Here is what brewer Peter Licht says about this brew: "There seems to be some confusion about what ’ale of the hermit’ is. It is not that our brewer lives in a cave,... Let’s just say that he doesn’t get out much. Alone with his beer, his thoughts turn inward and backward. What about the way beer used to be made here in the new world? Old methods, old hop varieties, oak-aged, complex, challenging...."