I just want to hear Don Russell say it...

Newly added to Logan Circle...

The 2011 Philadelphia Flower Show -- "Springtime in Paris."

The 2011 Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts -- "Paris 1910 - 1920."

The Holy Ghost Prep 2011 Auction -- "Soiree in Paris." 

So at this point, I'd just like to hear Philadelphia Beer Week executive director Don Russell come right out and tell us whether the theme of the 2011 Philadelphia Beer Week really is "Sippin' by the Seine."

I'm gonna hit something with Le Marteau de la Gloire if it is...


61 days to Philly Beer Week opening tap! See you there!

About to rip my way across Philly Beer Week

I've got an interesting tour planned this afternoon: I want to hit at least three PBW events before my own event tonight at the Grey Lodge. Follow me on Twitter (or Facebook, if you're one of my friends there)!

Okay...one wild Philly Beer Week thing

I told myself I wasn't going to get into pimping PBW events -- cuz you know, with over 900 listed events (suck that, "other" so-called "beer weaks") it's not fair to pick and choose -- other than my own, of course. But one event is setting another world beer record here in Philly, for a while at least, and I wanted to talk a bit about the venue, too, so...

City Tap House will be pouring 31 different draft Bell's beers on Monday night, June 7. This is more different Bell's beers than have ever poured anywhere else, including Bell's Eccentric Cafe in Kalamazoo, even in Larry Bell's house. That's all draft beers, pouring on City Tap House's very nice tap system. Some of these are Philly Beer Week exclusives, and you may see them around town next week, but you'll only see all of them here. What? You want a list?

Okay:

Porter, Le Pianiste Ale, Two Hearted, Le Contrebassiste Ale,
Third Coast Old Ale, Le Batteur Ale, Kalamazoo Stout, Smoked Lager (vienna), Oberon, Golden Funk Ale, Double Cream Stout, Kal-Haven Rye Ale, Oarsman, The Wild One, Expo, Pastel Raspberry Ale, Lager, Consecrator, Wheat Love, Wheat 2, Cherry Stout, Wedding Ale, Black Note, BB Hell Hath, Harry Magill's, Q Falls, Debs' Red, The Oracle,
Sparkling, Batch 9000, Batch X000 (undecided as yet; "something from the archives"). 

How's that? Pretty damned sweet, no? Well, let me tell you about City Tap House a little, you want to talk about sweet. Cathy and I went to the opening a couple weeks ago, and I was impressed. First, it's a huge space; two immense rooms (bar and dining room) plus a very large outdoor...what, more than a deck of a balcony, something the size of a helipad, with big open gas firepits. The food: they were bringing around samples of stuff like lamb lollichops (with a delicious dipping sauce), bruschetta, and a variety of pizzas including one with truffle-oiled mushrooms and what looked like a fried free-range egg in the center (really good, but kind of hard to split up).

Enough about that, let's talk beer. Their taplist was simply sick, okay? They were not wasting taps on so-so stuff, at least, not the craft taps, of which there were about 50. Flying Fish Exit 4, Dark Horse, Duvel Green, plenty of locals, Founders, the usual suspects and others. Which is great, but what about my concerns that these taps would sit ignored as "them collitch kids" drank up the Yuengling and Stella? I popped that question to bar manager Andy Farrell, right after I came out of the impressively tech'd-up keg cooler (please to ignore the clearly goofy Mr. Kolesar, overwhelmed by the steel-encased wonderfulness he was surrounded by).

He had interesting news, to wit: the craft taps had been handily outselling the mainstream taps for the ten days that they'd been open. In fact, he said, they were shipping kegs of mainstream to their other operations (Field House and Public House) because they were sitting unused at the Tap House. Now, it's still very early, but it looks like Penn kids like to get their drink on with craft beer. God knows, they have the money to afford it.

Maybe we really will have a big-assed multitap that succeeds in Philly. Good thing, bad thing? I'll need to see it in action for a while longer. In the meantime...I might just mosey on down there for this Bell's thing... (Parking wasn't horrible, either.)

Get your damned Philly Beer Week on!

I've been pretty quiet about Philly Beer Week -- hell, I've been pretty quiet -- but there's still time for me to give you some very useful advice.

