Seen Through a Glass

Do we want Philly to be Brussels-on-Schuylkill?

2012-01-26T09:08:00.000-05:00

Philly is still in the running for New Belgium's east coast brewery, according to this story from Charlotte, N.C.'s WBTV. Crowing a bit over Sierra Nevada's decision to settle near Asheville -- and understandably so! -- WBTV noted:

New Belgium Brewing, known for its tasty Fat Tire beer, is also considering the Asheville area for a possible plant. New Belgium recently toured the Western NC area for possible sites. Both brewers want to expand beer output and to cut shipping costs with East Coast plants.
"Asheville and Philly are leading our short list of sites," New Belgium spokesman Bryan Simpson told the Denver Post last month.

Leading the short list. How does Sierra Nevada deciding on Asheville affect that? You could say -- as I'm sure many are thinking -- that New Belgium will now look away, since Sierra Nevada's in town. There's not room for two big breweries in town. That doesn't follow for sure; for instance, look at all the pharmaceutical industries around Philadelphia, look at Silicon Valley, or, if you prefer, look at Portland -- either Portland, where several good-sized craft breweries are in business quite close to each other.

This doesn't preclude New Belgium settling in Asheville at all. It's still attractive for the same reasons it always was, and now you've got an added attraction, in that having Sierra in the area will draw support industries, draw skilled workers, create an atmosphere even more supportive of craft beer. As our pharmaceutical businesses have learned, that's a tangible benefit.

However...Philadelphia is also still attractive for the same reasons it always was, and -- no slight to Asheville -- we've got more to offer. Let me enumerate:

You want outdoor? Hey, mountain kids: meet The Shore. That's right, we have an ocean right over there. And if you want hiking, the Appalachian Trail -- you've heard of that, right? -- is right over there. An hour to the ocean, two hours max to the AT.
You want fun? Philly's got music, restaurants, bike trails, all this historical stuff you may have heard of, and...unlike Asheville OR Denver, we're a quick train ride or drive from three other major fun towns: NYC, Baltimore, and DC (and I can tell you, Boston's not that much farther).
You want infrastructure? Multiple major highways, rail nexus, AND a major port. Growing breweries already in place to pull talent and suppliers, and some of them already on-board with the whole green idea. And there's that pharmaceutical industry I mentioned, with lots of crossover (like the dairy business was in the early days).
You want beer culture? Again, no slight to Asheville, but...Philly Beer Week. The most recognized Belgian bistro in America (plus several others), and what is said to be the biggest market for Belgian beer in the country. Craft taps in a substantial percentage of area bars. A beer-savvy local government. And again...Philly Beer Week.
You want to sell beer? Guys...look at the map. Are there more craft beer drinkers within 300 miles of Asheville...or Philly. Nuff said.

But what about the other side of this equation? Does Philly want New Belgium? I suspect our local brewers -- several of whom make a good living doing just what New Belgium does -- would not necessarily be up for that, but...if I were a local politician, if I were a local business owner, if I were a taxpayer?

Welcome to Pennsylvania, Kim Jordan!

New Belgium means jobs. Good jobs, vested jobs. New Belgium means green manufacturing. They are a model for low-impact industry. New Belgium means an even larger beer culture. It's true; yes, Philly, we can do better (I wrote that almost 5 years ago, and it's still true). New Belgium means better beer. Everything I wrote earlier this week about Sierra Nevada forcing Asheville's brewers to up their game? Holds true here, too.

Not to mention...our local brewers can definitely hold their own. I have no doubt of it. Our guys -- from Victory, to Flying Fish, to Dogfish Head (yeah, they're local enough), to Yards and Philly Brewing, to Iron Hill and McKenzie, to Nodding Head, and even our man Dick Yuengling -- can handle this. They're good. Real good.

And that's good, because New Belgium brings resources and cooperation, too. They're good citizens in many ways. I also guarantee you that they'd bring new excitement and beer tourism to the area...which is good for everyone in the game. Including we drinkers!

I hope Philly's still in the hunt, and I hope our local governments are smart enough to be helping things along.

Sierra Nevada decides on the site for their Eastern brewery: is it time to run for the hills?

2012-01-25T15:05:00.005-05:00

Sierra Nevada has chosen Asheville, North Carolina -- okay, Mills River, 12 miles south of Asheville, but from 100 miles or more away...it's Asheville, and you can bet that the beer-happy folks in Asheville will see it that way, too -- as the site for their new east coast expansion brewery. Plans are for a brewery with 300,000 bbls. initial capacity. “We are thrilled to have found an ideal location in western North Carolina for our second brewery,” says Ken Grossman, founder of Sierra Nevada. “The beer culture, water quality and quality of life are excellent. We feel lucky to be a part of this community.”

The brewery site. You can almost smell the mash.

Ernest & Scott, and Paris in London

2012-01-23T23:41:00.000-05:00

Put some miles on the car last Thursday; drove down to Wilmington for the opening of Ernest & Scott Taproom (902 N. Market St.), the new beer bar in town. It's a whopper, too; restaurateur Scott Morrison laid down some serious bucks to outfit this large, balconied space. There's a solid commitment to cask ale, which explains why I ran into Paul Pendyck there (I had just seen Paul on Tuesday; took my mother to dinner at his Bulls Head Public House in Lititz and enjoyed two fine cask ales).

The beer engines weren't actually operating (someone had screwed up getting the breathers there), but there were seven firkins pouring, and I got stuck right into some Dogfish Head 75 Minute IPA, poured by Sam Calagione. Sam's been consulting on the beer program, and since is such a big deal for beer in Delaware, that's no surprise. The beer scene in Wilmington has been an on-again off-again proposition for years (except for Iron Hill on the riverside, and the excellent Washington Street Alehouse), and Delaware and area brewers would love to see this city in Philly's backyard pick up the pace.

It's a handsome place, solidly built (it's a former bank), and the beer engines are ready to go. The food I sampled was quite nice, and the beers... Yards ESA, in about as fine a condition I can recall; an excellent Stewarts IPA (poured by brewer Ric Hoffman himself, and thus much more tasty), and a tasty Evolution altbier that was tucked away in a neat little space upstairs.

Okay, just one other thing. I liked the place, and I wish it well, but trying to get around in downtown Wilmington just about did me in. Some idiot planner thought it would be a good idea to narrow all the streets, and push parking out to the edge of the commercial area, and just generally make it inconvenient to drive. Well, forget your suburban traffic, guys, and there's not enough city there to make this work. Wilmington's got to be more welcoming to visitors, because after this experience...I don't really want to go back, no matter how cool this place is.

Once I got the hell out of Wilmington (which wasn't easy either), I ran up to Philly (which I'd never thought of as particularly car-friendly before...) and stopped off at London Grill, where Terry Berch McNally was throwing a little fling for outgoing Sierra Nevada rep Patrick Mullin (actually, he's pretty much outgone already; he's running sales at Sly Fox now, and congrats to both of them), pouring her last keg of our Exportation porter from Sierra Nevada Beer Camp, the three SN Ovilas (Dubbel, Saison, & Quad), and the new Ruthless Rye.

Briefly: the Exportation is a mildly sour version of a mild Baltic Porter, and was quite tasty and easily enjoyed, not a smack in the chops or a pucker in the cheeks. Ovila Dubbel is a nice example of the style, rich but not sticky; the Saison is spicy and brisk, very enjoyable. And the Ruthless Rye was great, a battling mouthful of beer, shot full of spicy rye character that blended marvelously with the bold hops. A very nice beer indeed.

We spent some pleasant minutes talking, getting caught up (me, Terry, Exton Beverage's Greg Ramirez, Scoats of the Grey Lodge, Patrick, and Brendan from Memphis Taproom), then I asked Terry to take me to Paris. We got there in about 45 seconds; Paris is the new wine bar Terry's opened in the adjoining building. It's small, intimate, and the wine is on draft; a popular form of dispense in Europe and gaining momentum in the U.S., presumably for the same reason: freshness, ease of service, and of course, the excellent environmental advantages. This is, I believe, a first for Pennsylvania; best of luck to her!

I'd like to say I went home after this, but...I stopped at the Grey Lodge for just one more (honest, Ernest & Scott were just pouring 3 oz. samples!). It's still pleasant to stop in there, and I do it often on my way home from Philly events to wind down.

Session Beer Project revived

2012-01-20T17:19:00.002-05:00

I'm not just blogging more here, I've revived The Session Beer Project blog as well. There are two new posts up over there, one on 21st Amendment's Bitter American going year-round (at 4.4%!) and Victory's new 3.9% take on their Dark Lager. Have a look!

American Beer Blogger pilot is funded!

2012-01-19T13:11:00.001-05:00

Thanks to all who have pledged for American Beer Blogger: we have reached our $6,000 goal on Kickstarter! If you still want to pledge, please do: anything extra means a better show (maybe some travel expenses...).

We are in the TV business. Very excited right now.

Winter Rental: surprisingly welcoming

2012-01-19T11:44:00.000-05:00

I got a sample from East Coast Beer Co. back in December, their Winter Rental schwarzbier. I was all "ho-hum, another New Jersey contract brewer," because these outfits haven't had a great track record. (Anyone remember Coffaro Beer? Diving Horse Lager?) It's brewed at Genesee, as you can tell by the "Rochester, NY" on the label, where they've done a great job on the Narragansett seasonals, but...to be honest, I wasn't in a rush to try it.

But then I needed to get some tasting notes together for a column I do in the local weekly paper (nice source of pocket money), so Tuesday afternoon I popped it. Okay, I'd made a mistake waiting this long! The beer smelled rich and malty from almost a foot away, but it was not thick and sweet on the tongue: smoothly refreshing (sounds like a 60s beer ad, I know, but it is), a little hop bite up front that swooshes into lightly chocolatey malt with a slight crunch of roast; saunters off into a clean finish.

I have to apologize to you: shouldn't have waited so long on this one. If you like schwarzbier, get out and give this one a shot. It's 5.6% ABV, and quite tasty.

American Beer Blogger, next round!

2012-01-17T12:28:00.001-05:00

As you probably know, we failed to raise $60,000 on Kickstarter to fund six episodes of "American Beer Blogger," the TV show I'm working on with Green Leaf Productions. It was an ambitious goal, and despite some solid support, we only raised a little over 10% of the goal. But we are not giving up. We're scaling back a bit, and there's a NEW Kickstarter out there: we're trying to raise $6,000 to do one pilot episode. We got that much before, but we had 60 days that time. Kickstarter only gives you two weeks on second chances, so we've got to push hard on this.

Two things are working in our favor, though. We've got people repeating their pledges already -- we're at 31 pledges after only two days, and we're 30% of the way to goal -- and it's a much more reasonable goal. The original premise still holds, too: the money all goes to the screen, getting the show on cable. I'm not getting any of this, it's all going to production, and we're going to make sure you get a great show. Jump in, help us make it happen!

And let me tell you; I suspect we're going to have one hell of a blooper reel...

More good eats

2012-01-16T20:48:00.001-05:00

Whipped up dinner out of Ruth van Waerebeek's Everybody Eats Well in Belgium cookbook tonight, which I haven't opened in years. Glad I got it out! I did the Roast Pork with Mustard and Onions, because I happened to see a nice little pork loin roast at Giant, and then a bag of frozen pearl onions (I'd get fresh, but I didn't have time to peel them).

Rubbed the roast with a split garlic clove, then plastered it with 3 tablespoons of mustard, a mix of Dijon and a green peppercorn mustard I had, and drizzled olive oil on it before sticking it in a 450 degree oven for 15 minutes; turned it twice. Then I poured in half a cup of water and about 2 dozen pearl onions, sprinkled thyme and pepper and salt over everything and put it in the oven, turned down to 350, for about 50 minutes. I made some Israeli couscous and steamed cauliflower for sides.

When the roast was done, I put it on a carving board to rest, and put the pan on two burners, and added another 1/4 cup of water to deglaze, then made a slurry of a tablespoon each of cornstarch and balsamic vinegar and poured it in, stirring. Things thickened up pretty quickly, and when it started bubbling, I pulled it off the heat. I sliced the pork in thin slices, arranged them in two concentric circles on a warm plate, and poured the sauce and whole onions in the middle. Then I popped the cork on a bottle of Unibroue Blonde de Chambly, and the whole thing was quite delish!

Back to Boston

2012-01-16T09:16:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we took my son Thomas back to school; his second sophomore semester begins tomorrow at Boston University. Here's how things were supposed to go: He and Cathy and I were going to get up early, go to 6:45 mass (a quick one, sans music), go back to the house to say good-bye to Nora, hit the road and get diesel and breakfast in NJ (we were low on fuel), and be in Boston by noon (and getting some good chowder for lunch on such a cold day) while Nora took the Saab to 9:00 mass, and spent the day studying for her finals this week.

Not what happened. We were fine, right up to the getting diesel in NJ part, which we did in Ewing, just over the river. As we were finishing up, Nora called -- Thomas forgot his new computer! Okay, we'll go back, it's only 15 minutes, and since she's now fully awake, we'll all have breakfast at the Langhorne Cafe. But she still wants to go to 9:00 mass, so she says, I'll drive the Saab down and meet you at the diner, and we can all leave from there. Okay...but as we're pulling into the parking lot, she calls: Saab won't start! Up the hill to the house, a mile away, and sure enough, battery's dead (it was quite cold, about 15 degrees F). Get the jumpers out of the Jetta, fire it up, race around the neighborhood, turn it off, and...starts right up. Just cold? Dunno, but we decide to go back to the diner with both cars.

We get to the diner -- it's full. Okay, we go to another diner, the Blue Fountain down on the Lincoln Highway. I took the Saab, revving it high and stoking more amps into the battery. We get into the diner, sit right down, and that's when Cathy and Thomas tell me that he had not just forgotten his computer...he'd forgotten his dorm room keys as well. But he has them now -- thanks to Nora! -- and all's well, and we have a big laugh, and a great last breakfast together before taking Thomas back to school. The Saab starts, we drive back to the house, leave Nora with lots of hugs (and pets to the Corgis, who are now thoroughly confused), and get back on the way to Boston...over two hours later than planned.

It is, however, a beautiful day, and traffic's quite light, and we make it there in only 4.5 hours, traveling largely at or near the speed limit. I actually got some editing done while Cathy drove in Connecticut. By the time we got there, though, we were getting a bit peckish. We first thought about going to Legal Sea Food for chowder -- I've never been, and it's a place you should probably go at some time -- but decided it was out of the way, and Thomas recalled The Daily Catch, a little Sicilian seafood place in Brookline that he and I had chanced upon last year (we were on our way to Soul Fire for a barbeque dinner when we realized it was Friday in Lent...and there was The Daily Catch right across the street from our epiphany, so we went in and greatly enjoyed it), so we went there.

Had the place to ourselves, and you're probably wondering by now what any of this has to do with beer or whiskey or anything else you might be interested in -- to which I think I can properly reply that it's my blog, and I can write about whatever, no? -- but here's your payoff: Cathy and I ordered beers from their local-heavy selection. She got a Cape Anne IPA, which had a solid malt character I found appealing, and I got a Berkshire Steel Rail Extra Pale, a beer I've always enjoyed since my first tasting, years ago. And I was reading the label, curious if they had an ABV listed (5.3%, it turns out), when I came across the text shown in the picture: "In the words of renowned beer writer Lew Bryson, Steel Rail EPA is 'what the water in heaven oughta taste like.'"

Ha! I was surprised to find this, the first time I had any inkling that Berkshire had quoted my Ale Street News column from 2009 on the lack of respect pale ale gets from the geekerie. It's fun to see your name on a label; hell of a lot more fun than on a wanted poster, I assume!

Anyway, the meal was excellent: we had the house specialty fried calamari to start (made fresh there, not frozen), and I had calamari with a seafood-based red sauce over linguini, Cathy and Thomas each had scallops and linguini with white clam sauce. Quite tasty, and quite good with the beer. We took him to the dorm, unloaded, sat with him a bit, and got him settled in, saw his roommate again (real nice guy, spent Christmas with us), and...headed home. Even less traffic, another quick run...and the Saab won't start. Time for a new battery. Cheers!

Yuengling: Dick's on top, baby!

2012-01-13T17:50:00.000-05:00

It's strange to think that when I had my first Yuengling 30 years ago, and took my first tour of the brewery 25 years ago, the Pottsville family business was just barely hanging on. I believe they told us that they sold about 165,000 barrels that year, which sounds like a lot in craft brewer terms, but not out of a plant that size, with a staff that size.

Things changed, as we all know, and while Yuengling is still only in fourteen states, they announced today that thanks largely to the huge surge in sales from their Ohio launch last year, they are now the largest American-owned brewery. Think on that, ye mighty, and despair.

For while I love Yuengling -- the history, the stubbornness, the Pennsylvaniality of it all -- it is sobering to think that America's four largest brewing companies, the brands that are household words -- Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Coors, Pabst -- are all either foreign-owned or, in the case of Pabst, gypsy brewers without a home. It is a shock that the largest American-owned brewer sold only 2.5 million bbls. in 2011; that the largest American brewer is a regional anomaly.

So what do we do? Celebrate it! I'm not talking about celebrating that Yuengling blew past Boston Beer, I'm talking about celebrating that a family-owned brewer has beaten the mass-marketing of the nationals on their own turf -- mainstream lager -- and done it with a "full calorie" beer, the stuff they apparently have forgotten how to sell. That's freakin' awesome.

Look, I know. If you're reading this blog, chances are you're a craft beer enthusiast (or a whiskey drinker, and I promise: more of that this year, too!). But ain't it great that people are ready to shrug off mass-media domination and buy regional? Buy something different? I think it is. Yuengling, like Sam Adams, is often the first step for someone to try something other than the usual. This is why "the usual" is sliding hard, and why the big guys are trying to find out how to make something other than the usual (Blue Moon and Shock Top are just the beginning, believe me).

We can be scared by that...or we can embrace it. I'm happy every time a light beer drinker has something other than their usual tipple. I think when a light beer drinker enjoys a wheat beer, an angel gets its wings. And I think Dick Yuengling -- and Jim Koch! -- have had a lot to do with that. Cheers, Dick: congratulations! Keep doing what you're doing!

Gasoline and alcohol: do they mix, or not?

2012-01-11T16:26:00.000-05:00

In light of the continual faux controversy over whether gas stations/convenience stores should be "allowed" to sell booze, I offer this story I came across. There are Sunoco stations in the Syracuse area that have started offering growler fills from taps at the station. Remember: beer sales are legal at gas stations in New York (I offer this for my Pennsylvania readers whose heads might explode at the thought of beer at gas stations...even though it IS happening in PA).

So the local ABC affiliate does a story on it, and the very first person they talk to...is an anti-alcohol type who puts his mouth in gear without engaging his brain. "It's almost laughable from our perspective. It's like how easy are we going to make alcohol for people, it's like saying our convenience stores are going to be turned into little mini-bars,” said Phil Rose, with the Prevention Network.

Well, Phil, let me explain something to you -- no, wait. I'll let Joseph Featherall explain it. He's just some dude on the street in a peacoat, but he gets this better than a trained abuse professional. "You can buy a 6-pack at a gas station, so why not be able to fill up a recyclable container? You know, that's environmentally friendly and craft beer is awesome.” Nicely said, Joseph, and your very first phrase puts the 'duh' in Phil Rose's face.

If it is illegal to drink while driving, then it is no more or less illegal to drink from a can you bought at a gas station than it is a growler you bought there. In fact, and here's the kicker: it's no more illegal than drinking from a can or growler you bought at a grocery store, or a bar, or a beer store. Is there something about gasoline fumes that makes people want to hop behind the wheel and start chugging? Not to mention...most of the bars I know have parking lots. You know?

Anti-alcohol people are often working from personal pain, and they are doing a good thing, trying to prevent that pain from affecting more people. But so many of them are completely clueless when it comes to risk assessment and picking your battles. Phil should have said something like "It's the person that makes a dangerous drinker, not the container." Is that asking too much?

This Friday is Double Trouble

2012-01-10T19:43:00.000-05:00

This Friday is the first of three Friday the 13ths in 2012 -- the next one comes thirteen weeks later in April...followed by one thirteen weeks later in July. And I think we all know who's responsible for that: Mister Friday the Firkinteenth himself, Scoats "Mike Scotese" Grey Lodge. You know the guy, comes out from behind the bar on February 2nd, hugs old bearded rummies in parrot shirts, has a mad passion for numbers and wordplay, serves 20+ beers on cask every Friday the 13th? Yeah, that's him. The fun starts at noon, and there will be seven casks pouring till they're all gone, and it will be a madhouse, and I will be there. I've only missed a couple, and I'm not missing this one. Here, see what Scoats has to say:

This will be our 24th Friday the Firkinteenth; we've been doing it since 1998. We've gotten a little bit of press about it over the years and a couple of people have attended (Note to the inexperienced: he is understating to the point of sarcasm). For our 24th Firkinteenth, we will have our first cask cider, a bunch of English casks, the Philly debut of Fifty Fifty Rockslide IPA, what might be the debut of Flying Fish's newest beer - Scarlet Fever, plus a lot of usual suspect beers that could well be the sleeper standouts. Tapping begins at noon again this time around. At 11am our full menu will be available. For the Firkinteenth, all food service will be 2nd floor only.

