my daughter, eating the rest.“We have to make it ourselves!” Thanks to Unger, we know how (and if you check out the recipe on page 40, you will too)!

To learn more about The Rooster & The Carrot Cooking Studio, Chef Kelly Unger’s recipe blog, her menu of classes, and how to register for a class, go to theroosterandthecarrot.com.

Apple Camembert Tatin

A scrumptious yet simple appetizer for a fall dinner party, this French dish is sure to draw rave reviews from guests. Chef Kelly Unger adapted this recipe from Let’s Eat France, by François-Régis Gaudry, and has included it in her cooking classes.

Active Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Makes 6 servings

Ingredients

4 sweet apples, such as Gala or Honeycrisp, cored but not peeled 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 wheel (9 ounces) Camembert cheese, sliced 14 ounces frozen puff pastry dough, thawed*

Make It

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line the bottom of a 9-inch round cake pan with parchment paper.

2. Slice each of the apples into about 12 thick pieces. Place in a large skillet with the butter and brown sugar. Cook on medium heat until soft.

3. Spread the apples in the prepared cake pan and top with Camembert slices.

4. Roll out the dough on parchment paper. Make sure the dough is large enough to cover the top of the pan. Place the dough over the pan, tucking the edges into the rim.

5. Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden. Remove from the oven and let rest for 5 minutes, then invert onto a large plate. Serve warm.

*For best results, thaw puff pastry dough in the fridge rather than on your counter.

OWNER: RACHEL GRIFFITH ’07

610-865-9600 • apollogrill.com

OWNER: SHELLY SALAK ’86

610-868-3200 • joestavern.com

Heading into its 64th year and thirdgeneration ownership, Joe’s is the quintessential tavern experience, offering an impressive selection of craft beers, as well as cocktails, along with classic quality pub fare. Homemade soups and cheesesteaks are the tavern’s specialty.

“

The Apollo is a casual yet upscale bistro committed to serving wonderful food and unique cocktails in a lively and fun atmosphere.

CO-OWNERS: WILLIAM BURKHARDT ’69 AND FREDERICK BUCKENMEYER

610-691-8422 bethlehemdairystore.com

OWNER: KEN RAMPOLLA ’79 losttavernbrewing.com

OWNER: ANTHONY SPAGNOLA ’94

610-625-3777 • seafoodadagio.com

OWNER: ANTHONY SPAGNOLA ’94

484-895-3111 • sottosantipizzapub.com

I found the Tricolore salad (mixed greens, goat cheese, mandarin oranges, roasted red beets, and walnuts with a honey drizzle and balsamic vinaigrette) colorful, flavorful, and light, while the Black & Blue Tenderloin appetizer offered a hearty bite paired with the Tempura Fried Cauliflower.”

Samantha Hickey ’23 and I stopped into Joe’s for dinner. We began our evening with an elderflower champagne cocktail for Sam and a Leinenkugel, from a craft brewery in Wisconsin, for me. We ordered several items: French onion soup; pierogies with beer, cheese, and bacon; a cheesesteak; a burger with sautéed onions, mushrooms, Cheddar, lettuce, and tomato; and Parmesan fries on the side. Everything was made fresh and was delicious. As for decor, since Shelly is originally from New York, Yankees and New York Giants memorabilia are everywhere.”

The Bethlehem Dairy Store (known by most as The Cup, for the original shape of the shop— a large milkshake cup) has been an ice-cream-lover’s heaven since the 1930s. For more than 30 years, Burkhardt and Buckenmeyer have been serving homemade ice cream in 30-plus flavors and every imaginable serving option: cups, cones, sundaes, shakes, floats, on top of Belgian waffles, in ice cream sandwiches, and more.

The first satellite taproom of the Hellertown-based brewery, Lost Tavern is located within the Moravian Book Shop, the oldest continuously operating bookstore in America, where visitors and students can also purchase Moravian University texts and merch. You can order from a wide selection of beer on tap or select from options to go. Want something to munch while you sip? Head back to the Rendevoo counter for some Asian fusion cuisine. (See page 28 for a story about Lost Tavern Brewing.)

Named after the Italian musical term meaning “in slow tempo,” Adagio specializes in seafood but also offers chicken, steak, pasta, and pizza for the non–fish lovers in your group. The restaurant is open for dinner only, Wednesday through Saturday, 4 to 10 p.m.

“

At this pizzeria pub in South Bethlehem, you’ll find a wide selection of pizza, calzones, and other Italian food favorites whether you want to dine in or take out. Happy hour drinks and food specials change daily. And if you’re up for some late-night fun, stick around for the DJ on Thursdays through Saturdays or karaoke on Sundays.

“

My friend Claire Boucher and I recently checked out Adagio. Neither of us had been, and we were excited to try it. The menu offered an extensive selection of seafood. The standout for me was the surf and turf, which included a perfectly cooked fillet and bacon-wrapped scallops. The seafood was incredibly fresh and seasoned just right. The service was impeccable, with attentive and knowledgeable staff.”

-ANGELA KILBURG ’18

I had the wonderful experience of trying out Sotto Santi earlier this semester. I ordered their Sweet and Stingy Wings, an antipasto salad, a half pepperoni/ half cheese pizza cooked in their signature brick oven, and some zeppole, a lightly fried dough dessert. Everything was fresh and well prepared, and the pizza was among the best I’ve had in the Lehigh Valley.”

-ROMELLO

WALTERS ’22, G’24

OWNER: ABBY HUDOCK ’19

484-553-3095 • AGINGMOON.COM

The Aging Moon is a small cheese shop featuring premade cheeseboards and blocks of cheese as well as accompaniments. The shop also takes online orders. Owner Abby Hudock is an American Cheese Society 2022 scholarship recipient and a certified sommelier. She will happily advise as to what wines or beers best pair with the cheese or cheese board you choose.

I can enjoy the dark classics, such as the American Porter, while my friends who are less versed in beer can enjoy a fruitforward, juicy Onomatopoeia.”

-CHRISTIE JACOBSEN ’00

Both boards were unique, and the flavors were fantastic. My favorite cheeses were the aged Cheddar and the smoked gouda. They were creamy, bold, and flavorful, perfect for a crowd-pleasing event. We will definitely order from her again for our next charcuterie board event. I recommend her shop to cheese lovers everywhere.”

-SHANE KLINGER ’24, PRESIDENT OF THE CHEESE CLUB