First, if you've got an iPhone, there is -- forgive me -- an app for that. And a pretty damned good one, based on the limited testing I've been able to do since downloading it last night (it was down for a bit, but is back up now, and solid). You can tell it to find you the nearest event to your current location, or the next event to take place (and you can filter by type of event!), or a list of events by neighborhood/area, or by day (a LONG list for each day!). You can also search by venue (12 Steps Down, for instance, is doing a number of events: I didn't know that!) in alpha order or grouped by neighborhood, or by brewery (very nice if you're following Frank Boon or the Trogner Brothers around). There's a Philly Beer Week Twitter feed on the front page, you can select a list of favorite events that you want to get to that will be saved for you on the front page, there's even a Stanley Cup playoff calendar. What else could you ask for! Well...I'd like to be able to filter for pay-as-you-go events; they're the best for loose scheduled drop-in stuff, although there are so many of them that might not be such an advantage. And...it would have been nice to have a map that tracked the path of the Hammer of Glory on Friday, with times and events picked out. Next year.

If you don't have an iPhone? You're covered! My Philly Beer Week allows you to scan the whole calendar of events, pick out what you want, and either print a list, print a Google map with all your events, or download it to Outlook or iCal on your mobile device of choice. Again, you can search the list by a variety of parameters to find what you're looking for.

And if you just don't give a damn about all this technical crap (and if that's you, what are you doing reading a blog?), you can pick up today's Philadelphia Weekly to get the huge printed supplement with all this jazz on good old newsprint. That's nice, too.

Hope to see you at my event at the Grey Lodge Sunday afternoon, and I hope to see plenty of you out and about this week. If you see me, say hi!

Words of wisdom from Lord Chesterfield

From the actual Lord Chesterfield, not the Yuengling brand. I got this in my A Word A Day e-letter this morning (a free service that I highly recommend as educational, fun, and engagingly weird at times).

Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket, and do not pull it out and strike it merely to show you have one. If you are asked what o'clock it is, tell it, but do not proclaim it hourly and unasked, like the watchman. -Lord Chesterfield, statesman and writer (1694-1773) 

I present it not only for its worthy message, but for its messenger: appropriate this week, because Lord Chesterfield will be visiting Philly Beer Week. It's true, you can look it up with the Philly Beer Week iPhone app (which is not only cool, but it works, too: you can schedule ahead, you can search by venue, brewery, date, or type of event (would have been nice if you could search by Pay As You Go; just a suggestion, because these are the kinds of events it is easiest to drop in on by whim), or by GPS-determined closest to you). Yuengling is bringing Dick's daughter Jennifer Yuengling and an actor-portrayed Lord Chesterfield to town for some light-hearted meet-and-greet.

This is good news, and fun. Good, because A) it looks like they're putting some push behind this hoppier entry in their line, a clandestine fave of some for years, and that's good to see; and B) because Ralph Archbold needs some competition to keep him on top of his game!

Phoenixville Pub Crawl

Uncle Jack's plugging it, and so am I: the best event I missed at last year's Philly Beer Week...and I'm going to miss it again this year, dammit. The Phoenixville Pub Crawl is on June 5th, and features bars hosting brewers and brewpubs hosting...you. It was so much fun last year that Uncle Jack took a month to recover.

I can't be there -- Thomas graduates that day -- so stand in for me, willya? Head out to one of the suburbs' best beer towns for some good beer and good fun.

Hmmm...If Philly is America's Best Beer-Drinking City, and it is -- as I've said before -- a relatively small city in square miles with some of its best beer in the suburbs...what is Philly's Best Beer Suburb? Anyone?

Far as that goes, can anyone tell me what county in Pennsylvania has the most breweries? Anyone?

I am doing a Philly Beer Week event...

I'm going to be AWOL from much of Philly Beer Week: Thomas graduates from Holy Ghost Prep on June 5, so I'm not real focused. But I am hosting an event at the Grey Lodge Pub the next day, June 6th at 6 PM, the event that only the author of Pennsylvania Breweries could do: Scoats and Lew's Upstate PA Brewery Haul.