Is that enough fun for one non-Philly Beer Week (which starts in only 143 days!) day for you? No? Okay, this Friday is also 113 Day, as in 1/13 (that's 13 January to all my Euro-friends), as in Sly Fox Rt. 113 IPA, and Sly Fox's Corey Reid is trying to turn it into a national holiday...but he'll settle for Phoenixville. For now. So...at Sly Fox's Phoenixville brewpub, anyone in the pub at 1:13 PM (Eastern...) can get one pint of Rt. 113 for $1.13 (bring change, help 'em out), and when the firkin of Rt. 113 is tapped at 5:00, you can get a 10 oz. pour for $1.13. Hey, now there's an economic stimulus for you. Come on out and get some number-based hoppiness!

King of Beers now the duke?

2012-01-10T18:55:00.001-05:00

Budweiser passed another milestone this week; on the way down. The iconic beer brand's 20+ year slide continued, and Coors Light passed it, headed up, moving into the #2 spot in American beer sales according to a story in Advertising Age. Budweiser hit its peak in 1988, selling 50 million barrels (50 million barrels! Of just Budweiser! All U.S. craft brewers' 2011 sales put together should be about 11 million barrels) and then sliding ever since, including a 4.6% slide in 2011...which actually represented a slowing in the rate of plummet. Total 2011 U.S. sales for Budweiser were 17.7 million barrels, an amazing decline since 1988. Of course, Bud Light's rise has pretty much made up for it, and 17.7 million barrels is still more than most of the world's breweries sell altogether...but wow.

What happened? Smarter people than I have guessed at that one. "Light beer!" is the usual answer offered, explaining it as Americans' desire to get into better shape. Well, maybe...only what's up with the boom in steakhouses, and sugary liquors, and...craft beer? As far as that goes, how the hell does "Light beer!" explain the huge growth of Yuengling Lager? Yuengling Lager, a "full-calorie premium" beer, will likely blow through 2 million barrels on its own this year, and is, if anything, accelerating. (Add'n: when I first wrote this, I forgot the other obvious example here: it's not Pabst Light the hipsters and bike messengers are drinking, it's Pabst.) "Light beer"? Bullshit.

Light beer has seen huge growth, but there are other factors here. I think some of the problem is fratricide. There has been cannibalistic action between brands in the A-B house, and Bud and Bud Light are not the only ones. When you have a number of large brands -- Budweiser, Bud Light, Bud Light Lime, Bud Select (several cases a year are still sold), Michelob Ultra, Busch, Busch Light, Natural Light, and so on -- that are this close together in taste and character (okay, granted: Bud Light Lime does taste a bit more different than the others), and require a huge expenditure on marketing merely to create an illusion of difference...success in one camp is more likely to mean failure in another. This is, I believe, a major weakness for the big brewers, and it's just now starting to crack wide open.

Does that explain how Coors Light is growing? Well, no! I'll have to cogitate on that...especially since it's one of the very few mainstream beers that is growing. Is it the blue mountains? Hey, maybe.

"Wife Beater" On Wikipedia?

2012-01-09T08:41:00.002-05:00

You may or may not know that the ABIB/InBud-brewed Stella Artois is colloquially known as "Wife Beater" in the UK. Or at least, it was for a while...and now will be again, thanks to the publicity for that embarrassing monicker generated by a hired PR company's clumsy attempts to expunge it. Sure, it's true: read about the original story here in The Independent, and then read the just-drinks.com story here on how InBud defends their actions in hiring Portland Communications to scrub the term "Wife Beater" from the Stella Artois entry on Wikipedia.

(Why "Wife Beater?" Depends on who you ask. There's the "Stella!" line from A Streetcar Named Desire, bellowed by the abusive Stanley Kowalski, but others will tell you that it's because the beer appeals to the kind of yob that would beat his wife, or that the beer's drinkers would be the kind to walk about in the strapped undershirts colloquially called "wife beaters." (Note that Brando's wearing a regular t-shirt in the clip.) I favor the first; fits too well, and the others just sound like snobbery to me.)

I don't care that some intellectually-aware beer drinkers tagged Stella with the name "Wife Beater." Well, I do, a bit; it does wink and giggle at domestic abuse to some extent, and that's bullshit. But as a writer, and a reader, and an independent thinker, I care a lot about this kind of paid clean-up activity on the Internet. It's the greatest strength and weakness of Wikipedia; anyone can edit it, and that leaves it open to abuse...except it's not happening here. The editors caught the changes, and reinstated the references.

Why did Portland think they could do this, and why did InBud believe them? Well, sit down, because someone's got to tell you: it's because they still think you're a bunch of chumps. It's because some marketers still look at us as cattle, as blind sheep, and they don't try to influence you, they set out to manipulate you. There is a difference, and there are ethical, good-minded marketers who look to influence your decisions without insulting you. Portland Communications are not such marketers, and apparently, InBud doesn't hire that kind, either.

Friends from Europe have been telling me for years -- years! -- that InterBrew, then InBev, and now ABIB is a company that's bad for the industry, that they indulged in bad business practices, that they killed breweries, that everything they touched turned to crap. I resisted. Stella, for what it's worth, still tastes decent when it's a fresh draft, and that's my touchstone: what's in the glass? I just repeated that to folks at Bocktown Monaca who had come out to see me last Tuesday: I don't care who's making it -- as long as they're not using child or convict labor -- I care about how it tastes.

But this...leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Iron Hill Chestnut Hill open

2012-01-06T12:24:00.000-05:00

Iron Hill finally made it to Philly Wednesday night. I headed out to the 4:00 opening tap about 3, and as I rolled through Langhorne, realized that the new place was not far from my daughter's school, and she just got out...I called her: want to go to a brewpub opening? Sure! I picked her up, she got her stuff in the car, got in, and started giggling as she worked her iPhone. What's so funny? "We had a drug and alcohol assembly in school today, and now I'm going to a brewpub opening, gotta update my Facebook status!" I am such a responsible parent...

Davies, Finn, Green, Edelson & Bass raise a toast

Anyway, the newest Iron Hill opened at 8400 Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill, and it was a full-scale Iron Hill production. There were nine beers on draft (with more coming) from former Iron Hill Lancaster brewer Paul Rutherford, a ready-to-roll staff, and the tasty Iron Hill menu. The show included (of course) Iron Hill founding partners Kevin Finn, Kevin Davies, and Mark Edelson (all looking quite relaxed; as Mark said, "This is a great day; the money starts coming in today, it's just been going out for six months!"); and two Philadelphia City Council members, veteran Bill Green and the newly-elected Cindy Bass, who was very excited to be opening Iron Hill as her first official public duty. She even had a sip of her beer (Green and the partners had more than a sip).

Of course, she was excited. Iron Hill brings 110 jobs to her district, solid jobs that will give the employees solid experience, jobs that won't go away: Iron Hill has not closed any of their operations since the first one opened in Newark, Delaware 15 years ago. That's a great track record for brewpubs, and an even better one for restaurants, and speaks volumes about the savvy Iron Hill's partners brought to this enterprise from day one.

This new operation is a beauty, with many of the signature Iron Hill decorating touches: the retro ad mural from North Wales, the ceiling and lights from Media, the decorative ironwork from Newark. Iron Hill manages to look experienced and broken-in from opening day at their new operations, and have a fantastic employee training program that makes their service levels a high standard for competitors to meet. With room for over 250 guests (and an off-street lot), they're ready for business.

Beer's great, of course. I had a glass of Paul's English brown ale, and it was quite tasty: chocolate, smooth, mellow, and all-too-easy to drink. Looking forward to more of this (and with Nora's graduation coming up in June, I think I know where we're headed after the ceremony!).

American Beer Blogger events

2012-01-02T16:04:00.001-05:00

Yes, smarty-pants, we're still taking a shot at getting the $60,000 we need to film six episodes of American Beer Blogger, and I'm on the road to support it.

Tomorrow, I'll be at Bocktown Beer & Grill Monaca for a special event I wish we could get more of: An Evening of EduTastion (or something like that) with Lew Bryson. I'll be at Bocktown from 6:00 to 8:00, talking about beer, the show, Pennsylvania brewing, PLCB privatization, bourbon and rye whiskey, and -- probably -- beer, especially the ass-kicking assortment of beers Chris Dilla will have on tap (and my buddy Tera "Libeerian" Bevilacqua may pull out in bottles...). If you're in the area, and you're considering pledging, come out and do it live at this event, because Chris is going to match every pledge made at Bocktown Monaca during this event! How about that? So come on out and spend her money; she's promised to pledge till it hurts.

Thursday the 5th, I'll be at Pearly Baker's on the Square in Easton, 5:00 to 7:00 for a meet and greet. We'll be talking beer and showing the ABB videos, and if you haven't been to Pearly's for a while, you should come back. The beer program's rolling again -- this was one of the original good beer bars in the Lehigh Valley -- and I'm psyched to have them invite me to show up for this. After 7:00, I'll be heading over to the Pickled Egg, where we'll be doing the same thing...with a firkin of Sly Fox Odyssey. So you might want to get in on that, too.

Monday the 9th I'll be headed down to Devil's Den to encourage Philly to come out and pledge some bucks to get American Beer Blogger on the screen, and Erin's come up with some awesome taps to help prime your pumps. Check this list out: a firkin of Stoudt's Sugar Plum Lager, Philly Brewing Shackamaximum, Voodoo Gran Met (two of my favorite PA beers, right there), Weyerbacher Tango, Bavarian Barbarian First Snow, Dogfish Head Burton Baton, Sly Fox Odyssey, Brew Works Second Coming (had an excellent bitter at BBW just before Christmas), and some nice fresh Philly Pale.

Now, the idea is that you'll come out to one of these events, have some beers, we'll chat, and you'll see that pledging some bucks on Kickstarter to get this show on TV is a great idea and the right thing to do. We'll be set up to take your pledges right there, so bring your credit card and let's pull the trigger. We only have twelve days, but this can still happen -- we've got some major donors we're still working on -- and remember: if we don't make the goal, no money changes hands, and you're off the hook.

Wish me luck: I hit the road tomorrow morning!

Happy New Year's Resolutions!

2012-01-01T17:43:00.000-05:00

I will blog more often this year...I promise.

Yesterday was a really good day. Didn't start out so auspiciously, though. Bro-in-law Carl Childs and I got up at 7:30 AM -- painful, but coffee helped -- strapped my new bike rack (thanks, Cathy!) to the Jetta and loaded our bikes, shoved our middle-aged bodies into spandex pants, and headed for Pennypack Trail to ride across Philly. I screwed up and we hit the trailhead at Lorimer Park...which meant we wound up wiggling our way down to Shady Lane and over roads to the trailhead in Fairmout Park I meant to start from! That wasn't so bad, though, and we rolled onto the paved trail, enjoying the warming day -- when we hit the first hill and Carl's chain popped. Not off the gears, he lost a pin! That's the end of that ride, so I turned around and rode back to the car, loaded up, came back and picked him up, and decided to go to Rieker's Meats (Hop Angel wasn't open yet). Carl went and got coffee, while I got some spätzel and Nürnberger bratwurst, some Ansbach Uralt brandy candy, and a link of pfefferwurst for the ride home.

We got home, got changed, and started chivvying everyone about for a run into Philly. Carl and bro-in-law Curt wanted to go to the Italian/9th Street Market, so we put our three families into two cars and did that trip. It was busy, but not crazy; hit Claudio's and DiBruno Brothers for cheese and stuff, Carl got some hot pepper shooters, and we chatted with vendors. I talked to DiBruno's manager Hunter Fike about getting something stinky and soft to add to a cheese array that included Prima Donna, Bruder Basil, Brie, chevre, a buttermilk blue (Roth Käse, and it's a very good blue for the price), and Delice de Bourgogne. He showed me two, and one of them popped for me: St. James, a washed rind sheep's milk cheese from England that had some unctuous and earthy notes of cauliflower; not your typical stinky cheese, but bold enough to stand up to whisky. I'm not sure, I said; I don't know if anyone else is going to like it. "They'll be eating the Prima Donna," he said, with a look of "Am I right, or am I right?" on his face. Done!

We realized we had to get Thomas home fairly soon -- he had to work scooping ice cream at Goodnoe's in Newtown last night -- so it was time for our late lunch at Memphis Taproom. It took almost 20 minutes to fight our way across town, but it was worth it: the draft list included two cask ales I'd been hunting for -- Marston's Pedigree and Ruddles County Ale. Excellent! They set up a table for ten in the back room, and I soon had my first Marston's: the freshness was clear as soon as I got a whiff of the legendary "Burton Snatch," a sulfury note in the aroma, followed by a clean, delicious malty beer. Awesome. My nephew Matt got a Ruddles on my advice (liked it so much he had another), and it was a sharper snap of a beer; still softly cask-conditioned (and both beers were brilliant, nicely cellared), but with a crisper flip of fruit and hops. Carl got a Firestone Union Jack (not done in their Burton Union system, which would have been a sweet synchronicity) that was eye-popping in hoppiness compared to the English cask beers; and his wife Joan got a Sam Smith cider, a delish example.

Food? Yum. I got the brisket sandwich, loving the cooked carrots that came with it. The rest of the table: pulled pork, fish & chips, Port Richmond Platter (kielbasa and pierogies and kraut), cheeseburgers, kielbasa grinder, and the smoked coconut club was enjoyed by our newly vegetarian niece, Abbey. She let me have a bite -- I'd always been intrigued by this sandwich, but not enough to order it -- and it was stunningly smokey, a wonderful impact of flavor and texture. More of the excellent veg cooking at Memphis. I grabbed another pint at the bar while the bill was being taken care of by Carl -- thanks, Carl, you didn't really have to! -- and downed it in a quick yet respectful manner.

We thanked the bartender and left, back home to Langhorne, where we sat down to watch Season One of Justified, the excellent FX series about US Marshall Raylan Givens -- we're hooked, and got the rest of the family going on it. We had a couple beers: Yards ESA (still a fave), Bend Brewery Hop Head (big, good, hoppy as promised), New Holland Dragon's Milk (woof: big old bourbony stout), New Belgium Snow Day (big and hoppy: new trend for New Belgium?), and Wolaver's Alta Gracia coffee stout (nicely understated vanilla bean effect; too many vanilla stouts overdo it). The cheeses were put out with sliced "baguette" (sorry, but anything that comes frozen and gets "baked" in a supermarket's bakery oven...gets "quotes") and crackers; we had a couple pounds of chilled shrimp, chips and dips, cookies, candy, pickled eggs and the pepper shooters, olives, pickled mushrooms, and peanuts -- this was a good six hours after the Memphis lunch by now!

Nora's friend Kate came over for the party and got wrapped up in Justified, Thomas came home from work with three friends from high school (all 20 now, and still drinking soda and "sparkling cider", our last non-worried NYE?), and they were watching it. The over-40 crowd were out back on the deck, around the blaze of wood in the firepit, drinking Apfelkorn schnapps and beers (and a little Jameson 18 for some of us), and wondering when they would let Dick Clark retire. When the ball dropped, we toasted with prosecco, hugged and kissed and wished each other a happy new year, then joined the neighborhood in making a lot of noise! Geese were circling overhead, woken and spooked into flight by the local fireworks; Maud and Penderyn were excited by the geese and the noise and the fire and the food; and the kids went back to Justified.

Around 1 AM, we were wondering what to do next when I remembered those bratwurst...and soon we had a big bowl of grilled bratwurst on the table, sliced into chunks and stirred up with spätzel and buttery caramelized onions. That disappeared in short order among agreement that we'd found a new tradition. Carl and I split one last beer: a Deschutes Black Butte XXIII, and it was tremendous. Chocolatey, orange notes, depth, and a compelling complexity that kept me mumbling under my breath; great end-of-the-night beer. Around 3 AM, we finally sent the boys home and everyone else to bed, shut down the TV, and called it a night. I was up at 8:45 this morning to start the pork and sauerkraut roasting and sing at 10:30 mass...and the year began again. Happy New Year!

Goldman Sachs misses a beat on Beam acquisition

2011-12-19T09:33:00.000-05:00

Saw in my morning news round-up that Goldman Sachs' analysts don't believe Beam's acquisition of Irish whiskey maker Cooley will affect the chances that Beam itself will become an acquisition target. "Tuck-in acquisition in line with management commentary, does not alter our view of BEAM as a likely acquisition candidate - BEAM has been vocal in its willingness to acquire where appropriate and the scale of this purchase is very small. Given these factors we do not believe the acquisition alters the likelihood of BEAM ultimately being an M&A target." I think they're missing something.

Beam has been an acquisition target since before it was spun off as a pure drinks company earlier this year, a move that was tantamount to dousing it in warm cow blood and tossing it in the tiger cage at the zoo. The Jim Beam and Maker's Mark franchises alone -- and the huge wedge into the growing US bourbon market they represent -- made Beam the top item on the M&A menu for hungry drinks companies like Diageo, Pernod Ricard, and Campari. There may be problems with getting such a large chunk of the bourbon market -- US antitrust action has woken up from a long sleep, see the nixing of the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger -- but that would only affect Campari, with their Wild Turkey ownership.

But what about Irish? There are only three Irish whiskey distillers (and four distilleries, counting Cooley's newly re-opened Kilbeggan distillery; though there is strong speculation that William Grant will build a distillery for their new acquisition, Tullamore Dew), and Pernod and Diageo own the other two; Midleton/Jameson and Bushmills, respectively. Cooley is a tiny bit of that market, but may well have an outsize effect on anti-monopoly considerations.

Competition regulators were likely relieved when Pernod was forced to sell Bushmills in 2005 (as part of brand off-loading it had to do in order to buy up Allied Domecq); I suspect they're not going to be quick to allow even this much more concentration of Irish whiskey, especially when it's growing the way it is. Is it a deal-breaker? No. Is Beam still likely an acquisition target? Given the way things have been going the past 15 years, almost certainly. Does this complicate things? Yes, I do believe it does, especially for Diageo (which owns Bushmills and fast-charging Bulleit and the admittedly tiny George Dickel) and Pernod Ricard (ruling the Irish whiskey world with Jameson).

But does it mean anything to you? Hard to say. Did Campari buying Wild Turkey change anything? Not yet; the new distillery was a Pernod project the Italians simply completed, and they're continuing the brand extensions. Diageo buying Bushmills was probably a good thing, long-term.

But I can't help thinking about British brewing. Twenty years ago, there were about six large British brewers left. Now there are none. You can argue that they made crappy beer, but they're gone, and largely the jobs are gone. Do you really want to see American distilling go the same way? Beam is independent; Brown Forman is independent; Heaven Hill is independent; Buffalo Trace/Sazerac and Van Winkle are independent. Now Beam is in the hunt, and Brown Forman's been mentioned. Heaven Hill's probably safe as a family-owned company, but Sazerac? Hard to say.

And of course, it weakens the argument of keeping American distilling American when the company you're concerned about just bought the last independent Irish distiller. Kismet, anyone?

Race you to Christmas!

2011-12-15T08:55:00.001-05:00

I am becoming a slave to my calendar...yesterday was a taping for American Beer Blogger at Porter's Pub in Easton, had a great time with Larry Porter, and found out about Weyerbacher's coming new graphics and logo, and talked to owner Troy Reynard about Two Rivers Brewing, a new brewpub coming to town soon. Good taping, good fun, good beer...and then on the road along the river back home to make dinner before heading to a dress rehearsal.

After the second of those evening rehearsals this week, my church choir's Christmas concert is tonight (and of course, I'd be happy to see any of you at St. Andrew's RCC in Newtown: it's a very good concert, with a small string ensemble). Tomorrow night I'm at Appalachian Brewing in Harrisburg for a book signing and fundraiser for the "American Beer Blogger" Kickstarter campaign (come out and pledge!).

I get to spend the weekend with the family, then Tuesday 12/20 I'll be visiting Valley Malt in western Massachusetts to see their custom micromaltings operation, dropping in to check out Element Brewing, and checking in with Will Meyers at Cambridge Brewing to sample some beers he's made with Valley Malt...and then over to Craft Beer Cellar for a Kickstarter fund-raising event with Suzanne and Kate, and Chris Lohring will be there with plenty of Notch Session beers (including the new Černé Pivo dark lager), and brewer Nate Heck will be joining us from Harpoon with their latest 100 Barrel release; come on out, 4-6, get some Notch and fresh Harpoon, and make a pledge to bring great beer (and some real fun) to TV! (I then pick up my son and drive home...should get in around 1 AM...)

Thursday 12/22 is the Book Singing Party at the Grey Lodge! It's not a typo: have a beer, pick up a signed copy of Pennsylvania Breweries or New Jersey Breweries, and join the surprisingly musical crowd at the G Lodge in singing some Christmas carols. We just had a great time at the family's annual caroling party, and my pitchpipe's all warmed up. It's an old-time Christmas...in a bar! We'll be harmonizing from 7:30 to 9:00, and remember, we all sound better after a couple drinks.

After that? Well, next Friday, the family's going to do our usual last-minute Christmas shopping and lunch and wandering around Bethlehem, PA (and maybe grabbing a couple quick beers at Bethlehem Brew Works and the Hotel Bethlehem). After that...it's into the Christmas/New Year's week, and a chance to relax before I start on a round of Kickstarter fundraisers...more about that later!

Half Acre Daisy Cutter

2011-12-10T11:46:00.000-05:00

I've got another 16 oz. can from Half Acre Beer Company (and again, thanks to regular reader (and buddy!) Steve Herberger for the trade): Daisy Cutter Pale Ale. You know...15 years ago, we'd have said this was an IPA (even at 5.2% ABV) and whistled at how bitter and hoppily aromatic it is. Now? Definitely a pale ale in the sliding scale that is today's Hoppy Ale Continuum, and definitely perky and tasty. There's a serious snappy bitterness on the end, too. I recommend this to my buddy who thinks pale ales "have nothing to say anymore." Listen up, fathead.

Christmas at Max's in Baltimore

2011-12-05T09:03:00.000-05:00

If I posted everytime Max's on Broadway had a great beer event, you'd think this was the Max's blog...but I had to stick this one in. Really makes me wish Baltimore was less than 2.5 hours away; actually, I wish that pretty often. Been too long since I've been there, and this proves it!

MAX' ANNUAL HOLIDAY BEER SOCIAL

TOMORROW DEC, 6, 2011 @6PM

It is that great time a year again. This Year we think we are putting out one of the best line ups, for the holiday social. So here it is.........

ALL ON DRAFT:

Struise Tsjeeses Reserva

10.0% Belgian triple aged 8 Months on Stone Fruits and 6 Months on Oak.(Belgium)

Struise Pannepot Grand Reserva 2005

10.0% Belgian Strong Dark Ale. Aged 24 Months on Oak barrels. The Last 10 Months are aged on Calvados Oak Barrels.(Belgium)

Hebrew 15:15

13.5% Hybrid Barleywine w. Pomegranates, Dates & Grapes(US)

Firestone Walker XV

12.5% Barrel Aged Blended Beer. 76% Barleywine style Beer, 19.0% Stout 5% Imperial IPA(US)

Evil Twin Soft Xmas

10.9% Imperial Stout w/ Vanilla & Sour Cherries(Denmark)

Evil Twin Christmas Eve At a New York City Hotel Room

10.0% Imperial Stout(Denmark)

Van Steenberge La Biere Du Boucanier Christmas

9.5% Belgian Holiday Ale(Belgium)

Emelisse Winterbier

9.0% Quad Style w/ Pils, Munchener & Abbey Malt w/ Candi Sugar(Netherlands)

Mikkeller Ris A La M'Ale 2011

8.0% Dutch Ale Based on a Traditional Dessert.(Denmark)

Plus Maybe one More Surprise Beers....

More on the Kickstarter

2011-12-02T18:31:00.000-05:00

I'm taking the TV fundraiser on the road...WAY out on the road. The first event is set: I'll be joining the wonderful Kate & Suzanne at the Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont, Massachusetts on December 20, from 4 to 6. Please come on out, see the video, ask me any damned question you want, and pledge some money to the Kickstarter.

Okay, I know, that's not real exciting. So Chris Lohring is going to be there too, with plenty of fresh Notch Session Beer for us to sample (and buy, folks: buy some, because I'm going to be and I hate being alone on things like this!). I'd love to do more events in the area, but I'll be visiting Valley Malt earlier in the day to find out what's going on there, then stopping in at Element Brewing on my way east; you know, it's just work, work, work.

There might be some stuff going on in Portland, Maine the night before, too: I'll keep you apprised.

Paying it forward

2011-12-02T16:47:00.000-05:00

An open letter to craft brewers, importers, wholesalers, beer bar owners, beer store owners, and the other great people in the craft beer industry (and yes, you drinkers, too!).

I’ve been excited about beer for over 30 years, since I took my first sip of German pilsner in 1981. It opened my eyes to what beer could be, and eventually opened my life to a new career: writing the romance and beauty of beer to help bring that eye-opening moment to others. I’ve hosted, and taught, and spoken about beer to similarly excited people in bars, to dining rooms and halls full of people, and to radio and television audiences. I do it for a living, but as you probably know — and can empathize — it’s not a great living. It is a wonderful job, though, a calling, and I wouldn’t trade it for any other.

Over that time, I’ve talked to many of you, from the early days when people like Steve Hindy, F.X. Matt, David Geary, Carol Stoudt, Gary Fish, and Dick Yuengling took the time to answer my questions, through the exciting times when guys like Rob Todd, Bill Covaleski and Ron Barchet, Sam Calagione, Tomme Arthur, Greg Hall, and Hugh Sisson talked to me what they were building. Then came the books, and I traveled all over Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, Delaware, and Maryland — thousands of miles and hundreds of four ounce samples — visiting every brewery in those states.

I took pictures, I blogged, I tweeted, and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. I loved what I saw, the people I met, and the beers I drank. I was part of it, helping spread the word, because that was what we did, from the start: when you found a place that had great beer, when you tasted a beer that stopped you in your tracks, when you met someone who turned you on to new beers…you shared it, you paid it forward. Someone told you about something great, so when you found something, you passed it on.

For almost 20 years, I have tried to spread the word, to educate, and to even-handedly present the great stories all of you have to tell. Now I have a chance to amplify that word. Green Leaf Productions contacted me about hosting a television show they call “American Beer Blogger.” I agreed to take a swing at it, and we did some taping at Stoudt’s earlier this year that they used to make a short promotional video. You can see it here on the Web.

As you can see, that’s a Kickstarter page. Green Leaf is trying to raise $60,000 to shoot and edit six episodes, and then sell the series to a cable channel. Without that money, the show probably won’t go forward, and that would be a loss, because this show is going to be the real thing. It's going to be me, calling a brewer, or bar owner, or beer store owner/manager, and setting up a visit — just like I’ve done with many of you — going there and looking around and asking questions and tasting some beers and having some fun. The only thing I may do differently is some of the stuff they had me doing in the teaser: actually working, if only for a little bit, because that's fun, and it's something I'd like to do anyway. But we'll talk beer, we'll get our facts straight, and it won't be boring.

If I’ve helped the business, your business, in any way in the past, you know I couldn’t take money for that. I had to stay separate, stay independent, and that’s for the best. But if you’d like to help your business by having this show on the air, talking about beer in a fun, real way, here’s your chance. I still can’t take your money — it goes to Green Leaf, I’m just working for them — but if you sponsor the show, we can all do what we do best: better the image and recognition of good craft beer. A pledge of only $1,000 gets you an Associate Producer credit on the show, and there are other rewards for larger pledges.

Maybe best of all, you’ll be paying it forward. I wrote about the industry — because I loved it, and found it fascinating, and still do — and this will give me a chance to tell more stories to lots more people. More people who will maybe get excited about beer, and turn into proselytizers of the word of craft beer. Give me this chance to spread the word even further!

Thanks. It’s been a great ride, and it’s just getting better.

Lew Bryson

Great Pig Dinner next Tuesday: join me!

2011-11-30T17:08:00.000-05:00

I'm hosting a special pig dinner at The Farm and Fisherman next Tuesday, December 6, and talking about beer and food pairing. The Farm and Fisherman is a BYOB, so chef/owner Josh Lawler and I are going to drive up to Lancaster the day before and pick up growlers of Spring House beer...which we will then pour for free out of the goodness of our hearts. Josh is the little brother of an old friend of mine, Tom Lawler, and we've all been doing this kind of road trip for years...we'll be sure to regale you with tales of the trip, because I doubt it's going to be as simple as drive up, get beer, drive back...

Now, when I said "pig dinner," I didn't mean it's a meal with pork. Josh opened this little place in Philly (which has the foodies peeing themselves, BTW) after serving as chef de cuisine at Blue Hill at Stone Barn,which is rewriting the book on locally-raised food for the east coast. I have to be honest with you: Tom's been telling me for years how brilliant Josh is, and I figured he was full of brotherly pride (crap, that is), but it turns out Josh really is freakin' brilliant. So, that "pig dinner?" He's making it out of a whole pig. He's getting the pig from Wyebrook Farm in Honey Brook, and then he's going to get busy, working three courses of pig (and locally-raised produce, and let me tell you...if this dude ever wanted to go vegan, he could open one of the best vegan joints in Philly immediately; he's got a way with root veggies) out of that purchase. The dessert is not pig-based, but he will be using beer to make it.

Me? I'll be talking about how and why the beers pair with the meal, why we paired those particular beers with the courses, telling tales of Spring House and brewer Matt Keasey, telling stories about Tom and Josh, and generally keeping you entertained and enlightened. For those of you lucky enough to have been at my private tastings, you know that I always bring some surprises, too, so...this is going to be a fun night. The Farm and Fisherman may not be on your beery, boozy radar, but it's clearly on some folks'; check out this review at PhillyMag. My God, except for the inevitable cranks, they even love it on Yelp.

The pig dinner is $75, very limited space (about 36), so get on the ball and nail down your spot. This is one of the hot dining spots in Philly right now; join me for some great food and fun (and those surprises, too!). Call 'em and get it done: 267 687 1555

Shiner Oktoberfest...a little late, but still

2011-11-22T18:27:00.000-05:00

Got some samples of this one, and, well...you know what my blogging's been like lately. But I had one today, and remembered what the others were like, and I gotta say: if you see any of this award-winning (European awards; up against German ofests...really) festbier, you ought to get some. Solid malt, that elusive Munich dry malt character, full and tasty, great with food...keep an eye out for it next year. (And keep an eye out for the Shiner Export, too: fantastic Dortmunder, and I really hope it's back.)

Shake your Tailgate feathers, win some cool shwag

2011-11-22T15:01:00.000-05:00

My good friend Kerry Byrne, the Potentate of Pigskin, and the Kingpin of the Coldest, Hardest Football Facts in the business -- seriously, I didn't know diddley about football until Kerry asked me to write about beer for the site for two years*, and now I know way too much -- wants you to fire up your grills, pickup trucks, deep-fryers, and portable refrigerators for the Tailgate Recipe of The Year contest, sponsored by Football Nation, Whole Foods, and our mutually-admired buddies at Harpoon Brewery.

What's that sponsorship mean? It's not just advertising bucks, it's prizes. If your recipe for tailgating greatness wins, you're up for the big prize package, delivered to your home for Super Bowl:

Brand New 46-inch Flat Screen Television
Tailgate Meal for 10 From Whole Foods Market, Delivered by Football Nation
Harpoon Brewery “Everything But the Beer” Tailgate Package (and no, I don't know what that means either, but you can bet it's for legal reasons!)
Mr. Bar-B-Q Tailgate Package Including Collegiate Grill Mat and Grill Cover, 30 Piece Barbecue Tool Set and Grill Accessories

Cool, right? So start cooking.

Just keep in mind: bring your A game, because you're going up against stuff -- and I use that term specifically -- like Kerry's own Deep-Fried Stuffing Balls. They're not Schweddy, they're stuffing, and I have it on good authority that they are "the best part of the stuffing." So get to work: you've got till December 12!

*Did some of my best stuff for them, too: check out this piece about getting blitzed, and this piece about malt liquor, and this one about vodka.

The Hulmeville Inn RULES

2011-11-22T11:49:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the Hulmeville Inn, Jeff Lavin, and ALL the folks who gave so generously Sunday afternoon: we raised almost $1200 for pancreatic cancer research...WITH BEER!! You folks are beautiful! My thanks also to the folks who came to the Hulmeville for the first time just for this event (okay, and the six Russian River drafts they were pouring), including members of my church choir!

It was a great day. My dad never went to the Hulmeville, but twice the folks there have turned out their pockets in his memory, and to help smack down this swift, vicious killer. If Jeff will keep offering, I'll keep doing this; help me make this a big annual event. And bars/brewers: I'll be happy to come host a pancreatic cancer fundraiser at YOUR place of business. Just drop me a line and we'll talk. Thanks again!

Hell's Bells...

2011-11-19T15:52:00.000-05:00

I understand that Bell's will be bringing the dark to Devil's Den on December 21st: appropriate, as the winter solstice is a dark day indeed. "Bringing the dark" is, of course, all about stouts, which has been an obsession of Larry Bell's since the earliest days. The goodies at Devil's Den will include the rare and wonderful Black Note, for only the second time in Philly; we're told that the first time it showed, the keg kicked in minutes ten. Be forewarned!

If I can't manage to get to Selin's Grove for the anniversary celebrations...might just have to get down with the blackness at Devil's Den.

Susquehanna Brewing: very serious

2011-11-18T11:12:00.000-05:00

Just got a press release from the not-open-yet Susquehanna Brewing Company (a Facebook page...don't nobody do websites no more?): they've hired Jaime Jurado as their master brewer and "operations partner."

Well...I've wondered for quite a while if SBC is serious. They've got a ton of money, and beer sales experience, and links to PA brewing (partner Fred Maier is a descendant of Charles Stegmaier), but they're leaping into this big, with a 50 bbl. BrauKon system at the get-go -- which has, I gotta say, been a harbinger of failure in the past (not BrauKon, of course, but huge start-up equipment) -- and talk of banking on what sound like cross-over, gateway beers. A risky strategy.

Stole this from Jay Brooks, and will give it back if he asks!

But I have to tell you, this is a strong move. I've known Jaime for almost 20 years, and the man's one of the strongest technical brewers I know. He's brewed all over the world -- including a stint at The Lion! -- and has strong family ties to the Wyoming Valley. He's leaving a position he's held since 1997 as director of brewing operations for Gambrinus: that's Shiner, BridgePort, and Trumer, all excellent breweries (and if you're laughing at me for including Shiner in that, first off, get over your geeky self, and second, have a couple of their recent Ofests and get some of their excellent Export before you say another word...geek). The improvements he made at Shiner (funded in large part by Gambrinus's position as importer for Corona in the eastern US and Texas until recently ("Banco de Corona," as Jaime put it when we toured the eye-poppingly modern and well-equipped brewery)) alone are impressive, but the man's a published brewing chemist with references out the ying-yang. I'm very much taking Susquehanna Brewing seriously this morning.

That said, I still have concerns. I saw Independence ("Get it while it lasts!") buy big, get a good brewer, and fail with mainstreamy beers and no clue on how to sell beer. I also worry about a press release that has WTF paragraphs like this in it:

SBC represents a new direction in the exciting trajectory of American craft brewing. Founded by the former beer distributors of United Beverage in Pittston, PA, with a rich history of significant regional breweries in one family, as well as a multi-generation beer distribution enterprise in the other, this is the first successful beer distribution company to take up brewing… but being from brewing across generations, there already exists hand’s-on experience from running a regional brewery in the organization in its President.

I'm sure the beer will be better, I'm dead certain of it. The question is, with The Lion already making some pretty good crossover stuff that no one in the Wyoming Valley seems to want to buy, where's the market, especially when you've got 50 bbls. at a time? I guess we'll see. Best of luck, truly, because I'd like to see this succeed. NEPA deserves it.

Hey, let's put on a show!

2011-11-16T17:40:00.000-05:00

Hello, Faithful Readers! Time to finally let this cat out of the bag. Back in May, I was approached about being involved in a television show on beer. The idea was "American Beer Blogger," and it would be a blogger who went and visited places, talked beer, asked questions, and did things...and I was the blogger. They'd looked at my blog and liked it (as I recall, the guy (John Wright) said he'd looked at the blog and in one screen laughed out loud twice and saw a Star Trek reference, which was good enough for him.)

I thought about it for a while -- it's silly to think about at first, and if you don't believe me, just take a look at my picture -- and said sure, might as well take a shot. So not long afterwards I was up at Stoudt's at 7:30 AM, getting ready to do a day of shooting with Ed, Carol, and Eddie, and the incredibly friendly and engaging (and professional) crew from Green Leaf Productions in Easton. The guy who came up with the idea, Laz Melan (who owns the Pickled Egg bar in Easton), was there too.

We'd discussed some general ideas about what we wanted to do, but really? No script, not even a plan beyond we were going to talk at the bottling line -- not my first choice, but what the hell -- talk to Carol, and have something to eat. We made the rest of it up as we went along, and you know, it came out pretty well. I'm at my best in front of a camera when I'm not trying to do something from memory, so it rolled out pretty naturally.

Well, what then? Then we did a little more stuff, some wind-up stuff (which we later augmented at my Philly Beer Week event at Devil's Den, out of which you may yet see Christine Gumpper on the TV), and wrapped it, and the Green Leaf guys went back to Easton to edit, assuring me that we had some good stuff in the can. And then, except for the Devil's Den stuff, and a little more taping at the recent bourbon thing at Allentown Brew Works...nothing happened.

Well, not quite. They did show me the clip you see above -- hope you've watched it! -- and I thought, damn, that's pretty cool, and so did my family, but I didn't really show it to anyone else. Not sure why, but I didn't.

And then yesterday, about two minutes before Green Leaf's Kickstarter went up, I got an email from them asking if it was okay to put all those rewards that banked on my autograph to motivate people (HA!) up on the proposal. Sure, I said, why not? And away we went, and yesterday was a wild, wild ride.

So I'm coming to you to ask for help; specifically, I'm asking for money. Please pledge to the Kickstarter. The money's not going to me -- it's not really my Kickstarter -- it's going to Green Leaf to fund the full editing and marketing the idea to a channel. There are rewards, sure, and although some of them do get kind of interesting up towards the high end -- I'd like to come do a screening in your hometown! -- do it for beer. Seriously. And here's why.

I promise you that this is going to be the real thing, not infomercial, or silly-scripted, or "oh, look who I just happened upon today!" It's going to be me, calling a brewer, or bar owner, or beer store owner/manager, and setting up a visit -- just like I do all the time -- going to their place and looking around and asking questions and tasting some beers and having some fun -- like I always do. The only thing I may do differently is some of the stuff they had me doing in the teaser: actually working, if only for a little bit, because that's fun, and it's something I'd like to do anyway. But we'll talk beer, we'll get our facts straight, and it won't be boring.

So think about it, and if you have any questions, ask. I'll be updating this as we go, and keeping my fingers crossed. In the meantime, please spread the word!

Wish me luck! And pledge!

Not about drinks...but still local

2011-11-12T12:23:00.000-05:00

We joined a new CSA this year, Anchor Run, just outside of Wrightstown, here in Bucks County. It actually grew out of a conversation I struck up with a guy at Watch City Brewing in Waltham, Mass., of all places. I was having dinner there (I was in the area to do an event), and just started talking to the guy next to me about local beer, and local food, and local produce, and how I belonged to a CSA...and not only is Derek McGeehan a farmer running a CSA, he runs the CSA that's nearest to my home in Bucks County...and he loves craft beer!

Well, who am I to kick Fate in the balls? We joined Anchor Run, and we've been enjoying it, all through the heavy rains, and the four hours of weeding green beans. We got a lot of eggplant and hot peppers, which I've loved, and I finally found a way to cook celeriac that I liked. Lots and lots of greens -- mustard, kale, Italian dandelion, bok choy, and some others I never heard of (tat soy?) -- that cook up nice, and plenty of lettuce and tomatoes, and lots of spuds and onions.

We also got some beef through them from another CSA (Tussock Sedge Farm, in northern Bucks), and last night, a day after our final harvest pick-up at Anchor Run, I decided to do an all-CSA dinner. I marinated a nice piece of London broil from Tussock Sedge (used Anchor Run garlic in the marinade), cooked up a mess of varied greens with sesame oil and chili paste and more garlic, grilled the beef with a foil pack of CSA potatoes, and steamed a pot of CSA broccoli. Add in a big CSA lettuce salad...and we had quite a meal. The beef was delicious, spuds were perfect...the broccoli had a worm in it, but hey, it's all organic, so you toss the worm and keep eating. Great meal!

Next Tuesday, 11/15: Let's Toast, Coast-to-Coast!