The "Haul" itself is taking place this Tuesday, when Scoats and I will go get kegs from ShawneeCraft, Breaker Brewing, Berwick Brewing (where we'll be dropping off some empties, too: this is a full-service beer run), Bullfrog Brewery (Terry's cutting loose of one of his precious sour casks for us, and some bottles), Bavarian Barbarian, Copper Kettle (bottles only; they don't do kegs), Elk Creek Cafe, and Old Forge. I think this will be a Philly debut for Old Forge; might be for ShawneeCraft and Copper Kettle, too, but I'm not quite as sure about that. One thing I do know: this is the only place you're going to see all of these together and be able to sample them at the same time.

I did deliver the PAB4 edits yesterday, by the way, and had a lunch with my editor, Kyle Weaver, that resulted in my sending him one quick addition to the book: Coakley's in New Cumberland served us a delish lunch (I had a Cuban quesadilla, Kyle had a generous shepherd's pie) and fresh, snappy glasses of Stoudt's Karnival Kölsch that really hit the spot on a surprisingly hot May afternoon. Coakley's: welcome to Pennsylvania Breweries!

Friends of Philly Beer Week

Are you a friend of Philly Beer Week?

Philly Beer Week had a Facebook problem and lost a lot of their Facebook friends. If you are, or were a friend of the event -- and you oughta be! -- please do them a favor and go 're-friend' them.

There. Now don't you feel all better? Remember, Philly Beer Week 2010 is June 4-13; make your plans now!

Happy Birthday, Jennie Hatton!

Do you know this woman?

It's Jennie Hatton, and today's her birthday. It should be a holiday in Philadelphia beer circles so we could all go out and celebrate with her. We should all bag work, and have a big Ferris Bueller's Day Off with Jennie as the happy ringleader...now that would be a great day.

I met Jennie about 10 years ago, I think it was at Nodding Head. We were traveling in the same beer circles, and then she started working at Profile Public Relations, and she blossomed into a real genius for putting together people, venues, events, and media.

Her greatest triumph, of course, was this year's Philly Beer Week. Jennie worked this for Profile and got phenomenal press for it, put together people and venues (thanks, Jennie), and during the Week itself was, seemingly, everywhere, making sure events were attended, no problems were occurring (or getting fixed if they were), and generally ruling the world. And bless her heart, I gave her a ride home Thursday night of Beer Week, and she entrusted me with the Hammer of Glory. Wow. What a friend.

I'm very happy to call Jennie a friend, and a buddy (cuz they're not the same, and there's a very small group that I call both). She's awesome, she's great for beer and eats in Philly, she sure-hell knows how to have a good time, and it's her birthday. If you see her, buy her a beer!

Philly Beer Week 2010 wants you!

I ran into Jennie Hatton at Standard Tap last night; I was just there to have some Standard Ale, she was there for a Casey Hughes-hosted Flying Fish beer dinner that sounds like it was a triumph, and I don't mean Patrick Jones-style (though that would be a good idea, too...). Which reminded me that she'd sent a request out to me and the other area beer bloggers, asking us to post the following; a general request to participate in a Philly Beer Week experience survey. It's a good community thing to do, and it helps Jennie make next year better. That's self-interest, boyo, so do it.

We are conducting a short survey to find out more information about your Philly Beer Week 2009 experience, and your time in the Philadelphia area. When you complete this survey you will be put into a drawing to win a Pair of Tickets to Opening Tap 2010 (5 pairs of tickets will be given away). In order to be eligible to win the tickets, please complete the survey by March 30th.
The Survey is here.
Thanks again for a great Philly Beer Week!
We will not share your personal information with anyone.
Cheers!

Get to work!

Kegs Go Home

Philly Beer Week's last event for me happened two days ago on Saturday; the Return of the Kegs. I took the kegs from our Upstate Beer Night at the Grey Lodge back to the brewers. It was a long day.

I filled up the Passat, and dropped Thomas off at Holy Ghost for the qualifying rounds for the National Catholic Forensics League championship (he qualified, and will be competing in Albany in May!). That was about 7:50 AM, and I aimed it north from there, up the Turnpike Extension. First stop was One Guy Brewing, and although I mostly just had time to drop off the keg (Atomic Punk IPA, and it went over well) and hit the head, I did get a short progress report. Guy's still having to run hard to meet demand, and an expansion of the taproom (almost doubling in size) is about to start. He's getting Friday nights when people can't get in the door! Bravo, Berwick.

Off again, headed for Williamsport. It was a beautiful day, cold and mostly sunny, and not too much traffic on the road...except for one wing-ding on Rt. 15 North, who just would not let me pass him. I don't get that. If someone wants to pass you, why not just pull over and let them by? Why play games and whip back and forth across two lanes to keep them from passing? Are you bored?

Anyway...slid into one of the courthouse parking spots, grabbed the Bullfrog keg (Beesting Saison, might have been the hit of the night) and handed it to a waitress (the pub wasn't open yet, it was a bit before 11). Ran back to the car and drove three blocks to Bavarian Barbarian. Mike was in, and I gave him his dunkelweizen keg back (not enough dunkelweizens out there, and I hope he keeps making this one). Took a few minutes to sample his spiced winter ale, First Snow (good -- for spiced ale, I'm not a huge fan, but this had all the right pieces in the right places and didn't overwhelm in any direction), then hit the road again.

Now I headed down Rt. 220, then cut back east and south, over two ridges (that's the landscape picture above) to Millheim and Elk Creek Cafe and Aleworks, to return the last keg (strong Belgian golden, and that was nice in a small glass). I had pushed hard all morning so I could relax now: I'd never had the food at Elk Creek, and I wanted to try it. Worth the wait. I had a glass of Oatmeal Stout -- smooth, bitter, nice -- with a bowl of lamb-lentil stew, and then a Blue Heron Pale Ale -- bright and hoppy, very drinkable -- with a smoked turkey, bacon, and avocado sandwich on flatbread, which was delicious; the side of house-made potato chips were outstanding. Gotta go back for more.

Down the valley to pick up Rt. 322 down to the Susquehanna, when I realized I had about 30 minutes to kill before talking to the Harrisburg homebrew club (ReHAB) at Scotzin Brothers homebrew shop in Lemoyne. It was a Saturday afternooon; I stopped by Tröegs. Wow. First time I've been in since the remodeling of the tasting area. What a huge difference. If you haven't been, you should go, it's a great place to try the latest and greatest from the Trogners. Just don't do like I did and park in the wet spot in the parking lot; turned out to be run-off from spent grain, and my car and I both smelled horrible!

Across the river to Lemoyne, where I spent a very pleasant two hours talking beer (and whiskey) with the homebrewers, and sampled some pretty darned good homebrews. They did not make a mead-drinker out of me -- sorry, guys, others have tried, and it just ain't happening (with one exception in Oklahoma and I've never tasted the equal since) -- but there were a couple beers that were excellent.

I left there about 5:30, stopped in at my parents' on the way home for dinner, then finally -- 450 miles later -- returned home. That's when I found out that my daughter, Nora, had learned that her school robotics team, the Mount St. Joseph Academy Firebirds (Nora's a freshman member), had won the Chairman's Award at the Philadelphia Regional FIRST competition, an awesome and jaw-dropping honor indeed. We were pretty proud parents. Good day!

The Session Beer Project hits The Tiedhouse

The Tiedhouse, the Philly outpost of the General Lafayette Inn brewpub (20th and Hamilton), has invited me to host a session beer event Monday night, March 9th (tomorrow...). I first mentioned that here, and now I have more details from Chris Leonard.

It all starts at 6 PM. There's a $5 cover, and the session beers will then be available by the flight or full pint. I'll be there with Chris's brewer, Russ Czajka for an exploration of these full-flavored, low alcohol beers. We will discuss history, styles, brewing techniques and nuances that make these beers so appealing.

Beers we have on-line so far include:

• General Lafayette’s The Economizer (a new, very hoppy 3.5%er from the General)
• Earth Bread + Brewery Stout (part of 'Philly Weak Beer' at EB+B)
• Philadelphia Brewing Company Kenzinger (crisp, refreshing)
• Yards Brawler (the surprise hit from the new Yards)
• Uerige Alt (that's right, from Düsseldorf, and only 4.5%)
• Sly Fox Seamus Irish Red (rolling with fruity esters)
• Conniston Bluebird Bitter (a classic)

With more to be added! Possibly the largest selection of session beers Philly has ever seen, all at The Tiedhouse tomorrow. Hope to see you there.