2011-11-11T18:38:00.000-05:00

Vanberg & DeWulf, the pioneering importers (and good friends of mine, the awesomely cultured and intelligent (it's not their fault they're so good-looking, too) Don Feinberg and Wendy Littlefield), are celebrating their 30th anniversary next Tuesday, November 15th, with a Coast To Coast Toast. In 30 years they've imported or brewed (they were the original folks at Ommegang, y'know) a fantastic number of beers, and influenced any number of others. My first Belgian beer was Duvel, at that time imported by Don and Wendy. Saison Dupont is on the "desert island beers" list of an incredible number of brewers.

Take part in the Toast at one of these places, join us in celebrating a truly influential couple that helped bring the Beer Revolution to you in a very big way, even if you don't realize it. Here's the list of "official" beers, but if you grab a Duvel or an Ommegang, you're in the spirit, too. If you just hoist a glass of Saison Dupont, well, you're good to go, and you'll be better for it. And if you're in Philly, there are celebrations at Monk's, Eulogy, and at Tria Washington Square West, where I'll be. Come on out and join me from 6 to 9: we'll have a VBDW quiz for you to win some pretty cool prizes, and excellent beers on tap (including two new VBDW imports).

Cheers!

Finger Lakes Distilling goes Irish

2011-11-11T12:49:00.000-05:00

Very interesting: in what I think is a first (which probably means it isn't, but you try keeping up with every new craft distiller!), Finger Lakes Distilling is releasing a "pure pot still whiskey" on Black Friday. I checked, and yes, they mean a whiskey with a mashbill of malted and unmalted barley, like Midleton uses in Redbreast and blends into Jameson.

This whiskey is made predominately from local unmalted barley and is aged in our used Bourbon and Rye barrels giving it a smooth, sweet flavor profile (much like an Irish Whiskey). McKenzie Pure Pot Still Whiskey is bottled at 80 proof.

How about that? American craft distillers continue to try new things, put their twist on them. Gotta like that. Check these guys out, and say hi.

Bud Light Platinum -- and I thought Miller Clear was dopey

2011-11-10T15:10:00.001-05:00

It's like Bud Light doing a pole dance...

Go read this, and come back. We need to talk.

All up to speed? Okay. The quote that stands out there (other than "higher-alcoholic beer," what the hell, fella, was there something too tame (and accurate) about "higher-alcohol"?) for me is this one: "Bud Light Platinum is a trendy blue-bottle line extension that appeals to a key group of beer drinkers and expands consumer occasions.”

WTF?

Blue bottles are trendy?
Blue bottles are a type of beer?
Blue bottles appeal to a key group of beer drinkers? WHO?

You guys should know by now that I don't slap AB around just for fun, but this idea's got "cognitive disaster" stamped all over it. A 137 calorie "light beer" with 6% ABV? Right, pound these like 4.2% 105 calorie Bud Light (because it does say BUD LIGHT right on it), and you'll be knee-walking -- knee-walking and fat -- in no time.

I'm seeing a lot of people -- beer geeks -- saying this is a shot at the craft market. I'm sorry: you're stoned. You guys think everything is about craft beer: it's not. Craft beer is still under 6% of the market. It's growing, it's profitable, and you've got Dark Lord in your cellar, but 7 out of 8 beer drinkers are still pounding mainstream suds, okay?

What we have here is yet another attempt to get people to pay more for light beer. I'm not sure how making "Bud Light" stronger than Bud (at 5.0%) and only 8 calories "lighter" per 12 oz. can is gonna do that, but that's what they're doing. It's crazy, and it's going to fail. Everyone in the media knows it's going to fail, you know it's going to fail. This is going to be another Bud Select, a big fat expensive FAIL. Why are they doing this? Did all the smart people quit or get laid off?

Ah, well. Sit back and watch the follies.

An addition that was too good to pass up. Convenience Store News notes in their story on Bud Light Platinum that it "...has the chance to be a trailblazer in the light beer market. Most beers in that category deliver fewer calories and carbohydrates than standard beers, while providing a lower alcohol content." Oh, CSN, if I didn't know better, I'd think you having some fun with these guys!

Tip to you, mixologists: the backlash has arrived

2011-11-09T23:31:00.000-05:00

Saw two things today that lead me to believe that the inevitable brute-stupid journalistic backlash against the cocktail revival has begun. First, this sidebar of duh-obvious "you cocktail drinkers think you're so smart" horseshit in PhillyMag's best bars cover story.

...in this Lillet-and-Aperol-soaked age, it seems we’ve forgotten the delight of drinking simple cocktails. Of drinking the way our grandparents drank. Grandpa wouldn’t just have looked down on the lavender-hued Aviation, with its whiff of Granny’s soap. He would have done so only after smashing it on the ground in a profanity-laden tirade. Too fussy. Too frilly. Now bring me a CC and soda, kid, and don’t skimp on the pour.

Nice. Grandpa the barbarian.Whatsamatter, buddy, bartender cut you off after one too many Ketel and tonics?

Second, I saw the Michael Imperioli 1800 tequila ad in Wine Spectator. You know the ads: douchey-looking guy in an expensive plain black suit, white shirt, skinny black tie, with a glass of 1800, and the caption "DO I LOOK LIKE I WANT TO SEE THE COCKTAIL MENU?" No, you look like I'm going to be calling you a cab in about five more shots, actually.

Sigh. Why do we have to kill everything when we're done with it? Why do we have to race off to the next thing, or cling to the old thing? Cocktails are good. Sure, we got carried away, but there's some good in the carried-away part, too. If you can't appreciate a properly made Manhattan, or a French 75, or a Sazerac, and would rather have a shot of tequila, or a CC and soda...what da hell, buster? Go drink that, but don't convince yourself that you're "right" by crap-bombing something good.

No, we get all caught up in the nastiness of it all, and we can't just enjoy something else. So we tell each other that's so over, and done, and how could anyone be dumb enough to like that. You know what? That's what people told me about non-mainstream beer back in the 1990s. That's what they told me about Scotch in the 1980s. That's what they told me about steak, for Christ's sake, in the 1990s! Idiots. You don't want what I'm drinking, fine. Drink something else. But it's like gay marriage: how's it hurting you?

Lose the attitude. Grow beyond having to piss on someone else's parade to make yours convincing. Walk away from people like that. And let's all have a drink...whatever you want.

Fifteen Years of Iron Hill

2011-11-09T15:13:00.002-05:00

Iron Hill, our local/regional kick-ass chain of brewpubs, is celebrating 15 years this month with two events at their original location in Newark, Delaware. (Unfortunately, sounds like their first Philadelphia location in Chestnut Hill won't be open in time for the anniversary...but that just means another fun party.) Take it away, Iron Hill!

First, Monday, November 14, from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. – Fe15 Release Party at Iron Hill Newark, an exciting first taste of Iron Hill’s exclusive anniversary beer, named for the periodic table symbol for Iron (Fe) and 15, the number of years they’ve been brewing in Delaware and beyond. The beer is very strong and hoppy, brewed with only American hops and pilsner malt with an ABV of 15%. Guests can purchase 8 oz. draughts of Fe15, and enjoy complimentary Iron Hill Birthday Cake, baked exclusively for the event by Sweet Somethings Desserts. Fe15 is the latest in Iron Hill’s Bottled Reserve Series, so 750 mL bottles of the beer will be available for $24.50 each. A raffle will be held, as well, with the winner receiving one bottle of Fe15 and a commemorative t-shirt.

Bobby Douglas (Newark ass't brewer), Mark Edelson (partner, director of brewing), Kevin Davies (partner, director of culinary), Justin Sproul, (Newark head brewer), Kevin Finn (partner and president)

Next, Saturday, November 19, from 12 noon until 5 p.m. – Fifteen Firkins for Fifteen Years at Iron Hill Newark, a party celebrating Iron Hill’s official 15^th anniversary. This fun and festive event will feature firkins from all eight Iron Hill locations and other local brewers, including Dogfish Head, Evolution, Flying Fish, Stewart’s and Yards, as well as retro menu items from the original Iron Hill menu such as Black & Tan Hummus and Chocolate Porter Cake. Guests will enjoy special pricing on a variety of unusual beers, including Hoppopotamus, Cerebus IPA and Vanilla-Coffee Oatmeal Stout, available in three sizes: 4 oz. for $2, 10 oz. for $4.25 and 20 oz. for $6.25. Two $16 Beer Samplers will also be offered, spanning all 15 beers.

These folks do know how to throw a party. I made it to the Fe10 release five years ago, and it was a damned good time! Hope I can make one of these.

(I apologize for the font sizes...if I had more time, I'd wrassle 'em.)

Movember and Angel's Envy

2011-11-09T14:00:00.000-05:00

The closest I've come to clean-shaven in 22 years.

I am hirsute. I have facial fungus. I am lazy in the morning. I grew up next to an Amishman. I have a full beard...for a variety of reasons, but mostly, the last time I shaved was the morning I got married to Catherine Childs, December 9, 1989. My kids have never seen me without a beard.

So when this whole "Movember" thing came along, well, I was nonplussed. Good cause -- research into male cancers -- but I'm already there: what am I going to do, shave it off and grow it back? Not happening, pilgrim!

Then I got an email from the folks at Angel's Envy, the new bourbon sourced and blended by legendary bourbon man Lincoln Henderson, a man who I deeply respect (and always enjoy the company of), pointing out that Lincoln has a very snazzy 'stache and that they're into Movember, so how about it? Well, you know? I liked that reasoning. They told me far as they were concerned, I could just keep bearding along. Besides, Lincoln is kicking cancer's ass (not surprising to anyone who knows him), and that's an even better reason.

So folks of the man-type persuasion, the time's come. Check the links above, determine yourself to get hairy, and put down that razor. I dare ya. You can do the fancy dan stuff, get the wax and all that, or you can just go full mountain man like me -- it's all good. And if someone asks you why, tell 'em: charity, bro, want to make a donation to a great cause?

Besides, you might just find that you like it. And your SO might like it too. Mine did.

Great beer, great cause, you, me, Hulmeville Inn, 11/20...what's not to like?

2011-11-09T12:36:00.000-05:00

Jeff Lavin, the big-hearted beer-loving owner of the Hulmeville Inn (and congrats to him for pegging #36 on the FooBooz 50 Best Bars list!) is gonna help me memorialize my father again on November 20, and you're gonna want to be there: it's a Russian River-Sierra Nevada-Lew Bryson Collaboration, as I give up one of my two kegs of Sierra Nevada Exportation, the beer I helped design and make with the Philly Pholks at Sierra Nevada's Beer Camp last year...that we double-batched, half of it being sent to Russian River to age in wine barrels there for a year. I tasted some during Philly Beer Week, and it's a wonderful, lightly sour, very drinkable Baltic porter (you'll see by the huge variances in the BA tasting notes that it's a beer that takes some thought).

The last time we did this...that's Mike, The Hawk, and Jeff!

It is, of course, extremely rare at this point, as are Russian River beers outside of California, and you've got a chance to have all that as Jeff puts on the Exportation and at least two other RR drafts. Proceeds from the sales of Exportation will go to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network for research into this terribly swift killer. We'll be accepting direct donations as well (I'll be throwing in a hunk of cash, I urge, beg, cajole you to do the same), and will send it all in; please be generous. This is the disease that took Steve Jobs, and -- last June -- my father. It means a lot to me. Thanks, Jeff.

Hope to see you out there at the Hulmeville on November 20, starting at noon!

Half Acre Gossamer

2011-11-05T15:00:00.000-04:00

Just finished lunch: a bowl of soup I made using CSA late fall harvest (kohlrabi, cabbage, celeriac, hot pepper, turnips, can of diced tomatoes, plenty of spices), crusty dense wheat bread, smoked cheese, and a 16 oz. can of 4.2% Gossamer, from Half Acre Beer Company. (Thanks to regular reader (and buddy!) Steve Herberger for the trade; I sent him 'Gansett Fest and Sixpoints.)

First time I've had Half Acre in a while, and this was clean, crisply bitter, and refreshing. Great with the soup; flavorful enough to stand up to the celeriac earthiness, not so bitter as to twist the flavors. I could go another couple rounds with this one happily...but I gotta start warming up to sing tonight. Cheers!

Victory Dark Intrigue: you can have mine this year

2011-10-26T15:44:00.000-04:00

I got a sample bottle of Victory Dark Intrigue last year. Circumstances compelled me to drink it almost immediately so I could review it for Malt Advocate, much as I wanted to let it age a few months. I liked it, it was good. But...you can have my bottle this year.

See, Victory's releasing Dark Intrigue (Storm King aged in bourbon barrels) at 11:30 AM on November 23 (get all the gory details here), in a big geek-frenzy release. Much as this is kinda fun, and I really did like the beer...well, two things. First, I'm leery of the whole circus atmosphere. I've been staying away from beer festivals, too. Maybe I'm just getting old, maybe I need a kick in the slats. Dunno. But the main reason is the second one: my son comes home from college the night before, and since he's only 20, I'd just as soon spend the day with him; maybe next year we'll both be there!

Anyway...seriously, go, get some, this is our answer to all the other madness releases that beer does. You think Black Friday's gonna be crazy? Check out Dark Wednesday. (By the way...there will be a small amount of draft DI in the taproom. Might be a little less crazy than the line for the retail store!)

International Stout/Porter Day? Sure, I'm in

2011-10-19T10:15:00.000-04:00

Got a press release from Chris D'Puia, the beer maven at O'Reilly's, in Harrisburg (apparently they're not going by T. Brendan O'Reilly's anymore?), about their participation in the 1st Annual International Stout/Porter Day, on November 3rd. I didn't know about this, but it has a website, and it's not Guinness's "Arthur's Day." Whatever, it's an excuse to drink dark ales, and I am down with that!

Here's what's going on at O'Reilly's. I won't be there -- too far with what else I have to do that day -- but I WILL be drinking dark beer somewhere, at home, if needs be.

Starting at 6:00, there will be a growler and bottle share in the banquet room, next to the Pub (parallel to the bathrooms). Please bring a growler or a bottle of your choice to share with all of the attendees. Please note that it does not have to be a Stout or Porter, but they are recommended due to the reason of celebration.
At 8:00, we move the festivities into O’Reillys itself, where there will be at least 6 Stouts or Porters on tap and one firkin on the bar. Ffej and ADG of “Think Tank” will be in the house that evening playing live music.
As for food, it will be available to purchase in the pub, and it can be brought in to the banquet room. Outside food will not be permitted in the banquet room. However, it is most important to note that this room is being provided to us free of charge to rent as long as we do not leave a mess behind, so please clean up after yourselves.

So get dark, folks. Sounds like fun to me!

More on craft beer and super-premium spirits sales

2011-10-14T13:24:00.000-04:00

I've been talking about how craft beer and high-end spirits sales continue to buck the economy...and I've been getting a string of comments from my favorite grammar-ignorant punctuation-avoidant anonymous poster crying me false, saying that sales aren't that good, and will soon (when? After ten years?!) crash back to normal. Well...sorry, "Punkin Head," but there's more good news, this time from an interview with Midwest supermarket chain Hy-Vee's vp of wine and spirits, Jay Wilson in Shanken News Daily. Check it out...

Sales of beverage alcohol at the 245-unit Hy-Vee Inc. supermarket chain throughout the Midwest approached $500 million at the end of its fiscal year on September 30, according to Jay Wilson, vice president of wine & spirits. Total sales at the employee-owned chain were at $7 billion for the period. Hy-Vee is opening 3 new stores this year, and will have 248 units in the following eight states by year-end: Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas. Its beverage alcohol departments range from 6,000 square feet down to a single 40-foot aisle. Wine and spirits each account for 30% of sales, with beer at 40%. The chain has made a commitment to educating its sales staff and has become a destination for wine, spirits and beer drinkers seeking selection and good value. So far, over 350 employees have received certification recognized by The Society of Wine Educators.
[Edited here...]
SND: How has the slow economy of the past few years affected your business?
Wilson: While the on-premise accounts have been hurt, people are still buying alcoholic beverages to take home. So they’re coming to us instead of going out.
SND: When Market Watch interviewed you in 2008, beverage alcohol sales at Hy-Vee were $350 million. How have you done in the years since?
Wilson: We just finished our fiscal year on September 30, and we’re very close to half a billion dollars in beverage alcohol sales.
SND: How do you account for that growth? What’s driving it?
Wilson: Craft beer is up 35% and we have really embraced this market. We’re putting 44 feet of nothing but craft in an open-air cold case. We’ve also got some big growth categories in spirits. Vodka is the leading category for us, while Irish whiskey is showing about a 45% trend up over the last three years for us. Additionally, rum is a very big and growing category for us.
SND: Are you seeing any return to super-premium spirits?
Wilson: We’re seeing people going back to them. And there are some people who never left them. But we’re definitely seeing solid growth there.

Note: despite craft enthusiasts' fears that supermarkets will ignore crafts for the "big bucks" of mainstream beer, Hy-Vee clearly sees the benefit of craft's bigger margins.

Ball's in your court, "Punkin."

BridgePort Hop Harvest 2011

2011-09-26T23:17:00.000-04:00

Got this sample last week, and when today's work was done -- singing, plumbing, trip planning, and I had to mow the lawn in the sopping humidity; not hot, just disgusting -- Cathy and I split the bottle. It's a hazy light apricot in color -- or heading the other way, maybe a ruddy straw -- with lemony and sweet dough aromas. The taste? Not overwhelming; understated. I'm not surprised to get more hop flavor than bitterness from a BridgePort beer; these guys aren't about beating you over the head. There's not too much bitter, not too much sweet. I liked it, and I'd be happy to take a few more glasses in the course of an evening.

Guinness Black Lager

2011-09-24T17:01:00.000-04:00

What do you expect when Guinness, the world's biggest brewer of stout, the classic 'black beer,' a dark, dark ale...comes out with a beer called "Guinness Black Lager"? Well, I didn't know what to expect, so I was quite curious when I popped the top on this sample.

First, like the "black beer" itself, it isn't really black. It's a very, very, very dark brown, and when you hold it to the light, you can see that around the edges. A quibble.

Second, I was, I guess, expecting something more in the way of aroma, but all I really got was a bit of wet bread and an earthy note.

But get stuck into it, and -- well, not a lot, actually. The mouthfeel's maybe the best part of it, and it does roll around nicely; there's a decent uptick of bitterness at the end, though not anything you'd pucker over. Otherwise? A bland sweetness tempered with a wisp of coffee, a breath of burnt-grain bitterness...and it's gone, leaving only a faintly pleasant sweetness behind.

I can't help thinking that this is a signifying beer, something for the guys who can't handle Guinness (!) but want something black in their jar. I don't see a lot of future here. Sorry.

Big Moves in the U.S. Scotch Market

2011-09-13T15:18:00.001-04:00

Really interesting numbers on U.S. Scotch whisky sales from Shanken News Daily today. For the first time ever, a single malt -- The Glenlivet -- is one of the top five Scotch sellers. The Glenlivet passed J&B to cross over the 300,000 case threshold. If you needed further proof of premiumization in this market, Johnnie Walker Black is selling significantly more than JW Red:

The brand, including Black, Red, Blue, Green, Gold and Swing, had total volume of 1.61 million cases in the U.S. market last year. Black continues to comprise a greater portion of the total Johnnie Walker brand, reaching an estimated 810,000 cases last year compared to Red’s 720,000 cases. Back in 2000, Black was the smaller player with 550,000 cases, compared to Red’s 675,000 cases.

Fascinating.The top five sellers' total volume was down 4.3% (The Glenlivet was up 8%, but #2 Dewar's was down over 14%), but the overall market was up 8%, while dollar sales grew 14%. Sound familiar to folks who follow the craft beer market?

For those of you who asked for more numbers...

Rank	Brand	Importer	2005	2009	2010	AACGR² 2005-2010	Percent Change 2009-2010
USA - Top Five Scotch Whisky Brands (thousands of nine-liter case depletions)
1	Johnnie Walker¹	Diageo North America	1,415	1,579	1,610	2.6%	2.0%
2	Dewar’s	Bacardi USA	1,375	1,400	1,200	-2.7%	-14.3%
3	Clan MacGregor	William Grant & Sons USA	650	637	594	-1.8%	-6.8%
4	Chivas Regal	Pernod Ricard USA	484	397	402	-3.6%	1.3%
5	The Glenlivet	Pernod Ricard USA	232	286	309	5.9%	8.0%
	Total Top Five		4,156	4,299	4,115	-0.2%	-4.3%
¹ includes Black, Red, Blue, Green, Gold and Swing ² average annual compound growth rate Source: IMPACT DATABANK

Too much work, not enough blog

2011-09-13T09:19:00.000-04:00

I've been missing, largely due to family stuff, but now I'm going to be missing largely due to work. We just had a huge project blow up at Malt Advocate that I'm ramrodding (more on that later, probably), and I've got another possible big project I'm discussing with an editor today, and there's all the usual small stuff, so...I'll be checking in here when I can. I'm going to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival this weekend, and I've got three events the following week, and the week after that I'm judging at GABF, and the week after that is San Francisco WhiskyFest...so while I should have some cool stuff to write about, jeez, where to find the time?