At Least They Spelled My Name Right

I was driving down to Philly this morning, headed for the Grey Lodge to host my wheat beer breakfast event, when I heard a Philly Beer Week report on KYW misquote the Philly Beer Week slogan as "America's Best Drinking City" and refer to Joe Sixpack as "Don Nichols." I did not drive off the road, but I did groan.

So I was able to take this bullshit in stride, an AP story that hit the Houston Chronicle this morning:

Drunk by noon? Perfectly acceptable in Philly

In many places, drinking before noon is something to hide. Not in Philadelphia. The second annual Philly Beer Week has eight scheduled beer-drinking events before noon on Saturday.
For example, an event called "Lew Bryson's Wheat Beer Breakfast of Champions" begins at 9 a.m. Saturday at a tavern in Philadelphia's Tacony neighborhood. Later in the morning, there's an event called "Kegs and Eggs" at an Irish pub in the Old City historic district.
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter used a ceremonial mallet dubbed the "Hammer of Glory" to kick off the event Friday night. He used it to open a keg [of] Philadelphia-brewed Yards ESA. Earlier Friday, the mallet was carried Olympic-torch-style through various Philadelphia neighborhoods. Hundreds of other events are planned through March 15.

Just another idiot who can't tell the difference between "drinking" and "drunk," which I'd guess says more about them than about us. Anyway...at least they spelled my name right. As of this evening, it appeared that the Chronic was the only paper that had picked up the story...guess newspaper editors aren't that stupid after all. Smarter than the editors at the AP, anyway.

Lew & Scoats' Excellent Beer Run

Scoats and I did the Upstate Beer Run on Wednesday, gathering up the final beers for the Upstate PA Beer tasting we're doing at the Grey Lodge Sunday night. Scoats came out to my place early Wednesday morning, and while I was finishing my Cheerios and strawberries, Cathy made him a quick bowl of oatmeal. Sustaining. We set out, Passat rolling (I'd get 39 MPG on the day, too), and telling each other tales.

First stop was to be the Bullfrog Brewery, but we were ahead of schedule, so we went up over the mountain to see One Guy. Guy pulled in just after we did, and we met the Two Other Guys (he's hired assistants) as we went in. We sampled the hefe -- nice, tart -- the Berwick Lager -- clean, smooth -- and the IPL, a batch of Atomic Punk IPA Guy made with lager yeast. "I could sell this," Scoats said, and he's definitely right: good stuff, clean, hoppy, like Prima Pils with more body. We toured the huge place (huge place, tiny brewery), saw the pizza oven (waiting on time and money), the beer garden (waiting on time and money), and the bottling area (waiting on...).

We got out, and now, of course, we're late (sorry, Terry), and get to Bullfrog about 11:20. No problem, Terry says, and takes us downstairs to see the operation (That first picture is Terry and me down in the midst of things). Wow. Lots of barrels, "kegs gone wild," bottling tanks just for the wild ales... Terry's found a big niche market for soured beers in Williamsport; who knew? He gave us a sample of his latest: a beer brewed with wild yeasts and 100% cacao chocolate. An amazingly layered beer that punches funk and chocolate in ways that are quite appealing. We put away 2/3 of a pint in short order. Once we grabbed a sixtel of Beesting Saison, away we went.

Not far, though. We just went over a few blocks to Kimball's Pub, a place that wasn't much to look at (clean, but real plain), but had a damned nice selection of beer. We were picking up another sixtel: Bavarian Barbarian Square Feet Wheat dunkeweizen. Mike Hiller had dropped it off there for us; he was in DC on Wednesday, showing off his First Snow winter warmer at the Brickskeller. Not bad for your first year!

Off we went, down Rt. 220, then over the ridges to Millheim, where we spent some very pleasant time with Tim Bowser and the crew at Elk Creek Cafe (my man Sam Komlenic was there, too; always a pleasure, Sam: that's Tim and Sam with Elk Creek's brewhouse to the right), sampling and shooting the breeze. Elk Creek's a beautiful place and no doubt; if you haven't been, go. A sixtel of Belgian strong, and we were on our way (after a quick stop at Penns Valley Meat Market for some house-made ring bologna and jerky).

One more stop: Old Forge Brewing, in Danville. Wanted to get here for months now, and I have: worth the trip. Great, simple place, well-populated even at 4 on a Wednesday afternoon. I got the alt, and it was good: proper hop bite, not over-alcohol'd, not too much hop aroma; maybe a bit dark, maybe a bit sweet, but Damien said he was aware of that and on top of it, this was the first batch. I did get a glass of Sensessionale, and it was excellent session stuff, a definite all-day sucker.

What really put us both away, though, was the food. I'd been told the menu was simple but well-executed, and man, was that true. Best $6 quesadilla I've ever had, perfectly done, cheesey, chicken, thin-sliced apple, just great. And the soft pretzels are very German, big, soft, chewy-tasty (and made the WaWa 'soft pretzel' I had on the way to Philly Beer Geek last night taste like a hard sponge); made at a Mifflinburg bakery. Great eats.

And then we drove home. Good day, good beer.

A big thanks to Scoats for the pix: I forgot my camera!

Philly Beer Geeks

I helped judge the semi-final round of Philly Beer Geek last night at Manayunk Brewing, along with Manayunk head brewer Chris Firey, Grey Lodge owner/genius Scoats, Iron Hill North Wales brewer Larry Horwitz, New Holland brewery rep (and Philly beer guy) Dr. Joel Armato, and the incredibly busy Suzanne Woods. We 'judged' the efforts of twelve prospective Philly Beer Geeks: quick-answer beer trivia (that ranged from ridiculously easy to shockingly tough), beer-brewery match-ups, essay questions ("Describe your favorite beer style as a bird, a meal, and a disease" was my contribution), two-up tasting, beer-related joke/tall tale/poem/song/interpretative dance, and the "Last Chance" round.

Well, it dragged at times. Some of the contestants were very young (how can you be a "Philly Beer Geek" and not know what Red Bell is?), some were shy, some brought props (Steve Hawk's poster-sized photo of himself reclining vampishly on a bar, shown above, brought the house down), and a couple clearly didn't really know that much about beer, but got through on sheer stones and quick wits. High points of the night: Hawk's clear -- weird -- passion in answering a one-word beer geek question; Doug Hager (soon ("May. Probably.") to open Brauhaus Schmitz on South Street) mentioning in the answer to a different question that he used to sing a "beer version" of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here," and singing it when we asked; and one real honest contestant -- sorry, can't remember who -- saying that we didn't want to pick him "as the face of Philly Beer Geek, you want her," pointing at fellow contestant Gina Talley.

In the end, we picked five, and forced Doug Hager and Mike Hore into a sudden-death playoff for the final spot. Which was fun. So was the Krook's Mill Pale Ale they supplied to the judges: nice, nice stuff, Chris! Great time talking beer with folks, good hanging out with my fellow judges, and thanks to Jason Harris and Carolyn Smagalski for putting the whole thing together. The Finals are next Thursday at Manayunk: I guarantee some fun.

You know it's a good day when...

...your son's coach plugs your Philly Beer Week event in the team parental update e-letter (the typos are kind of a team communication tradition):

Still not smiling? Lew Bryson -- beer afficienado and father of Tom Bryson, one of our very successful original orators -- will be hosting "Lew Bryson's Wheat Beer Breakfast of Champions" at the Grey Lodge on Frankford Avenue at 9:00 am this Saturday morning as one of the official events of Philadelphia Beer Week. Lew is a great guy who will be speaking at a couple of pubs on Saturday and Sunday at other Beer Week events. Trust me, if the beautiful weather and a pint or two do not perk you up, a conversation with Lew will!

I knew we sent him to the right school. (He is successful, too: he just placed first in the qualifying round for the state championships in his event, which he won last year.)

BTW, if anyone wants to join me after the Real Ale Invitational next Sunday for the Forensics Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser at Holy Ghost Prep, hit me for tickets. Good time, and some big good eats: sit at our table and enjoy the entertainment of Holy Ghost's powerhouse forensics team: the humorous interpretation guys are killers this year.