Just wanted to warn you. In the meantime, check out these numbers and tell me if it doesn't look like the craft beer revolution is going right over the top. The guys in St. Louis (and Brussels) and London must be crapping their pantaloons. (Though they keep raising their prices, so profits stay up...but that inevitably erodes the price divide between the categories, making crafts even more attractive...)

See you, gotta go write a piece on why the shaker pint is not a sign of the End Times.

Where there's smoke...there's Yards

2011-09-08T16:22:00.000-04:00

On September 23rd, I have a private tasting in Lancaster. It's a two hour drive. But I'm not going to miss The Third Annual Smoke ‘Em if Yous Got ‘Em that afternoon at Yards. Shmokey beers? Shmokey foods? Shmokin' hot music? Shmokin' ceegars? Iron Hill brewer Larry Horwitz in a bacon suit, chased by a pack of wild dogs?

You damn betcha I'm gonna be there, cuz there was some awesome good beers there last year (and check out those breweries!). Come on down and join me!

Yards Brewing Company is hosting Smoke ‘Em if Yous Got ‘Em on Friday, September 23, 2011 from 2 to 6:30 pm. And this year’s event is going to be smokier than ever.

With Smoked Beers From

Allentown/Bethlehem Brew Works
Ballast Point
BrewDog
Brooklyn Brewery
Caldera Brewing
Dark Horse
De Dochtor Van Korenaar
Emeliesse
Evil Twin
Iron Hill
Ithaca Beer Co.
Sixpoint
Sly Fox
Stoudts
Victory Brewing Co.
Yards Brewing Co.

Smoked Foods from Amateurs and Professionals Alike

Including Brauhaus Schmitz, Percy St. BBQ and The Smoke Truck

Music By

Brad Hinton Band and Keystone Mountain Boys
And other surprises.
Tickets are $50 in advance and include food, beer samples and commemorative glassware. Procrastinators will pay $60 for the same privileges, and well, Designated Drivers will pay $25 for food, music, water and hopefully future favors from your friends.
Purchase Tickets

Nick Johnson, Matt Guyer, beer, dogs...you can't help but wanna go, right?

2011-09-02T11:45:00.000-04:00

Uncle Jack drew my attention to this event: we're both dog owners, he knows I'm a sucker for stuff like this (I'm a sucker for the beers at the Beer Yard and Teresa's Next Door, too, and God knows I'm liking the Tröegs). It's tomorrow afternoon, so check it out if you got nothing going on. I'll be in Boston, taking the boy back to school, but hey, that's the sacrifices you have to make. Cheers!

Session Beer Event at Farmer's Cabinet

2011-09-02T01:00:00.002-04:00

That's right: there's a session beer event at Farmer's Cabinet in Philly on September 9 and 10: over 25 session-strength beers, and I'll be talking about them on the 10th at 1:30. Know where you can find the details? Of course you do.

Saranac Octoberfest

2011-09-01T15:35:00.000-04:00

I've been a fan of Saranac for years; I mean, years. Drinking Saranac, a good Saranac, makes me realize how long I've been at this. I was enjoying Saranac back in...1985? Wow. And I watched Saranac grow and develop: Saranac Amber, Saranac Golden (a delicious crisp pilsner), Black Forest, Black & Tan, Stout, Pale Ale, Hefeweizen, and for God's sake, Russian Imperial Stout that kicked ass.

I got a 12-pack of samples just before I left on vacation, didn't get a chance to even open it, but yesterday I tore them open: Saranac Octoberfest and Pumpkin Ale. I stuck three Ofests in the freezer as I was quickly putting the last touches on dinner, and when the spuds and pork and onions were ready, I poured two of them into a half-liter willbecker and hit the trough.

This is one damned fine beer. I'm kind of picky about Ofests -- hope I don't have to judge them at GABF -- because the malt character's so crucial, but they've done a great job here. It's solidly medium-bodied -- not too light, not too heavy -- dryly malty, and not glopped up with caramel. It was so good I had the third one, and it didn't mess me all up: 5.4%, a good strength for a beer you want to dive into a bit. I've got three freebies left, but I believe I'm going to have to get more of this.

Wynkoop gets fresh

2011-08-30T12:10:00.001-04:00

It's probably not easy being farm-friendly in downtown Denver, but Wynkoop Brewing went to some great lengths to pull it off. They trucked in fresh Chinook hop vines from Misty Mountain Hop Farm in Olathe, Colorado, and hung the fat green devils over the railings of the brewpub, right on the sidewalk, and picked hops. People walking by had a look -- "That's what hops look like, huh?" -- and the whole thing sounds pretty festive.

They put the big fresh Chinook cones -- 60 pounds! -- in a hot kettle full of wort for their Belgorado Belgian pale ale just yesterday afternoon; the leaves and vines were put in the brewery's composting setup. Great to see Wynkoop continuing to do more visible, fun stuff; this is a landmark place, and they deserve more props.

Now...wonder if any of this will still be around come GABF?

Book review: America Walks Into A Bar

2011-08-30T10:42:00.001-04:00

I'm interested in Prohibition: how it happened, how it was/was not enforced, and particularly how it has shaped America's drinking culture, laws, and preferences, right down to the current day. So I like reading books about the era, and there have, happily, been some good ones out lately after a long period with nothing (and the Ken Burns documentary, too).

Christine Sismondo's America Walks Into A Bar goes a step further; quite a few steps, actually. Sismondo starts in colonial America -- early colonial America -- and reveals something I'm pretty sure I never heard before: it's quite likely that the Salem Witch Trials had, at their base, competition between two families of tavern owners. It started with a "tax" revolt (a refusal to supply firewood to a hired preacher), and the bad feelings grew as the competing taverns tried to get more of the traveler trade. Sismondo uses this to show how the tavern -- the bar, the public house, the inn -- has been at the center of so many American movements.

Another one? The gay rights movement. Bars -- often raided by homophobic police and politicians, and just as often re-opened -- were natural gathering places for homosexuals; rules were already lax in bars, and the door was traditionally subject to control. Sismondo tells tales of bars run by characters like Big Nellie in New Orleans (and her regulars: "Lady Richard, Lady Beulah Toto, Lady Fresh and Chicago Belle"), Fat Tony Lauria, the New York mobster who opened the Stonewall Inn -- where gay rights would become direct action -- Paul Ruquy (who ran The Tool Box in San Francisco), and the legally nimble Sal Stoumen, who ran the Black Cat Cafe in San Francisco -- site of much of the madness in Kerouac's On The Road, and a favorite of Allen Ginsberg, William Saroyan, and John Steinbeck. Jose Sarria, a Black Cat waiter turned drag performer, ran for city supervisor in 1961, 12 years before Harvey Milk ran for office; and he almost won, according to Sismondo.

She covers Prohibition as well, of course, and Shays Rebellion, and the Whiskey Rebellion, those last explosions of revolutionary thinking that would be tamped down by the strengthening federal government. She talks about the labor movement's association with bars, ethnic groups that felt at home in bars, how women came to feel at home in bars (in unregulated speakeasies, and they'd never leave, happily!). That's her theme throughout the book: bars and taverns were places where people met, discussed grievances, and often decided to take action. Or action against the bars: she covers the growing temperance movements of the 1800s, and the political corruption associated with the bar business (and the brewing and distilling industries) that gave temperance the solid footing to succeed politically in a modernizing climate.

Sismondo brings new stories to light -- and believe me, I've heard a lot of them, but I was happy to see new ones in plenty here -- but never falls into dry scholarship. Even given the material, this could easily have been a tediously overwritten book, but -- as is almost promised by the dustcover photo, posed with cocktail glass in hand -- Sismondo is a better host than that. The footnotes -- thank you! -- show the scholarship and research, but the writing is great race-along stuff; interesting, amusing, and beguiling.

I've talked about the loss of the neighborhood bar myself, and perhaps prematurely mourned it. Sismondo's final chapter reassured me; action does still take place in bar, though it may seem to be a bit anticlimactic compared to the titanic struggles over liberty and individual freedom that America's bars have hosted in the past. She discusses how live music became allowed in bars (it wasn't before? Who knew!), how smoking is more often not being allowed, and finally, the kiddie revolt: overbearing parents bringing kids to bars, blocking the floor with huge strollers, and allowing the little ones to run around unchecked...hey, I took my kids to bars, and they behaved, dammit!

Sismondo has a book here about what bars have meant in America. We've loved them, hated them, banned them, embraced them, argued in them, sung and danced in them. You'll feel positively warm about them after reading this fascinating book.

Up on the mountain (such as it was)

2011-08-30T01:39:00.001-04:00

We went on vacation last week, stayed in a rental place north of Lock Haven, deep in the fracking territory. Seriously, there were water trucks, dump trucks, cranes, and lots of white pickup trucks on the road all day and all night. Not really that bad, though: they'd obviously been well-indoctrinated into the idea that being rude on the road was not a good idea. They were mostly friendly, and the roads were in pretty good shape (there were some obvious problems -- potholes, grooves -- and they were all marked for repair).

Anyway! We went up Friday the 19th, got in, made dinner, and just listened to the insects and the rain. Next day we got up and headed over to the Pine Creek Rail Trail, parked at the Waterville Access. This required a 4 mile trip down a fairly rough and narrow dirt road, Lower Pine Bottom, an exhilarating ride we'd make several more times in the coming week (it was necessitated by bridge work on Rt. 44). We rode 22 miles on the trail, a beautiful day to ride. I fried up some delish pork chops for dinner, with tomato salad and roasted potatoes. We were drinking Sly Fox Pils and Sierra Nevada Torpedo, Bulleit Bourbon, and some New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Another peaceful night.

Sunday we made the 10:30 mass at Annunciation Church in Williamsport -- a rollicking mass, we'd walked into a parish consolidation fight! -- and then met my friend Sam Komlenic and his wife Amy (and two friends Doc and Carlene) at Bullfrog for an excellent brunch. I had a couple beers and a delicious "breakfast bowl," everyone enjoyed the food and beer, a great time at table. Sam and Amy went back to the rental with us and stayed overnight.

As dinner was cooking, Sam got out his box of whiskey, and I got out mine. My box was mostly for him -- stuff I had picked up for him elsewhere -- and a bottle of aged genever (8 year old genever is surprisingly whisky-like!); his box was much cooler: antique Pennsylvania whiskeys. The one on the left, labeled simply "Large," is indeed Large whiskey, from the Large Distillery in Large, Pennsylvania, a true Monongahela Rye, and it had held up beautifully, a very nice whiskey indeed. It was quite an afternoon and evening; educational.

Then Sam and our friend John Lelak and I got into a political discussion -- John's a Fox News Republican, Sam's a libertarian-leaning liberal Democrat (no, really), and I'm ornery -- and yelled and pounded on the table and had another drink and laughed at it all. Why, we thought, couldn't the Congress work like this? At one point, Sam was telling a story about fireworks and brought down the lights -- literally -- but we fixed that. It was a good night.

Monday we all went down to State College -- that's the area where Sam and Amy live -- where we made a stop at Hogs Galore to buy pork products -- delicious sausage, Canadian bacon, and ham -- and then to the Creamery at Penn State, and finally dinner at Otto's. Another good day!

Tuesday, we all drove up to Wellsboro, where John headed for home, Cathy and Nora (and Nora's friend Kate) had lunch and did some shopping...and Thomas and I mounted up and rode south on the Trail. We had a great day for it, and the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon was breath-takingly beautiful: blue skies, steep tree-covered hills, and the constant cool companionship of Pine Creek burbling alongside. We rode downstream about 34 miles, then took a break for dinner at the Hotel Manor in Slate Run. It was great: fresh Sam Adam Ofest and SNPA, great crab cakes, and some lightly fried calamari. Back on the bikes and on to the Waterville Access Area, where we loaded the bikes on the Fit (we'd left it there in the morning) and back up Lower Pine Bottom to the cabin: a 50.3 mile ride for the day!

Wednesday was a pretty lazy day; we mostly hung around the cabin, read, did a little walking, cooked up some eggs and bacon for lunch. Cathy and I went into town for groceries and got caught up on email at a great coffee shop, Avenue 209. We also bought beer at the Old Corner, a nice little bar and bottleshop in Lock Haven. I got a 12-pack of Franziskaner and a sixer of Troegenator (my bro-in-law Curt was coming, and he doesn't like hops), and took them to the counter. "I'll have to ring these up separate," the guy says. OMG, I'd forgotten PA's screwy beer takeout law: only 192 oz. maximum at a time! He had to ring them up separately (see the receipts?), and I actually had to take the Franz out to the car and come back in to get the Troegenator in order to be legal. Can you believe it? And this law...accomplishes something? The PA Liquor Code needs an enema.

We headed back up the mountain (it was about 1500 feet higher than in Lock Haven) and made dinner. Then about 7:30 that night, we heard a noise...I fumbled my phone out of my pocket and took the video you see here, of a black bear calmly walking up past our cars; looked to be about a 300 lb. bear. Pretty exciting; I've seen plenty of wildlife in PA, and there were wild turkey and deer all over, but that's the first time I've seen a bear up close.

Wednesday night, late, Curt, his son Patrick, my niece Evelyn, and my mother-in-law showed up. We talked, had some beers, and hit the sack late. Thursday I took my bike into Lock Haven to The Bike Gallery to get a busted spoke fixed, dropped off laundry to be done, and went back up the mountain. Then we all went to Woolrich and did some shopping at the outlet store (I got the shirt I'm wearing right now), I picked up the bike, and went back to the cabin. Dinner and more reading ensued, and some card-playing.

Friday we went bike riding again -- seven of us! -- and I went to pick up the laundry in the afternoon. I refueled the Fit, and by golly if I didn't need to hit a men's room just as I was heading by the Old Corner...had a couple pints of Otto's Red Mo with the owner of the Bike Gallery -- a pleasant coincidence, and he told me about the six rattlesnakes his friend had seen along the trail that week! -- then went up the mountain again. We decided to go out for dinner, and went back up the creek to Hotel Manor -- that's the view from the deck. Dinner was quite nice again -- I had a New Orleans pasta in cream sauce with andouille, shrimp, and chicken -- but the drive back...there was an accident on the road to the cabin, and we sat on the road for an hour and a half. Luckily we were able to keep ourselves amused!

The next morning...we'd watched the news, and heard about Irene, and thought about the Corgis -- who were kenneled on the Delaware River -- and decided to cut things short a day and head home. We packed up, said good-bye, and headed southwest. It was uneventful, the dogs were very happy to see us...and Irene left us largely untouched. A good week.

Invasive Species and Beer: a fighting match from Flying Dog

2011-08-29T17:34:00.002-04:00

I was raised in Pennsylvania, outside the Blood Line, and while I never hunted (I have no problem with it, it's just not for me), I have fished...and of course, you know I've got a fondness for drinking beer.

So when Flying Dog sent me a press release about a fishing tournament that's all about fishing the invasive Snakeheads out of the Potomac...and then eating the toothy bastards...I was intrigued. So I'm choosing to pass this one on out of the hundreds of press releases I get in a month. Seriously, I mean, can you beat that as an environmental action against an invasive species with no natural predators: becoming its predator, catching it, cooking it, and eating it up with a big mug of Snakedog IPA? Damn, guys, that's ballsy!

In an effort to support the Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ fight against invasive species in the Potomac River watershed, Flying Dog Brewery has signed on to support the 2011 Potomac Snakehead Tournament September 2-3. “We like the idea of hunting and eating fish in the spirit of conservation through eradication. It’s not often you have a species that is so invasive, disruptive, and so widely disliked, and we are excited to be part of this effort to protect the local ecosystems of Maryland and Virginia,” Ben Savage (you just can't make this shit up...), Flying Dog’s VP of Marketing, said.

“Snakeheads are definitely an underrated fish in the kitchen. It’s a flavorful fish that can be served in a number of different ways whether fried, seared, broiled, or baked,” Chad Wells, Executive Chef at Alewife Restaurant in Baltimore, said.Wells will prepare and present a Snakehead tasting along with beer from Flying Dog at the conclusion of the hunt on September 3 from 12:30 to 2:30 pm.

The 2011 Potomac Snakehead Tournament is open to anyone with a valid Maryland or Virginia fishing license. Participants can win cash and prizes for the heaviest fish and overall total weight. Participants can fish hook and line or bow, beginning September 2, 2011 at 6 pm until September 3, 2011 at 12:30 pm anywhere on the tidal Potomac in Maryland or Virginia. Cost to enter is $40 online registration by September 1 or $50 day of the tournament. Official tournament events will take place at Smallwood State Park in Marbury, Maryland. All participants are encouraged to attend the pre-tournament conference at the park September 2 at 5 pm. For full details on the tournament and to register, please visit the WhackfactorOutdoors website

Those snakeheads better watch their ass. Once we get a taste for something, we tend to eat it to death. Just ask the passenger pigeons.

Sam Calagione's dominant media presence...

2011-08-29T10:26:00.001-04:00

Hey, I'm back from vacation (a little bit more on that soon...but not a lot) and one of the first things I came across* was that Sam Calagione did a Skype interview on MSNBC during Irene's run at the east coast; apparently they sent the employees home, but millions of yeasts' lives 'hung in the balance...' Classic Sam. If I had a link, I'd post it.

Then I got to thinking...in a state full of corporate headquarters, financial companies, and huge chemical and pharmaceutical corporations, MSNBC interviewed Sam Calagione, head of a still relatively small brewery. Why? I'd like to float a proposition: I believe Sam Calagione is the dominant media personality from the state of Delaware -- excepting Joe Biden, who's kind of transcended the state since attaining the vice-presidency -- as evidenced by his status as one of the top unofficial spokespeople for the craft beer industry, a great media interview, and his grinning good looks. Any serious argument on that? And does anyone think that's not good for craft beer in general? I sure as hell think it's a great thing!

*Thanks to regular reader (and designer of the Session Beer Project logo) Steven Herberger!

Oktoberfest in Bucks County? I'm there!

2011-08-19T01:10:00.000-04:00

Don Russell -- "Joe Sixpack" to his friends -- is hosting a "Fall Beer Expo" at the United German Hungarian Club in Trevose on September 25th -- hell, it's right over the hill from my house! There are 1 and 4 PM sessions that Sunday afternoon, tickets are on sale now (right here) for $35 ($5 savings over buying them at the door). Beer, food (add'l cost for that, but it's delicious and available), German music and dancing... Come on! Oompah!

Branding is such a dirty word

2011-08-16T09:35:00.000-04:00

I get Daryl Rosen's e-letter on beer sales. Not about what beers are selling; it's about selling beer. Rosen comes from the Sam's beverage retail chain in Chicago -- it was his family's business -- and when the family sold 80% of the business in 2007 (the chain would later be bought by Binny's, their Chicago rival (and an excellent booze supplier, love to see something like that in PA post-privatization!)), Rosen set up shop as a lecturer and sales consultant. And he's good. Not only does Rosen give me an insight on how beer sales works, his advice -- listen, focus on finding needs and filling them, help the customer even when it doesn't directly benefit you or your product -- works for me, and potentially for anyone. I've never met Rosen, but I owe him.

Anyway, I wanted to share something I read today at his Beverage Professionals site: "Split Personality." It's about how the beer industry looks at branding. A lot of craft beer drinkers -- the hardcore -- look on branding, marketing, promotion, and advertising as pretty much tools of the Devil...because that's what the big brewers use. When craft brewers use them, it confuses these people; witness the way some of them trash Samuel Adams, a beer brand that has done amazing things to establish craft's credibility across the country, and one that produces excellent beers, exceptional and experimental beers.

However, as Rosen's colleague Michael Browne points out, it's not so much the branding the bigs use that should be disturbing; it's how they do it. Here's how he starts the piece:

'So a bunch of states that have this 3.2 ABW law. You have to sell a watered down (‘non-intoxicating') beer to distribute in many channels.'
‘Okay, I get it,’ says the newcomer to the beer industry.
So we take our biggest brands -- the ones we spend hundreds of millions of dollars marketing - and water down the product by 25% so we can sell it in these channels.’
‘Use the same brand name for this watery version of your product?’
Yup’

And you know it's true. Just that example alone is completely true; you'll see 3.2 versions of well-known brands -- like Budweiser -- in states like Oklahoma, and it won't say "Bud 3.2", it just says "Budweiser." (I'm not picking on Budweiser in particular, it's just an example.)

What do you care? Well, Browne does, and for reasons that might intrigue you.

...the beer industry has convinced itself that playing fast and loose is okay, as long as there is a lot of volume at stake. And consumers are keenly aware of this. They know that craft brewers and specialty imports do not have compromised versions in these markets. They are able to draw a bright line between the mass producers and the small brewers that don't compromise… more evidence of the split personality in the beer industry. There are a bunch of large brewers who will put one brand on 2 very different beers; and there are craft Brewers that won’t.
Just one more chapter in a larger narrative that crafts are all about the beer; mass brewers are all about money.

Branding doesn't have to be a dirty word if you play it straight. After all, when I see "Deschutes," or "Victory," or "Bell's," or "Sierra Nevada" on a label, I know I'm getting a good beer. It may not be exactly to my taste, but the solid experience and integrity going into it makes it an easy decision to give it a try. Brand integrity is important, and it's been one of craft brewing's best practices (even through re-branding and the occasional slip -- Rogue's multi-labeling experiments come to mind).

When craft is seen to have clear lessons for big brewers on basics like this, it's another sign that the whole industry might be changing. It's slow, but if the sales pros are chiding big brewers about this kind of, well, this kind of deception, that's a good sign.

National Rum Day tomorrow

2011-08-15T12:32:00.000-04:00

I'm sure you know by now that I don't just like beer, I'm a happy whiskey drinker as well. What many of you probably don't know is that I'm also fond of aged rum (and have been known to knock back a nicely made rum punch as well). So I was happy to see a release from Cuba Libre here in Philly noting that tomorrow, August 16, is National Rum Day! Check it out:

Did you know tomorrow, Tuesday, August 16 is National Rum Day? Well, now you do. And where better to celebrate than the place boasting region’s best selection of rum and rum cocktails? We’re talking about Cuba Libre Restaurant and Rum Bar (10 South 2nd Street, 215-627-0666), of course.

During "Caippy Hour" from 5-7 p.m., they will offer their extensive collection of over 70 rums and 35 rum cocktails at half price. Cuba Libre has had quite the love affair with rum over the years - even labeling seven rums as their own - and they’re excited to pass it on. So be sure to enlist the expert staff to help you find the one, or two, that’s just right for you. Whether it’s a mojito or mai tai, or a glass of Cuba Libre 21 Year or Cruzan Cream, there truly is a rum for everyone.

They're right, you know: if you haven't had a rum you like, man, you just ain't tryin'! So get your butts down to Cuba Libre (psst...or the Rum Bar, if you're closer to Rittenhouse Square (but I'll be at Cuba Libre!)) or -- surprisingly -- to Rumrunners in Williamsport, and try some rum!

Yuengling Oktoberfest Beer!

2011-08-12T14:46:00.000-04:00

An announcement like this from America's Oldest Brewery deserves to be published in full at a Pennsylvania-based beer blog! Yuengling continues to deliver -- slowly -- on long-made promises of more beers.

Yuengling Oktoberfest Beer, and Festival, Coming This Fall
Live polka and dance music, delicious German cuisine, plenty of family fun, and a new Yuengling Oktoberfest Beer highlight the first-ever Oktoberfest Presented by Yuengling September 29 - October 2 and October 6 - 9 at the new SteelStacks arts and cultural campus in Bethlehem, PA.

The Yuengling Brewery has partnered with ArtsQuest, a non-profit organization dedicated to music, the arts, and cultural experiences, to produce an authentic festival to pay tribute to Yuengling’s German heritage. Highlighting the event is the 130-foot by 260-foot Yuengling Festhalle tent, featuring waitresses dressed in dirndl outfits, Bavarian-style food, over 40 live performances, and plenty of Yuengling Oktoberfest Beer.

“Anticipation has been high for our new Oktoberfest Beer, and we’re particularly excited about creating an authentic Oktoberfest atmosphere at the festival for all to enjoy,” commented Lou Romano, Marketing Manager.

Copper in color, Yuengling Oktoberfest is a medium bodied beer with a perfect blend of roasted malts to capture a true representation of the style. Yuengling fans that can not make it to the Oktoberfest event can enjoy the product at their local taverns, as Yuengling Oktoberfest Beer will be available seasonally, in ¼ and ½ Barrels in all markets where Yuengling is sold, beginning in late August.

"With the successful creation of Musikfest and the SteelStacks campus in the Lehigh Valley, we at the Yuengling Brewery felt it appropriate to show our support for Jeff Parks and all of the people at ArtsQuest who contribute to making arts and culture flourish in our community," said Dick Yuengling. "At Oktoberfest, there will be plenty of opportunities to hear live music, have some family fun and share some company under the big tent. Plus great beer and food too."

Oktoberfest presented by Yuengling tickets are now on sale at www.artsquest.org and 610-332-3378. Festival hours are 6 p.m.-midnight on Thursdays, noon-midnight on Fridays-Saturdays, and noon-9 p.m. Sundays. Single-day admission tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the gate. Single-day admission tickets for children ages 6-12 are $3 in advance and $5 at the gate, while ages under 6 are admitted free. A Weekend Pass, good for one entire weekend, is $20 in advance and $25 at the gate.

Craft beer growth accelerates!

2011-08-08T18:53:00.002-04:00

Hey, it's a good day when I see news like this. Not only is craft beer continuing to grow, it's accelerating. Check it out, and check out the graphic: 725 breweries currently in planning stages! Major part of this is accessibility; people can find and buy craft beer because bars and restaurants (and wholesalers) are finally offering it, and newspapers and magazines are treating it like food or wine, instead of some goofy clown story (Hyuk, hyuk, lookit these beers with the funny names, you drink 'em with your pinky out!). That's your efforts, people: you made them get your favorite beer, you bought enough to make them pay attention. Congratulations!

Brewers Association Reports 2011 Mid-Year Growth for U.S. Craft Brewers; dollar growth up 15% in first six months of 2011; U.S. sees rapid growth in breweries in planning

Boulder, CO • August 8, 2011 - The Brewers Association, the trade association representing the majority of U.S. brewing companies, has released strong mid-year numbers for America's small and independent craft brewers. Dollar sales were up 15 percent in the first half of 2011, excluding brewers who left the craft segment in 2010*. Volume of craft brewed beer sold grew 14 percent for the first six months in 2011, compared to 9 percent growth in the first half of 2010.

Barrels sold by craft brewers for the first half of the year are an estimated 5.1 million barrels. Despite many challenges, the mid-year numbers show signs of continued growth for craft breweries. The industry currently provides an estimated 100,000 jobs, contributing significantly to the U.S. economy.

*Goose Island, for one, which is ridiculous in my opinion: the beer tastes the same, regardless of who's making it. Is craft beer a drink, or merely a business? If I were a brewer, I might have a different opinion, but I'm a drinker.

Gamble Mill book signing this weekend!

2011-07-28T10:32:00.000-04:00

Hello, Central PA!
If you haven't sampled the beer (or the excellent food) at the Gamble Mill Inn in Bellefonte since Mike Smith took up residence, if you haven't gotten your signed copy of Pennsylvania Breweries or Going Local yet...this Sunday is your chance!

Ken Hull and I will be doing a team booksigning event there Sunday afternoon from 2 to 4:30. Ken's the author of Going Local and Going Local 2, two guide books to the best in central PA's independent eateries (and drinkeries). They're excellent, very useful, and Ken's writing style is a hoot to read: quite personal, real "looking over his shoulder" kind of stuff. I've done a book signing with him before, at Appalachian Brewing, and we had a great time.

Come on out to see us; it's Sunday afternoon, it's not like you've got anything pressing, right? I will be leaving at 4:30; got to get down to Otto's for a sold-out Pub Club bourbon and beer dinner, so come early and join us for a beer!

Drinking on the Deck

2011-07-21T22:12:00.004-04:00

I had too many beers. On my kitchen table, that is. So I invited over some neighbors: Tom Merryman, from across the street, who's been here since we moved in, and Chris Reilly, from up the street, who's one of the Chris's at Weyerbacher. We're out on the deck now -- in the heat, yeah, but there's a breeze, and beer -- drinking up some samples.

First was Wasatch Summer Twilight kolsch. Nice beer, with a good amount of grainy mess to it, reminded me of Malzmuhle in Cologne. Great start to the night, and a cooler.

Second, drinking now, is one Chris brought from the brewery, a new Flanders Red type, coming out once they get label approval: Rapture. Assuming that's approved, so cross your fingers. It's good stuff: not overly acetic, the barrel character is there (but again, not overdone), dry but not puckering, and a great sour cherry character...and no cherries. It was aged in some Chaddsford Winery barrels. Thanks, Chris, nice!

Next up: the upcoming Patriot Homebrew for this football season at Gillette. Boston Beer does a contest...oh, hell, I'm not going to explain it again. Here, read about it. So this year...it's a Baltic Porter, and it's pretty tasty stuff. A little smoky raunch, rich, tasty, but not huge. Should do well, especially when it's cold at the stadium, eh?

Okay, a real fresh one: Stone Japanese Green Tea IPA, a collaboration with Ishii and Baird breweries in Japan as a fund-raiser/solidarity thing with Japan. The aroma is very fresh, like a meadow, and just as multi-variate. 9.2, and bitter, but the green tea/herbal quality keeps it fresh and lively. We're liking this; nice work!

Last one: Samuel Smith Yorkshire Stingo. Wow, so nice. Very smooth for an 8% beer, and less dark than I expected. There's wood coming through, and a lot of Yorkshire yeast, and even a bit of bitter/dry curl at the end. Wow, again. And on a hot, hot night? It works.

Have to do this again. Soon. Good times!

Mudhook Brewing hopes to beat The York Curse

2011-07-21T09:05:00.002-04:00

York, Pennsylvania has had several microbreweries. There was York Brewing -- failed -- and Freedom Brewing -- failed -- and the Brick Oven brewpub -- failed -- and several breweries that were planned, discussed, and trumpeted...and never opened. York County hasn't done much better; we're still waiting on Hanover Brewing. We talk about The Curse: opening a brewery in York just doesn't seem to work.

Two days ago, on Tuesday, Jeff Lau took his shot: Mudhook Brewing opened (at 34 N Cherry Lane, York), as reported here. Sounds like opening night was a success. To officially beat The Curse (and by "officially," I mean in my eyes...), Mudhook will have to still be in operation in January of 2013. Best of luck, Jeff and company!

Revolution House: off to a nice start

2011-07-18T15:07:00.000-04:00

Got an invite to a press opening at Revolution House (I know, Facebook link, but the website they did have up appears to have been temporary...) last week, and I gotta say: it is probably the reason I failed to lose any weight on my Weight Watchers' weigh-in on Friday, despite 70+ miles of hard biking last week. My God, the food! Lemme tell you how it happened.

I invited my buddy Rich Pawlak to go along with me, because he doesn't get out much, because he's good company, because he knows everyone in the Philly food/PR community...but mostly because the invite mentioned a pizza oven, and he's berserk for good pizza. We were going to meet there around 5:30, 6:00, so I headed down to Philly about 4:30. No way I was going to park in Old City, so I stuffed the bike in the Jetta, parked on the block of N. 2nd between 700 and Standard Tap, helmeted up and rode down to 2nd and Market; mostly downhill, so I wasn't really sweating much in the heat.

Turned out I was early, so, well, haven't been to the re-done Khyber Pass yet: stopped in and got lucky. They still had some Deschutes Black Butte Porter on tap, and I killed a glass of that toot sweet. The Khyber is cleaner (especially the floor), and has gone for food in a big way, but the bar? Still great beer, still a bit scruffy, still laid-back sassy.

Sorry the bartender stepped out of frame: she was quite cute!

Back up the street, past the State Store (which of all the ones in PA, looks most like a corner liquor store; they must hate it in Harrisburg...), and into Revolution House. That's the first thing I saw, to the right (okay, the first thing I saw was the pizza oven; more on that later, and to be honest, the first thing I paid attention to...was the bar), and that's an antique back bar out of western saloon; they bought this one and the one upstairs out of Oklahoma. Very nice, and the original mirrors. Beer selection, as you might be able to make out, was nice: a good portion of locals -- Victory, Yards, Tröegs -- plus away beers like Great Lakes Dortmunder, Allagash White, Hennepin: clearly a summertime lineup, and quite welcome. I started with a Philly Pale, and took a look around.

It was hard to believe that this was the old Snow White Diner, but it was. Wow, what you can do with money, hey? This is the work of Panorama's Luca Sena (Snow White owner John Poulos is in with him, and was there, looking quite calm) and designer/photographer Dominic Episcopo. Notable bits were the see-through steel staircase up to the second floor, the antique bottles over the second floor bar (see below), the massive chandelier over the stairs, and the outdoor deck.

The antique bottle lighting 2nd floor bar: brilliant.

But enough about the design: how about that food? As I said: pizza oven. Why you'd have a pizza oven in a place in Philly called Revolution House beats me, but damn, it was cranking. Rich started quizzing the chef about it: the oven came from Naples, and a Neapolitan pizza expert worked with them for two months, making pizza pizza pizza (Episcopo confirmed this to me, "Yeah, we ate a lot of pizzas!") until they got it. Sena said he was concerned that people "wouldn't get" the Neapolitan-style crust, which is not crisp, but more elastic, flavorful, chewy; if they don't get it, screw 'em, it was awesome. We had slices of margherita, and a proscuitto and arugula one (with bits of fresh fig) that was excellent.

That wasn't what broke me, though, it was the parade of goodies. Great grilled vegetables, cheese/sausage-stuffed cippolinis, piles of fried onion straws, cheeses, soppressatta, sliders on golden rolls with what looked like free range fried eggs on top, and more, more, more: I swear, few things were repeated, they just kept bringing out new stuff. You know, even if you just have a little! It's still a lot!

So we repaired to the deck -- nice, above the traffic -- and sipped beers, surrounded by the hoi polloi (as I tweeted, though, at an Old City VIP opening, you get mostly hoi, not so much of the polloi). And, finally, it was time to go...and Rich says, "Have you been to the Blind Pig yet?" I knew he wasn't talking about the famed bar in NYC, he and I have been there together, so I asked. New place in Northern Liberties, he said, and explained where it was...hell, I was parked right in front of it! So I saddled up and rode north, and sure enough, there it was. Well. Had to have one...since this was apparently my night for new gastropubs.

Blind Pig was nice: sidewalk dining, good beer selection, food smelled excellent, service was quite correct. I had an O'Reilly's Stout and relaxed. Or tried to, as three obnoxious women at the end of the bar just totally harshed my mellow. Lord, each trying to outdo the other with how much their cars cost and how 'the best' they were, and the new places they'd been, and how bad the service was there, and how much they were going to spend on vacation -- not where they were going to vacation, but how much it would cost! -- and it was to make you ill. I wanted to take a flash picture of them and tell them how much I was going to blog about them, but...piff. Anyway, I'd like to say they drove me out, but actually, I was done. Nice place, but go when it's a bit more busy! That stretch of 2nd is getting crazy cool, and to think it used to be a place I was nervous about parking the car.

Again: the beer scene in Philly is expanding into the mainstream. Good beer at all these places, and people expect it. Keep it up, folks: it's working!

Guy Hagner leaving Berwick Brewing; plans to open a new One Guy Brewing

2011-07-11T11:18:00.001-04:00

Just got this from Guy Hagner. There have been problems at the brewery; I've been silent on this because there is pending legal action, but it looks like everything's coming out in the open. I understand that Tom Clark is giving a statement to Jack Curtin; check his blog for more.

Statement from Guy Hagner, founder of One Guy Brewing Company in Berwick PA:

July 11, 2011

It is unfortunate but the business relationship with my partner [Tom Clark] has not worked out. We have agreed that the best solution is to go our separate ways. I am currently making plans to re-locate One Guy Brewing Company to another location in NE PA. I am very proud of the business I founded in Berwick and am happy for the many friends I have made there over the years. But I am also excited about beginning the next chapter of One Guy Brewing and hope to see many familiar faces as well as many new ones!

Okay, but it's still the dumbest-looking growler I've ever seen

2011-07-08T20:12:00.000-04:00

I had a pretty good Coors beer tonight, Batch 19. I got the sample a few weeks ago: the embossed bottle nestled in excelsior in a shoebox-sized wooden crate...and the goofy-looking growler you see to the right. That's how it came: big mouth, and no cap. No lid at all. WTF? I Googled some Batch 19 press and event reports, and these dopey boogers apparently think a "growler" is a half-gallon pitcher. Bejayzus.

Anyway...The beer itself is actually pretty good. That's the real color, it's got real body, and there's an honest to God bitterness to it. The malt/"adjunct" character is the star, though, and it's pretty tasty. I had it with steamed shrimp and corn on the cob, and I'd definitely do it again. Put me in the mind of a Dortmunder Export.

As it happens, I interviewed Coors brewer Keith Villa (the creator of Blue Moon) about Batch 19 about a year ago, and since that article's been paid for a long time, I'll put it up here.

Why “Batch 19?”

Back in 2004 we had a small flood in the archives of the Coors brewery. They were in the basement. I stumbled on a box with the old brewer’s logbooks. The earliest was October of 1913, and they went right up to Prohibition in 1919. The early logbook, right before Prohibition, the beer was heavier, and had less adjunct, about 20%. When Prohibition was repealed, it went up to 33%. It was rice at the time.

They noted that they were using “Chevalier” malt. It’s a variety that was considered a high quality variety in the 1800s; it’s no longer available [geek excitement over Maris Otter and Golden Promise notwithstanding, barley varieties tend to come and go pretty quickly]. The hops were only noted as “imported” and “domestic.” Whoever took the notes had handwriting that was exquisite; it was easy to read all the numbers. The temperatures were all in Roehm degrees; I had to convert all of those. Little problems at first, got over them and made the beer.

“Batch 19” was inspired by that recipe. We literally can’t get the same ingredients. The only constant ingredient is the water; we’re still drawing from the same wells, drawing from the same alluvium. Adolph Coors was pulling from that, and he wasn’t pulling much, it was a spring. The big brewery is pulling it up now. Nowadays we technically have to call it Rocky Mountain well water! That’s the only consistent thing. The water is a little bit softer now, but it’s pretty close to what they were using back then.

Hops, we didn’t know what they were using. They didn’t note the variety of hops until the 1940s. Hops weren’t as afflicted by diseases and pests then, they were pretty hardy, and they stuck with the ‘noble’ varieties. So that’s what I did; I chose for the main hops Herrsbrucker, and Strisselspalt. It’s close to Herrsbrucker, but it has these notes of black currant; very hoppy with a bit a fruitiness. I stuck in a little bit of Cascade to round out the fruitiness. There’s a little Mt. Hood, and some Hallertauer Select. They added hops at the beginning, towards the end of the boil, and right before the end of the boil.

They didn’t measure the color of the beer back then, but I guess that it was a nice golden color. They used pale malt. If it wasn’t dark enough, they’d add a touch of caramel malt to darken it up a bit. I used the Moravian malt that we have, the Coors strain. We have a barley breeding program up in Idaho; they improve it every year. Then I put just a tiny bit of European cara-malt. It maintains the color of the beer, and adds a slightly more complex character to the beer. It’s fermented with the classic Coors yeast.

It’s fairly close… If there’s a bullseye out there to designate what beer was being drunk by people back in 1914 as Coors beer, we probably didn’t hit it, because the ingredients are different. But my guess is that we’re just outside that bullseye. I did a lot of investigative historical work to formulate it as close as possible to what they would have tasted back then.

It’s got a lot of hop character, a good lager character, and it’s a bright, clear beer. It’s not pasteurized, it’s cold-filtered. It’s a real nice lager, a pre-Prohibition lager. In 2008 it won a GABF silver medal. We just released it in 5 cities: Chicago, Milwaukee, DC, SF, and San Jose. We’ll see how it does. If it does well, we’ll expand it.

The stuff I’m doing and putting into the archives, I’m thinking they’ll be pulling them out in 100 years.

Why now?

We’d played around with the recipes for a few years. The flood of 2004…it was minor, but it could have wiped out the records and we’d have had nothing. Let’s get serious. We served it in the private bar here for employees, and people loved it. We called it pre-Pro. The marketing people found out about it, and loved it: it was a real story. It’s been fun making it. It’s a historic beer, and I like the taste. If people want to look at the logbook, it’s right there. It had always been there, but no one’s ever brewed those beers for over 50 years. There’s other stuff there, too. They made a bock beer, and they made an export version, a stronger version of Batch 19.