Good Day in the Inquirer

Philly Beer Week got a beautiful piece in the Inquirer today, along with a great picture of Scoats tapping a firkin of Iron Hill (West Chester) Ironbound Ale (yeah, unlike the guy who wrote the caption and said it was Bourbon Porter, I can read the tag in the picture). Craig LaBan did a pretty good job encompassing this juggernaut, including taking a swipe at the "other" so-called "beer weeks" that have sprung up.

But the Inky also had a front page story about cigarette taxes -- how New Jersey raised them and got less money -- it's the "paradox" that an increase in the tax on cigarettes often (make that "almost always") results in a decrease in revenue from the tax. Amazing, ain't it? These anti-smoking groups have been saying for years that if you raise taxes on cigs, people won't smoke as much; have those chickens come home to roost (and crapped all over New Jersey's budget crisis), ruining the happy, cautious dance of hypocritical 'sin tax' balanced against cynical greed?

Truth is, this is how it usually happens, and it happens for more reasons than people quitting. A quote from the story:

"When you're in a high-tax state, smokers, like anybody else, are price-sensitive, so they're going to go looking for cigarettes where they're cheaper," said Gregg Edwards, president of the Center for Policy Research of New Jersey. "There is a small number of folks who just wouldn't absorb the price increase and just decided to quit, but most of those folks just go to other places."

Which neatly sums up why excessively high taxes like these are, essentially, a government stimulus plan for smugglers. When anti-whatever groups publish their neat little "taxes up, sale of [insert targetted "Bad Thing" here] down, yay!" policy studies and reports, they never mention that the most likely outcome is that the people are just buying the "bad thing" somewhere else. People cross the border to buy their cigarettes, or organized crime outfits bring truckloads of them from low-tax states like South Carolina. Are the benefits worth the crime, or the normalization of crime?

Michael LaFaive of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy recently studied the impact of cigarette taxes in Michigan, California and New Jersey... LaFaive's study estimated that 40 percent of cigarettes smoked in New Jersey come from out-of-state or illegal lines of distribution. The figure was based on smoking rates, the number of adults in the state, and the number of legal sales per adult.

Bump the tax up enough, and you'll get hijacking and theft, too. We had a case near here a couple years ago where someone smashed a pickup truck through the glass front of a store at night, grabbed armloads of cigarette cartons, tossed them in the back of the truck, and drove off with thousands of dollars worth of cigarettes (and taxes). Great idea, those higher taxes.

Okay, pay-off time. You probably know -- and if you don't, you do now -- that I don't smoke. So cigarette tax increases are not a personal issue. But folks: replace "cigarette" with "beer" or "booze" and "smoke" with "drink," and you've got the same issue, same problem. Beer tax increases usually don't raise revenue. Revenue stays the same, or drops, and less beer is sold, which means less money is made by brewers, importers, wholesalers, and retailers, which means less revenue from that part of the chain, and jobs are usually lost, which means less tax revenue and more benefit payments. It's a brilliant cycle.

What's the solution? End excise taxes. Stop taxing targetted industries. If you don't think people should smoke, make it illegal (and good luck to you if it's just one state at a time). Don't try to balance the do-gooder "raise taxes so people stop smoking" with the darkly cynical "raise taxes and hope they don't stop smoking so much that we lose revenue." Do away with all these ridiculous taxes and fees and charges and nickel-dime bullshit. Tax income and property, things everyone has to pay (you can be progressive about it, I'm not touting a flat tax) and no one can avoid by smuggling their home into another state.

You'll have a more honest government, a government that isn't meddling in people's lives with tax policy voodoo. You won't be subsidizing crime: hijacking, theft, smuggling. And you won't look stupid when the inevitable happens.

Wheat Beer Breakfast II

After last year's Wheat Beer Breakfast at the Grey Lodge, Scoats asked me to come back and do it again. I agreed, and it's looking better than ever this year (and just got a nice mention in today's Inquirer, thank you). Here are the beers, with suggested food pairings from the pay-as-you-go menu:

Ayinger Brau Weisse - Banana Walnut Pancakes
Flying Fish Imperial Espresso Porter (not a wheat beer, admittedly, but breakfast needs coffee) - Cream Chipped Beef over Home Fries
Franziskaner Dunkelweisse - Chocolate Chip Pancakes
Harpoon Catamount Maple Wheat - Buttermilk Pancakes with Maple Syrup
Penn Weizenbock - Spicy Egg wrap with cheddar and fresh salsa.
Philadelphia Walt Wit - Banana Walnut Pancakes
Ramstein Winter Wheat - Spicy Egg wrap with cheddar and fresh salsa.
River Horse Double White - Banana Walnut Pancakes
Sly Fox Royal Weisse - Banana Walnut Pancakes
Victory Sunrise Weissbier - Banana Walnut Pancakes

I'll be there to talk to you about the beers, mingle and blather, not tweet, and try to re-create the wheat beer breakfast mini-lecture that everyone thought was so great last year (that I spun completely off-the-cuff and can't remember a word of). Should be fun -- again! -- and then, if you'd like, you can keep the party going by joining me at another delish beer/food event in Northeast Philly, the German beer/meat sampling at the Blue Ox Bistro and Rieker's Meats.

Philly Beer Week: Hammered

San Francisco. New York. Syracuse. Seattle. Baltimore. Charlotte. St. Louis.

All trying to emulate our idea. All jumping on the Philly Beer Week bandwagon. All crying, "Wah! We're the best beer city!"

Look, it doesn't matter that we've got the best beer-drinking city, or that we've got more experience than you with this, or that we've got six times the number of events, or that all your brewer are belong to us. All that is just reasons. Here's the solid proof that Philly Beer Week rules.

We've got a big freakin' hammer that says so.

And if you get a hammer next year -- it only takes money, once it's been done -- you'll be sick when you see what we have then.

PBW. Remember the name.

Thanks to the fertile minds of William Reed and...well, a lot of fertile minds, but William sent Don the picture.

Doing Anything This Saturday Afternoon?

As you may know, I'm real big on Rieker's Prime Meats, the German deli and butcher in Fox Chase, Northeast Philly. They make and smoke their own sausages, and they make fantastic hams and bacons, and their supply of authentic German candies, pickles, sauces, and so on is second to none. (I like to stop in there after donating platelets at the Red Cross's Northeast Donor Center, you know, to replenish my hemoglobin and such.)

So when the folks across the street at the Blue Ox Bistro contacted me and suggested that we do a Philly Beer Week event with Rieker's...I about wet myself. Sorry for that image, but...

So here's the deal. The event is this Saturday at 2:00 PM (an hour after my wheat beer breakfast at the Grey Lodge, feel free to join me), for a cover of $25: a steal for the event. We're going to match up the great German and German-type beers the Blue Ox is serving (really; if you haven't been back since the re-opening, you'll be pleased) with some of the delicious German-type meats you can find at Rieker's. We'll eat, we'll drool a bit, we'll talk beer and smoked meat.

Then we'll all walk across the street to Rieker's where you'll be able to shop for the stuff you just tasted, a food-beer home-restaurant cross-over you won't find too many places! I'll be right there with you, helping with suggestions, pointing out the sweets and delicacies (they do have smoked eel, just ask (and if you know what I'm talking about, you know me too well)), and translating to the best of my abilities. Then we'll head back across the street to the Blue Ox, and wind up at 5:00.

Here's the menu (we're still making beer pairings, but you'll get Spaten Maibock, Sly Fox Rauchbier, Tucher Hefeweizen, a Victory Braumeister Pils, and the "1809" Berliner Weisse)

• Assorted cheeses, Rieker's own landjaeger sausage, Rieker's rauchpeitschen "Smoked Whip" sausage (better than any damned Slim Jim!)
• Rieker’s Triple-Smoked Bacon, lettuce & tomato sandwich, potato salad with more triple-smoked bacon
• Rieker’s smoked Hungarian bratwurst, Rieker’s smoked pfefferwurst (my favorite post-platelet treat, a peppery, soft, smoked sausage), Rieker’s bockwurst
• Mussels in Tucher Hefeweizen sauce (not from Rieker's, but hey: hefeweizen mussels!)
• Egg Skillet with Reiker’s smoked Kielbasa & Radeberger Pilsner cheese sauce, Burger with Radeberger cheese sauce

If you like German beer, if you like German food, if you like shopping in a deli where the people behind the counter actually made most of the meats on display...join us on Saturday. We'll have a good time!