Harpoon Rich & Dan's Rye IPA

2011-07-06T16:38:00.000-04:00

Hope you can still find this. I got a sample bottle a few weeks ago (okay, maybe six weeks ago; I been busy) and just didn't get to it till now. Sorry I waited; glad I found the time. This is bitter, aromatic, zippy, but I still very much wanted to drink the whole bottle -- but I shared it with Cathy.

Rich and Dan, of course, are Harpoon founders (technically Mass Bay Brewing founders, I believe) Rich Doyle and Dan Kenary, two very bright fellows who I've been lucky enough to know and to sink a few Harpoons with. This is, they say, the kind of beer they always wanted to make. Why didn't they? Heh. You try selling a rye IPA back in 1988! Now they had their chance, and they took it. Congratulations to them, and to everyone at Harpoon, on this excellent beer. I'll have my eye out for stray bottles here and there, and will take them in and give them a good home.

I'm not dead, and neither is privatization

2011-07-06T10:05:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the readers who asked where the hell I was the past three weeks... I've been really tied up with Malt Advocate. My duties have expanded there, and I've been getting that settled. I think we're on-track now.

I was also in Kentucky and Ohio for four days, visiting with new A.Smith Bowman distiller Truman Cox (he was just finishing up work at Buffalo Trace; I think he starts in Virginia this week, and best of luck to him!), Heaven Hill icon Parker Beam, and Wild Turkey legend Jimmy Russell...who was hosting a little shindig for Wild Turkey's brand-new distillery, and it's a beaut, as I wrote here. (You'll notice that John hasn't posted much either, lately: it's just a slow time of year, folks!)

I also dropped in on Athens, Ohio on my way home. I'm going to be hosting Ohio Brew Week there, starting this Saturday, so since I've never been there, I thought I'd take a look around. Well, there was a great brewpub -- Jackie O's -- where I had a delish pizza and several guest beers (had to leave before they opened, but I did get a quick tour of their barrel-aging room...good God, it's amazing!), and a bunch of fun bars up and down the block. I also made a quick visit to Salaam, the Mid-East restaurant where I'll be doing a beer dinner Monday night, and wound up in a press conference that resulted in this piece.

After that, well, had a lot of writing to do, a lot of family stuff, my mom's 80th birthday to celebrate, a trip to upstate NY for a graduation party and a gathering of my wife's clan for a graduation party and a 4th of July celebration (that included a sixtel of Walt Wit that we kicked, and thanks to the low session-type ABV, no one got silly). We toured Syracuse University on the way home -- first of Nora's campus visits, and an impressive one -- and lunched at Dinosaur Barbeque: the Big Ass Pork Plate has a hypnotic effect on me.

About that pork...I also got in almost 50 miles on the bike over the weekend, riding the Erie Canalway with Cathy and her brothers. I'm recording my mileage here to benefit bike charities; if anyone wants to sign up, please do so! (I think you can guess which silly username is mine...)

Anyway...I said privatization (as in Pennsylvania wine and liquor retail privatization) isn't dead, and I meant it. Check this out. Since then, I've been in touch with several NGOs about participation in strategy sessions on privatization. I know there are whiskey and even wine drinkers reading this blog, but the lion's share are beer drinkers. Get interested: beer is going to be very much a part of this.

It's my firm belief, borne up by experience in other states, that wine and liquor sales are a key component to beer sale success in a fully-privatized retail system. Ideally: private wholesale operations feeding private retail operations that sell "all-alcohol": beer, wine, and spirits. The supermarket sales genie has already been let out of the bottle, for better or worse, so we're going to have to deal with that.

There will be bills popping up. We need to read them carefully, and make our voices heard. I plan to have a bullet list of what I want to see in a privatization bill and what I really don't want to see in one. Look for that soon. In the meantime, check out the ridiculous amounts of taxes Pennsylvanians pay for wine and spirits, and how that's going to sink privatization...if we let it.

Is PLCB Privatization Dead Already?

2011-06-18T14:30:00.000-04:00

After getting our best shot at dumping the ridiculous State Stores in years...Pennsylvanians may already be screwed. The Republicans in the state Legislature have lost their guts, and are lining up to give the PLCB bureaucrats everything they've asked for, apparently out of fear of union backlash (despite the fact that union households have consistently expressed support for privatization by margins of 2:1 in polls). Dammit!

Read about it here.

Oh, by the way...Farmer's Cabinet may be buying a brewery

2011-06-17T15:29:00.004-04:00

A lot happened during Philly Beer Week... Wow, what an unnecessary statement. But one of the things that happened was that Tuesday night, after meeting 'Gansett rep Zach Antczak for a couple Narragansett Summers (and The Famous Woody, too) at MidAtlantic, and hosting the smoked beer/food dinner at Hop Angel (which, if you missed -- and almost all of you did -- you missed a great dinner and some surprisingly good pairings, like Raftman and smoked trout/mussels, and Schlenkerla Oak Smoke with vanilla ice cream, caramel, and smoked salt)...I met Terry Hawbaker at the Prohibition Taproom for a beer. (And Christine Gumpper was there as well; I think I may have seen her more than anyone else during PBW!)

So...enough about my day, let's cut to the chase. Terry, of course, is not only a good friend and nice guy, he's also the former brewer at Bullfrog and currently at Farmer's Cabinet. He was hired to open an in-house nanobrewery for them, making one-off beers to complement their exotic beer selection. Well, Terry told me, they'd had real problems with paperwork -- city, state, federal? not sure -- and weren't sure when they'd be able to get the brewery up and running. So when someone noticed that Shenandoah Brewing was for sale (and about to go down for lack of a buyer), wheels started to turn.

Shenandoah, you see, is Brew-On-Premise in Alexandria, Virginia. They are set up to do small batches, lots of small batches, exactly what Terry and the FC folks were planning. They have a ton of room.

Amended here: I've been told that this is NOT a done deal, and I apologize for that. I thought I had checked on this, but I was wrong. Again: the purchase is NOT certain at this point.

Seem crazy? It's not that far to Alexandria, especially if you travel at the hours Terry is used to anyway. It's a perfect set-up. And the options are endless. Not as convenient as it could be, maybe, but it has interesting potential.

Yeah, yeah, I know: aren't these the same people who just closed two (or three, depending on how you parse it) places? Where'd they get the money to buy a brewery? Two answers: first, I don't know, and second, there's plenty of ways to skin that cat, even in this economy. And before anyone starts making trash comments about this situation...I won't allow them to post. Keep it clean, keep it reasonable, or you'll be wasting your time. Okay? Game on.

Otto: smoked dubbel? Really?

2011-06-17T14:54:00.002-04:00

Just got a press release from Victory Brewing about a new beer they are calling Otto, a bottle-conditioned dubbel...made with German hops (no big surprise there!), Trappist yeast (and they've crossed those streams before too), Munich malt, Belgian caramel malt (yeah...and...), and smoked malt. A smoked dubbel, which they believe is unique.

“The complimentary flavors of smoked malt and Belgian yeast seemed like an obvious combination,” said Bill Covaleski. “As far as we know, no one has bothered to put them together until now.”

I tend to be very cautious about the use of the word "unique" with beers anymore; been burned too many times. But it's certainly not a common idea. Victory's done this kind of thing before, though; they've tipped a little rauchmalz into the mashtun for St. Victorious doublebock, which gave it a subtle depth that didn't even always come through as smokey. I'm looking forward to this.

Otto will be out on October 15, in 750 ml corked-and-caged bottles, at a solid 8.1% ABV. Put it on your calendars. Oh, and it's "Otto" because of St. Otto of Bamberg, the town where brewery founders Ron Barchet and Bill Covaleski first had smoked beers in 1987, and where they get their smoked malt to make this beer. Nice.

"Summer is no time to fuss with the petty details of wine"

2011-06-16T15:52:00.000-04:00

One of the best things about Malt Advocate becoming part of M.Shanken Communications is that I got a comped subscription to Wine Spectator. I'm learning a lot about wine, and a lot about magazine design, too.

But one thing I learned pretty quickly was to turn to Matt Kramer's column first, and the latest issue was no disappointment. That quote in the title of this post was the takehome for me, and it applies equally to beer or whiskey. Dude. It's summer, we're out on the deck, it's either the weekend or one's coming. Relax and enjoy. Or as Kramer said, "Even I, a professional wine obsessive, find myself during the warm summer season saying, well, to hell with it..." Yup.

So I present my own version of his points.

Rediscover pale ale. Sierra Nevada, or the new ones from Victory or Left Hand. Pale Ale is a drinker, not a thinker, and still great cold. Best of all, at around 5-6%, it's still big-glass beer. Yeah.
Summer beers have returned. After being off the radar for a few years -- why? I don't really know, maybe brewers catching their breaths -- summer beers are back in a big way. Try that Citra-spiked Narragansett Summer in the big blue can, or the Stoudt's Kolsch, or whatever your local brewpub's got that's light and frisky.
Hefeweizen! The summer beer that never, ever goes out of style. Don't want to go to the trouble of washing those big weissbier glasses? You're absolved, my child: go forth and pour hefe into any good beer glass you want. Want/don't want a lemon slice? Do as you please, and don't let anyone tell you different.
Try something new. There are always beers out there you've never had, whole styles of beer you've never tried -- or liked, and maybe this is the time to give it a shot. Go to a bar, saddle up, and grab a new handle. You're out, you're drinking beer, you're having fun.
Relax. This ain't no time to argue. It's time to enjoy. Grill. Chill. Tip a few.

Sound good? Indeed. Just don't remind me of this when something pisses me off in July and I start ranting!

Tonight in the Lehigh Valley: Session Beer!

2011-06-16T09:45:00.000-04:00

I'm joining Eddie Stoudt (yeah, that Eddie Stoudt) tonight at The Pickled Egg in Easton (and I gotta say: cannot think of a better name for a Pennsylvania Dutch area beer bar) for an evening of session beer. I'll be talking about this near and dear subject and signing copies of Pennsylvania Breweries, Eddie will have a fresh firkin pouring (I assume of Karnival Kölsch, but I'm not sure), and proceeds from the firkin will be donated by barowner Laz Melan to the Boys and Girls Club of Easton. Good cause, good times, good beer! Get more details here; hope to see you tonight, 7-10!

Four Philly Beer Week events to go; hope to see you at one of them!

2011-06-09T13:02:00.002-04:00

Philly Beer Week’s winding down, but I’m just winding up! I’ve got four events in the next three days, and they’re big ones, and they’re all Pay As You Go, cuz we know you like that.

Tonight: I’m teaming up with the folks from Gretz Beer for a Doylestown pub crawl, and it’s a beauty. Get all the details here, but I can tell you: it says 7-9, but things will start around 6:30, and I doubt it’s going to stop just because the clock says so. I’ll be at Penn Taproom* (80 W. State St.) with my buddy Mike Hiller from Bavarian Barbarian from 6:30 to about 7:15, then hustle over to Knight House (96 W. State) to hang with the good folks from Victory, and then wind up the night from about 8:30 on at Stephanie’s (29 S. Main) with a first-in-Pennsylvania debut of Urban Chestnut Brewing, a St. Louis micro started by Florian Kuplent, a very talented microbrewer who'd gone to work for Anheuser-Busch...then bolted when the Belgo-Brazilians came to town. Very much looking forward to that! I’ll be signing copies of Pennsylvania Breweries at all stops, too. Come on out!

Tomorrow: Bust out of work early and join me at City Tap House for a Pennsylvania/session beer celebration from 11 to 2! We’ll have Pennsy beers pouring, Pennsylvania-local foods on offer (and they do great things with it over there), and I’ll talk your ear off about the great beers and brewers we have here in Pennsylvania. This one’s going to be fun; play hooky with me and show your disdain for all those neo-dry noseys who say we can’t have beer with lunch!

Friday night is a great little event I’ve got going at Old Eagle Tavern from 8-midnight: Bourbon, Beer, and Lew Bryson. I’m not just a beer writer, I’m a whiskey writer too, so we’re going to pump things up with a series of bourbon-barrel beers and bourbons. We’ll be pouring Baker's (a big overproof favorite), Eagle Rare (at Old Eagle? We had to!), George Dickel No. 12 Tennessee Whiskey (cuz if you don’t know Dickel, you don’t know jack), Elijah Craig 12 Year Old (a great unknown), and Makers Mark (gotta have something smooth). The bourbon-barrel beers? Oh, just a few kinda okay things, like Weyerbacher Insanity, Yards barrel-aged George Washington Porter, a 2009 Central Waters barrel-aged Barleywine, Allagash Curieux, and Port Brewing Older Viscosity. Interested now? I'll have plenty of free copies of Malt Advocate magazine, the world's best whisky magazine, too.

Saturday: It’s Big Wood with Lew Bryson at Devil’s Den from 8 to midnight to wrap up my Philly Beer Week events, and it’s gonna be great. We’ll have some serious wood-aged beers in the house, done with a variety of wood-aging techniques I’ll be happy to discuss with you. Check out this list: Weyerbacher Heresy, Rodenbach Grand Cru 2008, Russian River Consecration, Dogfish Head Palo Santo, Firestone Walker Walker's Reserve, Great Divide 17th Anniversary, Boulder Planet Porter with dates aged in bourbon barrels, Lost Abbey Angel's Share, and Hill Farmstead Phenomenology of Spirit (a dark saison, brewed with friends at Tired Hands, McKenzie, and Hill Farmstead’s sister brewery, Grassroots in Denmark, primary fermented in french oak wine casks along with multiple strains of brettanomyces and resident microflora. Because we know you like things like that.) You also might get picked up by cameras working on a new project I'm involved with; so spruce up a bit.

And that...will about do it. Whew.

*and remember: 1-star Yelp reviews usually mean "and my ex-girlfriend works there" and 5-star reviews often mean "and I'm sleeping with the bar manager."

Pretty Things event that I'm missing...why can't the college year be longer?

2011-06-09T11:54:00.000-04:00

We brought Thomas home from his freshman year at BU about a month ago, and now I get this email from Dann Paquette at Pretty Things...

THIRD ANNUAL SAINT BOTOLPH'S FEAST DAY PUB CRAWL

If you've ever read a bottle of Saint Botolph's Town, you know that Boston is named after the 8th century saint by the name of "Botolph". Known as the patron saint of travellers, old Saint Botolph will no doubt look over us and perhaps cast his blessings as we "travel" pub to pub in celebration of his feast day.
Come join us Friday, June 17th!
This year we're moving our Botolph's crawl to Cambridge. Why not celebrate that fine city of Boston and it's patron saint from across the Charles? Okay, it may be slightly ridiculous but that's the way it's going to be!
3:30 meet at Mead Hall, Kendall Square
4:30 Cambridge Brewing Company
5:30 Lord Hobo, Hampshire Street
6:30 Atwood's Tavern, Cambridge Street
7:30 Bukowski's Tavern, Cambridge Street
8:30 Trina's Starlight Lounge

Some great bars, and delicious Pretty Things beers...and I got no excuse to be in town! The boy's just going to have to take a summer course next year. Meanwhile, I'll have to assuage my hurt feelings by dropping in at the Pretty Things event at Midatlantic Friday night.

And yes, I've been busy during Philly Beer Week, but I still am, and when I have a moment...I'll post.

Finger Lakes Craft Beer Festival next week

2011-06-07T08:34:00.000-04:00

Hey, I got a post from my friends at Finger Lakes Distilling (distilling's a hot job, you need a beer at times!) about the Finger Lakes Craft Beer Festival next week. It's on June 16, a Thursday, starting at 6 PM -- and if that's not a perfect excuse for a long weekend in the beautiful Finger Lakes, be damned if I know what is. It's an environmental benefit: "The festival is a benefit to increase awareness and facilitate monies to be donated to “Gas Free Seneca,” a local non-profit group dedicated to stopping LPG gas storage in the Watkins Glen area."

Here's a partial list of the breweries involved:

Rooster Fish Brewing
Keuka Brewing Company
Cortland Beer Company
Two Goats
Bandwagon
Ithaca Beer
Finger Lakes Brewing
Naked Dove
Middle Ages
Rogers Brewing
Wagner Valley
Seneca Lodge Craft Brewing

I mean, there's at least six breweries on there I've never been to! If you've got the time, you oughta go; it's a beautiful spot, and bound to be some excellent beers.

Where There's Smoke, there's Lew

2011-06-06T12:29:00.000-04:00

Wanted to get in a plug for an event I really thought would cut through the noise of Philly Beer Week, if only because so many people being repulsed by it: Scoats and I, with chef Kevin McDevitt, are putting on an all-smoked dinner at Hop Angel Brauhaus tomorrow night. The menu is below, and you'll notice: everything is smoked, even the dessert. I know a lot of you don't like smoked beers, but for those of you that do...this is smokin', baby. Please note the seafood course, where we have a beer that is technically not smoked (Schlenkerla Helles uses no smoked malt, but picks up smoke hints from the brewing system that otherwise does exclusively smoked beers), and the return of Unibroue Raftman, the best peat-smoked beer I know of. We've got some beauts here, and if you've never had Bruder Basil cheese...you're in for a treat.
Come out tomorrow night. PAYG starts at 5, we'll have a more formal served dinner at 7 for $50 that includes all the beers and all the foods (at a significant savings).

Smoked Beer Dinner with Lew Bryson

1st

Three smoked cheese plate served with apple and raison compote and lingonberries

paired with: Roy Pitz Ludwig's Revenge, Sly Fox Rauchbier

2nd

Smoked mussels and Trout salad

paired with: Schlenkerla Helles, Unibroue Raftman

3rd

Choice of Hungarian and smoked whip with an onion gravy and sauerkraut or rolled Roulade with gravy and mashed potatoes

paired with: Stone Smoked Porter, Victory Scarlet Fire

4th

Carmel covered vanilla bean ice cream and a smoked salt

paired with: Schlenkerla Oak Smoke

Here comes your Annual Deschutes Tease, Philly

2011-06-02T18:29:00.001-04:00

Just got a notice about another Deschutes Brewery event for Philly Beer Week. Sigh. This superlative brewery only comes to PA once a year, for a few weeks, on some weird temporary "registration," and then leaves. But while they're here...you oughta grab some.

The event? It's at London Grill, Monday evening. It's $55, for a four-course meal plus reception beers, and my friends: do not be late, because the 'reception beers' are two all-too-often overlooked Deschutes beers you've heard me groan about: Twilight Summer and Red Chair Northwest Pale. Wonderful beers that don't beat you on the head. Do I have your attention? Here you go:

Deschutes Brewery Beer Dinner at London Grill

Join Oregon’s Deschutes Brewery brewmaster Larry Sidor for an evening of unbelievable beer, food and music. Deschutes is in town for Philly Beer Week, and doesn’t have regular distribution in our fair city – so this is a rare chance to sample some of their damn tasty beers. The evening begins at 5p.m. with an “ East Meets West” reception, featuring Deschutes Brewery seasonal beers Red Chair Northwest Pale Ale and Twilight Summer Ale. Also during the reception schmear of smoked salmon rillette with preserved lemon will be served to the musical sounds of the Carol Moog Trio. At 6 pm, the four-course dinner begins, pairing Deschutes ales with everything from salad to dessert. You’ll be feasting on such pairings as Mirror Pond Pale Ale with Locavore Salad; Obsidian Stout with Singapore Soft Shells; Black Butte Porter with braised goat mole; and The Abyss Imperial Stout with ginger gelato. Your palate will thank you!

The London Grill, 2301 Fairmount Avenue, Philadelphia 215-978-4545.

Sigh. Wish I could join you.

Magic Hat Single Chair

2011-06-01T21:23:00.000-04:00

"Golden Beer," it says on the Single Chair label, and I'm thinking, well, this is as about as exciting as it's gonna get. Truth be told, Single Chair is pretty light, but it might just be the ticket to get Uncle Freddy up Beer Mountain. Because the first sip is pretty tame, but by the second one, you're starting to realize that there's a twitchy zip of bitterness in there that you maybe missed the first time around. I'd have liked a bit more body, but it's not all bad. Give me a hot day, and I'd finish a couple of these. They're anchoring Magic Hat's summer assortment 12-pack, and it's worth it just to get to the Blind Faith IPA (do you remember Blind Faith? I sure do).

Everyone gets it

2011-06-01T16:26:00.000-04:00

Reading Karen Heller's Inky column today on the total Mongolian cluster-***k that is the Philadelphia school district, and being saddened by her main point, which is that this crappy school district -- out of control violence, cronyism, corruption, and a total lack of simple brains when it comes to budget planning -- is one more thing, a big one, that's crushing the whole Next Great City idea.

And there, right in the middle of things, she drops this little hop-cone of acknowledgment to Philly Beer Week and all that it stands for:

There is a gash in the middle of the city's population. Philadelphia has been wildly successful in attracting younger adults ages 20 to 34, due in part to our central location, affordable housing, bike lanes, and, of course, eminence as a beer-imbiber's paradise. The city has more babies, and more baby boomers.

A grateful city full of the people who have made it that paradise thank you for noticing...and for being cool enough to mention it. To be honest, it was the "of course" that was truly endearing.

Now if we could just get some more brewpubs in the city...we might have something. Too bad neighborhoods still have this weird idea that brewpubs will destroy them. It's the other way around, just look at Denver!

Philly Beer Week 2011: I'm All In

2011-05-31T11:50:00.000-04:00

Here we are, only three days from opening tap...and I've finally nailed down my Philly Beer Week events. Sigh. I was ready to publicize these last week, then Blogger went down (I did throw them up on Facebook, but...it's like writing on water), and then it was the holiday weekend and I had no computer access, then the volcano erupted and the dogs ate my homework...

Anyway... here we go! (No, no Bud Light at my events. I promise.)

FRIDAY, June 3, I'll be signing books at Opening Tap: see you there!

SATURDAY, June 4: The popular Wheat Beer Breakfast -- which was ridiculed as far away as Texas last year, I'm so proud -- moves to Hop Angel this year, 10-2. We've got great wheats of all types lined up, and beer-appropriate breakfast and brunch chow. Wheat beer: Breakfast o' Champions, and an awesome way to start your big First Saturday of Philly Beer Week!

SUNDAY, June 5: I bring Pennsylvania Breweries home to the Grey Lodge for the UPstate PA Beer Trek, 7-9. We've got SEVEN kegs from far-flung and tiny PA breweries: Otto's, Elk Creek, Old Forge, Marley's, Benny Brew, Breaker, and Kutztown Tavern, of which I'm pretty sure two of them are making their Philly debut; Benny Brew and Marley's are less than a year old. Why drive 470 miles, like Scoats and I did? Just come to the G-Lodge!

MONDAY, June 6: Actually, I'm not doing anything Monday night. A guy's gotta recharge!

TUESDAY, June 7: Do you like smoked beer? Do you like it a lot? Join me at Hop Angel, starting at 7:00 for an all-smoked beer/all-smoked food dinner! (PAYG option, too) SEVEN smoked beers (including the return of Unibroue Raftman!), smoked meat (including Rieker's awesome triple-smoked bacon), smoked fish, smoked cheese -- I am not blowing smoke up your ass, this is gonna be SMOKIN'!!! (Rare sideways plug: If you don't like smoked beer -- and I don't get that, but I know you're out there -- consider the event I'd be at if I weren't here: a B.United Importers dinner at Resurrection Ale House. I don't know if the name rings a bell, but Matthias Niedhart has been bringing in amazing beers for years, and does crazy things to keep them fresh on the way. You should come to my dinner! ...but if you don't, you should go here.)

WEDNESDAY, June 8: I'll be co-hosting a non-Philly Beer Week event on Long Island with Marnie Old (standing in for Sam Calagione...better bring my A game).

THURSDAY, June 9: Not all of Philly BeerWeek is in Philly! Join me for a PAYG pub crawl in Doylestown, starting at 7:00 (more info on which bars, but you can be sure that Stephanie's and Mesquito Grille will be on the list) and get to know this town's burgeoning bar scene; bet it's bigger than you knew! Brewers, reps, PA Breweries signings, and great times, Bucks County-style!

FRIDAY, June 10: Bonus day: I'm doing two events! First, blow off Friday afternoon -- like you're working hard during Philly Beer Week anyway -- and join me at City Tap House for a Pennsylvania Breweries tap takeover lunch, 11:30-1:30. A ton of PA beers, PA Local food, and plenty of the latest dope on what's happening in the PA beer scene.

After we've recovered, join me at the Old Eagle Tavern for a bourbon and beer dinner. Good bourbons -- you can bet Eagle Rare will be there! -- good bourbon-aged beers, and the cozy confines of the Old Eagle...and the booming laugh of yours truly. Ask anyone who was at my Percy Street bourbon dinner: this is going to be so much fun you'll barely notice how much you learn about bourbon.

SATURDAY, June 11: My final event is at Devil's Den, and it's called Big Wood with Lew Bryson. We'll be sampling wood-aged beers of many types, enjoying the many ways wood brings flavor to beer. Be careful; you just might learn something as I bring my whiskey-led beer knowledge to bear!

More details available at the Philly Beer Week page, on the Philly Beer Week app (iPhone and Android), and at the individual venue websites. I do hope to see you at one of these, at least!

Upstate Beer Run 2011

2011-05-19T15:20:00.001-04:00

Scoats and I did our annual "Upstate Beer Run" yesterday, as folks who follow either of us on Twitter might already know (check #pabeerrun). This is for our event at the Grey Lodge Pub on Sunday, June 5th, 7-9 PM*, when we'll put seven kegs of rarely/never-seen Pennsylvania beers on at the Grey Lodge, and regale you with our tales of the great places to find beer in the busiest brewing area in Pennsylvania: the curve from State College to Wilke-Barre that I call The Appalachian Front in Pennsylvania Breweries 4. Things are popping along here, and two of the beers come from breweries that have been open for less than six months.

We made the run yesterday, and it was quite productive. Scoats showed up in Langhorne at 7:30, we jumped in the Jetta and took off down the Turnpike. Just about the time I was feeling the need for a bit more caffeine, I saw a sign that the totally re-built rest stop at Lawn (just east of Harrisburg) was re-opening that day! How exciting! A rest stop grand opening! We were shocked to find neither flags nor brass bands, but I did park the Jetta in one of the new low-emissions vehicle slots...how silly.

Onward! Up the river, past the Susquehanna Statue of Liberty, through the narrows, and then through State College because of a detour, and finally to Otto's. We were greeted in the parking lot by owners Charlie Schnable and Roger Garthwaite, and by my good friend (and Malt Advocate copy editor) Sam Komlenic. (Unfortunately, brewer Chris Brugger was not there...thwarting my intention to greet him with greetings from a substantial number of Philadelphians.) Charlie showed us an impressively stocked coldbox, told us of plans for expansion (a new bottling line, more tanks, actual larger building) and of how the beer's selling in State College and beyond -- well-deserved success. We picked up a sixtel of Double D and hit the road.

Next on the agenda was Elk Creek, but...we had some extra time, so we slipped up to Bellefonte to visit Mike Smith at Gamble Mill Tavern. The bar wasn't open, but the hostess cheerfully located Mike, and we were soon sampling his beers. The first, HB48 Session Ale, was a hit: light but flavorful, quite nicely done. We had the Lame Devil Farmhouse (great body, a middleweight saison, with a nice peppery note), J. Rose Pale (nice, maybe a bit on the light side), Monte Weizen (not overly-clovey, well-done), Bush House Brown (good but...I'm just not big on brown ales), and Pig Iron IPA (solid stuff, great hop flavor and aroma). All beers were clean, pretty much flawless, and the place was quite cool. Nice to have somewhere to go for beer in Bellefonte again!

We were now late (and it's clearly Mike's fault, you know...), so we scooted down to Elk Creek. Loved the run, new roads for me, and some great PA scenery. Elk Creek wasn't open, but brewer Tim Yarrington knew we were coming and we met him out back at the brewhouse. We talked about how he was seeing the same thing as Otto's: everyone in the area wants Elk Creek beer, even the Millheim Hotel four doors down, even the firehall across the street. There are places around here, he said (and for the record, "around here" is mighty damned pleasant, but definitely in the sticks), that are putting an impressive small selection of craft on tap, mostly focused on local stuff. He's even hooked up with a wholesaler to get beer into the Wyoming Valley, which blew my mind. We grabbed a sixtel of Poe Paddy Porter, had a sample of Tim's MFA Ale ("F*** style!" he told us he said when he formulated this one, and a tip for brewers: the "MF" in the name stands for what you might think, and Tim reports that beers with profanity in the name sell like...a MF'er), which was brown, hoppy, a little bit of biscuit, and kickass refreshing. ON the road again!

We zipped over the hills, remarked on the quaint beauty of Mifflinburg, crawled through Lewisburg, and slid into Danville to have lunch -- and naturally pick up a keg -- at Old Forge Brewing. I finally met long-time reader Rev. Bob Van Deusen at the bar, too: a real pleasure to meet you, Bob! We also met Tim Egan (the fellow with the awesome moustache in the picture to the left) for whom the beer we picked up -- Loadmaster ESB -- was named; similarly a pleasure, Tim was a good guy to talk beer with. So was our host, Damien, and lunch was excellent (jalapeno soft pretzel, brewer's chili, and the chicken-apple quesadilla for me, Scoats had a turkey cheese sandwich he tore into). I got alt and kölsch, and while the alt was as good as always, the kölsch was a bit sulfury and a bit sharp; Damien said he'd tried a different fermentation regime on this batch...and was going back to his old one. Thus we learn! His new production facility -- a few-score yards away -- is sitting ready for construction to begin, waiting only on -- stop me if you've heard this before -- PLCB paperwork approval. With luck, they hope to be brewing by -- I think he said -- September. More beer in this hottest of PA beer areas.

Off we went, to another brand-new place, Marley's in Bloomsburg. We sampled Mark Braunwarth's dunkelweizen and Belgian Pale, and decided that while both were good, the dunkelweizen was a style we didn't see enough of, and loaded a half into the back of the Jetta. We toured the brewery -- whew, is it hot down there in the basement! -- and got a tank-sample of his upcoming chocolate stout (real cocoa, and it tasted chocolatey indeed). Marley's is rolling, and I've heard good things from several friends about it.

We were rolling too, the short run to Berwick Brewing. Always a pleasure to stop in, but we'd screwed things up by being so late (I'd actually planned to be there about noon, but turned the trip around by starting at Otto's; it was now just before 5!), and it wasn't clear what kegs were spoken for. Tom Clark was going to be back in about 20 minutes, but...we'd hosed ourselves, and had to get moving. We made our apologies and rolled on.

Traffic was getting a little thick, but only in Shickshinny (happy 150th anniversary!), and as we crossed the bridge into Nanticoke, we were catching up to schedule a bit. Minerva, my long-suffering and well-abused GPS, was leading us to Marty's Blue Room and Benny Brew, and the more turns we took, the less-likely it seemed...but she was dead on the money. Nice small-town bar with what looked like a great menu, and the nanobrewery you see in the picture to the right. Benny -- Ben Schonfeld -- and his dad Jim ("Marty" was the former owner) showed us the brewery and we tasted the Amber Lager (juicy and malty), Wit (I'm witted-out right now, but this was still quite good), Summer Ale (light and hoppy, pretty nice too), and Hopenstein IPA (good, though a bit too sweet: Benny said it was lacking the usual dry-hopping -- there was a long, involved, and at times amusing story to go with that -- which usually balanced out that sweet, and he was planning to go back to that). Our general impression: for a one-man operation in a bar on a half-barrel system, these were pretty damned good beers, and clean as a whistle. Nice work!

Whew. One more stop, and a relaxed one: Breaker Brewing. Chris and Mark are like old buddies now, and we just rolled up, settled in, and all grabbed glasses of Lunchbucket Pale. Mighty nice, too. I'm very appreciative of a good pale ale lately. They're days away from setting on a new place, and it's a huge step up: acres of land, a solid brick production building, and...lots of parking. For the planned pub. Really. It's the former St. Joseph's Monastery -- again, really -- in nearby Georgetown (not far from Krugel's Deli). According to the guys, the Church is real touchy about breweries in churches after the Church Brew Works -- apparently, the diocese didn't take enough out of there, and it looks too...churchy, which is a source of embarrassment. They're taking out the altar, the stained glass, even requiring that the steeple be removed (or maybe just the cross on top of the steeple, they seemed unsure). Well, okay. But when the diocese is closing about 100 churches (according to Mark), it seems like they might have other things to be worried about. Anyway, they have their zoning variance, they're close to having the property, and then...well, then things get crazy. Looking forward to this, because I know I'm far from the only person who's said, over and over and over, that the Wyoming Valley needs a proper, well-run brewpub. These are the guys to do it.

We picked up our last sixtel -- Goldies Summer, their usual blonde with an addition of citrus peel and coriander, light and refreshing -- and headed down the PA TP Extension to home with a butt-load of great, small-brewery beer. See you on June 5th!

* I've got three PBW events with Scoats:

The Wheat Beer Brunch is at HopAngel this year, Saturday June 4th, from 10-2, supplying you with all of those wonderful breakfast beers made with wheat, and beer-soaked breakfast/brunch food.
The Upstate Beer Run event is at the Grey Lodge, Sunday, June 5th, 7-9 PM.
And on Tuesday, June 7th, 7-10 back at HopAngel, we're doing the Smoked Stuff Dinner, a dinner with ALL smoked beers and at least one smoked food in each course. With the great smoked stuff right across the street at Rieker's, and the great local smoked beers...how can we lose?

More on ABC Collegeville

2011-05-19T06:56:00.000-04:00

Uncle Jack made it out to the new ABC Collegeville; he posted here. I am jealous of his proximity to so many good places...looks like ABC really took advantage of the potential of the space like New Road never did.

Stephen Starr auf Deutsch

2011-05-17T11:15:00.001-04:00

Stephen Starr steals ideas from NYC again...his beer garden, Frankford Hall, opens today (saw it at FooBooz, so go read it there).

It's about time we got a beer garden, dammit. (Ummm...as Craig pointed out in comments, there's a beer garden at Memphis Taproom now. And I've been there, and you should go too. I feel dopey. Sorry, Brendan!)

ABC Collegeville is open

2011-05-16T16:47:00.000-04:00

The fourth Appalachian Brewing has opened in Collegeville (in the old New Road space, for those of you gray enough to remember (I'm looking at you, O'Reilly)). If only I had some spare time this week...

Session Beer explodes: you really did hear it here first

2011-05-10T11:00:00.000-04:00

Check out some links on the SBP blog here. "Session beer" has exploded in the past two months, and yesterday was a big day. Narragansett has a 4.2% Summer Ale coming out, The Notch continues to do well (and is expanding distribution to western Mass), and of course, Philly's quiet session beer success continues unabated. I do love it when a plan comes together.

Scott Smith is all in; you gonna see him?

2011-05-10T10:32:00.000-04:00

I know you Pennsylvanians -- and some others -- know about Scott Smith at East End Brewing. I've certainly written enough about him. I mentioned recently that plans were underway for an expansion -- only because he really really needs it -- and the building's been found (a much bigger building at 6580 Frankstown Ave., not far away, a former telecom warehouse). You can read more about it here in Bob Batz's -- as always -- nicely detailed article in the Post-Gazette.

Two things leap out, besides the greatly increased capacity and the proximity to the current plant (had to stay close, Scott acknowledges, or he'd have to change the name). First, Scott and his wife Julie are mortgaging their home to raise most of the money, laying it on the line. (I just saw on his Facebook feed that he's off to sign the papers this morning.) Second, he's looking for small investors -- friends of good beer -- to help make the nut.

Here's the deal. They need about $250,000 more to cover the expansion (the $500K in the article is the whole thing; Scott has about half of that). They're hoping to get $100K from you, the drinkers, in what Scott calls a 3-year microloan. You won't make any money; you get paid back in beer. Or t-shirts, or cake mixes, or growlers, or whatever other stuff Scott's fertile mind has dreamed up (me, I'd get one of those Big Hop bike jerseys), because you'll get $10 vouchers to use at the brewery (or the growler store in the Strip). Details are all here, investing goes live next week, I believe.

Look, I'm not advising you to "invest." I wouldn't advise you to put money in one small brewery over another. But I would advise you to invest in a small, local brewery if you get the chance. I would, if there weren't obvious ethical issues preventing me. This is your local community, your local beer, and you get to be part of it. Will you make money? Well, no, not on this "investment," though you might on others; similarly, you might lose money. How much you stake is up to you, after due diligence. But the point is...you can be part of this. Which is pretty damned cool. So open your eyes (and your ears) and think about it. That's small brewing.

Will you feel lucky this Friday?

2011-05-09T10:36:00.000-04:00

What can it mean?

Cigar City Humidor IPA

Cricket Hill Reserve Series Brown

Dock Street TBA

Dogfish Head 75 Minute IPA

Flying Fish Farmhouse

Fullers London Pride

Lancaster Milk Stout

Manayunk Brewerytown Brown Ale

Manayunk Hop Phanatic

Nodding Head Marauder

Philly Fleur de Lehigh

Prism Bitto Honey

Sixpoint Modern Rye

Sly Fox 113 IPA

Sly Fox Chester County Bitter

Stouts Pils

Stouts special bourbon barrel aged Scarlet Lady ESB

Troegs Hopback Amber

Troegs Javahead

Victory Headwaters Pale Ale

Wells Banana Bread

Wells Bombadier

Weyerbacher Verboten with camomille tea

Yards ESA

It can only mean one thing: Friday the Firkinteenth. Starts at noon, this Friday.

New Single Pot Still Irish Whiskeys coming

2011-05-07T15:23:00.000-04:00

I just spent three days in Ireland, courtesy of Midleton distillers and Pernod Ricard, to taste two new single post still Irish whiskeys, Powers John's Lane and Midleton Barry Crockett Legacy. I had my Malt Advocate Managing Editor hat firmly on my head, so accordingly, my notes on the whiskey are on our magazine blog, here. I'll probably have the rest of the trip up here soon. In the meantime, for those of you who are jealous of the whiskey (and beer) samples I get...I did stop at Travel Retail in the new T2 terminal at Dublin Airport to buy a bottle of Green Spot. Because I've been waiting too damned long to have my own bottle, and I thought 28 Euro was a pretty good price. Slainte!

New York Breweries update nudges closer

2011-05-03T10:04:00.001-04:00

I went to TAPNY over the weekend, had a LOT of great beers from some excellent new New York breweries (the top two awards went to breweries under a year old, Crossroads and Barrier (and well-deserved), and I enjoyed the hell out of the beers from Greenport, too), and saw a phenomenal level of support for the state's brewers. So I'm in final negotiations on a long-overdue update of New York Breweries. There are over 60 breweries in the state now, with the Finger Lakes region and Long Island leading the growth, and again, some truly excellent beers being made. Going to be a lot of travel, a lot of work, but I think this is going to happen.

Zythos in America

2011-05-02T11:36:00.000-04:00

This may or may not happen at this event.

There are -- there will be -- a ton of Philly Beer Week events. It starts in 32 days. I have my own events, and I'll let you know about them soon. But I wanted to get this one out there, because it's really the kind of event that could almost only be done in Philly, because of our huge love for Belgian beers (and when, fergodssake, is someone gonna get smart and open a Brewer's Art-style brewpub in this town?!), and because of Tom Peters.

Zythos America Saturday, June 11, 2011 Noon-3PM $60
BELGIUM'S PREMIER BEER FESTIVAL COMES TO PHILLY! This is our third annual Zythos America and will be the best one yet. Stellar beer selection and lots of space for your comfort. We will offer over 75 Belgian and Belgian-style beers. The preliminary selection is now posted online. Do expect some changes and additions. These beers will all be top quality with NO CRAP to fill out the list.
Saturday afternoon from Noon-3PM. Doors open at 11:45. This will be held at the Starlight Ballroom, 460 N. 9th Street. This venue has a capacity of 1,200 people, but we are limiting ticket sales to only 600 to ensure plenty of room to wander, sample and talk. Dozens of comfortable booths in which to relax and enjoy these amazing beers. The Starlight Ballroom has its own kitchen and will be offering food for sale.
Go to phillybeerfests.com for more information, beer list, and tickets. Tickets are on sale through the Starlight Ballroom's ticketing company, Ticket Fly. Tickets are very limited, so don't delay.

You've been warned. Get to it!

My first event in Lebanon County

2011-04-27T09:18:00.000-04:00

Lebanon County is not a place I've been to very often. To be honest, it's mostly a place I've been through on the way to other places (though I did have a friend who went to Lebanon Valley College that I visited once or twice...30 years ago). It's pretty enough -- even more rural than Lancaster or Berks Counties -- but there are no breweries, and beer bars have only cropped up recently. So the only Lebanon County mention in Pennsylvania Breweries is the Quentin Tavern, just north of Swashbuckler.

Happily, this did not deter Mike McDonald at the Blue Bird Inn (not two miles away from the Quentin, in Cornwall) from reaching out to me recently about doing an event at his place (I'm pretty sure someone I met at a book signing said something to him; I vaguely remember someone saying "You should go to the Blue Bird Inn!" at a signing, and me giving them a card). We talked, I shuffled my signing schedule a bit, and we set up an event.

I'll be at the Blue Bird on May 21st, from 7 to 9, signing books and checking out their beer selection. If you're in the area, why not stop by and see what Lebanon's doing about joining the Craft Beer Revolution?!