Philly Loves Lagers: hello, Philly Bierfest!

Gearing up for the second annual Philly Bierfest on February 23rd (1-5), and I'm starting to get a lager Stiffe. The German Society of Philadelphia is hosting the event, along with Brauhaus Schmitz and the Philly Roller Girls (that's right: women-owned and operated roller derby!).

You know I love me some smooth, cold-matured lager loveliness, and there's no place like Pennsylvania to get great fresh examples; er, outside of Germany, that is! For your $45 ticket (or $60 VIP), you'll get lagers and weizens from fantastic Pennsylvania breweries like this: 

Appalachian Brewing Co.          Berwick Brewing Co.
Lancaster Brewing Co.             The Lion Brewery
Pennsylvania Brewing Co.         Philadelphia Brewing Co.
Manayunk Brewing Co.            Neshaminy Creek Brewing Co.
Nodding Head Brewery             Round Guys Brewing Co.
Sly Fox Brewing Co.                Stoudts Brewing Co.
Straub Brewery                       Susquehanna Brewing Co.
Victory Brewing Co.                Yuengling and Sons Brewery

Meanwhile, down in the Ratskellar, the beer-loving folks from The Foodery will be pouring beers from German breweries like Ayinger, Jever, Trauenstein, and a number of smaller, less-familiar (and delish) brewers, including one possible surprise they're still working on; keep your fingers crossed that this famous doublebock makes it in!

Why am I plugging this? What, a guy can't like lagers? Okay, okay: I'm plugging it because I'm in it, a member of the Brewer’s Discussion Panel on ‘Lager-Love and the Resurgence of Session Styles’ (I swear, I had nothing to do with the title!) at 4 pm in the Society's historic Horner Memorial Library.

Other members of the panel? Artie Tafoya, of Appalachian Brewing (and a past-master of hefe-brewing), Bill Covaleski of Victory Brewing (where they've been known to brew a lager or ten), and German beer importer Lars Dahlhaus. It's moderated by Marnie Old, Philly's best-known sommelier...who is also a fierce proponent of beers, especially lagers. We'll have a few good things to talk about.

I hope you can remember to come hear us, after three hours of lager, weissbier, great German eats from Brauhaus Schmitz (snacks for freesies, more substantial -- and the Germans do know "substantial" -- eats for additional bucks), and the bluegrass picking of the Keystone Mountain Boys. 

What do you get for that extra $15 for the VIP ticket? You get a bigger cup...and if that's not enough, you also get in at noon for a tutored tasting on German beer styles by Marnie. Trust me, there are more German beer styles than most people know. It's more than just light lager/dark lager/strong lager/wheat!

Oh, and the Roller Girls. Don't you worry about them, you'll understand that soon enough. So...check it out here, and I'll see you there!

The German Society -- 611 Spring Garden St.  Philadelphia, PA  19123

Are you ready for some Goat Races?

Put it on your calendar (unless you already have it there, you smart beer-lover): the Sly Fox Goat Races are on May 6th, 11 AM to 6 PM. Details are here. And a smart pragmatic note from Sly Fox this year that it would behoove you to consider: if you want this to remain the carefree no-cover pay as you go fun afternoon it's always been...please buy beer only from the Sly Fox stands (and if you can, stick around P-ville and get dinner at one of the neighboring restaurants). It keeps everyone happy, and $5 a beer ain't that bad at all. Bring cash; it's all cash, which keeps the lines moving (bring fivers and singles; don't forget to tip!).

And bring your family! This is one of the best family-oriented beer events around, and your young children will be excited to see real goats right up close (and probably laugh out loud at the inevitable caprine antics that ensue). The crowd is very mellow, and stupid behavior is not only rare, it's usually taken care of by the other attendees; as it should be.

I'll have to miss it this year; I'll be in Iceland...more about that later. Please drink my share of [Winning Goat's Name Here] Maibock, and have my share of fun!

This Friday is Double Trouble

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!

Finally someone does a beer breakfast in the area

Sly Fox has been celebrating their anniversary with crazy releases of multiple single-hop IPAs and pale ales for years now -- I blame O'Reilly -- and it always falls either on my anniversary or the day of my church Christmas concert, and I have to go at lunchtime, before it gets all fun and crazy, and then leave by 3, before it gets all fun and crazy...

Well, this year, it's happened again, their 15th anniversary -- congratulations! -- falls on Friday the 10th, and our concert is that night (St. Andrew's Church, Newtown, come on out, be glad to see you), but I'll be getting to Sly Fox Phoenixville even earlier this year...for the Brewmaster's Breakfast! I'm sorry to say it's sold out already (yeah, really: a beer breakfast, on a weekday, sold out), but take a look at this menu created by guest chef Andrew Deery of Majolica...and seriously think about taking the whole day off next year...

• Fresh Donuts - Paired with Kimberton Coffee Porter
• Potato and Leek Veloute, Smoked Salmon Croque Monsieur - Paired with Saison Vos
• Truffled White Sausage, Mashed Celery Root - Paired with Royal Weisse
• Maine Peekytoe Crab Benedict, Wilted Spinach. Sauce Choron - Paired with Odyssey Imperial IPA
• Spiced Pumpkin Biscuit, Cinnamon Ice Cream - Paired with 2010 Christmas Ale

Featuring the debut of Succubus and Majolica Blend Coffee Porter!

I'm looking forward to leaving at lunchtime...when it's going to be all fun and crazy. 

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?

You Can't Stop the Goat

We did get to the Sly Fox Goat Races on the 3rd. I hustled out of church (had to do 10:30 mass, I was the cantor), got home and changed (and waited around for Cathy to change...), and took off for Phoenixville...slowly. It was pouring rain (little did we know it was just the start of another week of the stuff), and we were wondering if the crowd would be as large or friendly as last year. "We can probably park on-site," I said optimistically. "We'll cruise by instead of going straight to the shuttle lot."

Wow. The size of the crowd in the parking lot made it clear that we were not going to be parking on-site. (But Sly Fox is organized: we took a shuttle bus from satellite parking, and didn't wait more than 3 minutes for it.) The rain had barely dampened the ardor of goat fans. The number estimated by Sly Fox was around 1500, down a bit -- okay, down a quarter -- from last year, though last year was a picnic afternoon on Olympus compared to this wet and raw rainfest (although we did have roving beer service this time). But do you get it? 1500 people came out in the rain to drink bock beer and watch goats race. Amazing.

Still, as I said, this is an important day for beer and while having all those good Sly Fox beers on hand must have helped, I believe that what really brought people out was the good times. People actually complained because they couldn't see the goat races!

The beer was pretty awesome, though. We ran into William Reed right away, and he insisted on getting us two cups of Vienna Lager (great, malty but not thick, wish they'd make more of this). I tried to return the favor with the superlative and much-welcome Charles Bridge Pilsner, but he'd wandered off into the crowd and I gave it to Richard "Victory" Ruch. The Maibock (destined to be named DAX after the winner, shown here in the center of a long shot on his victory strut) was gorgeous, beautifully drinkable, and if I hadn't been at the edge of silly at that point, I'd have had another. I did get one sip of one of the eisbocks, and it was scary good.

The cool kids were definitely in attendance -- brewers, publicans, and others of us in the biz -- but they were by far out-numbered by the general populace: I ran into my kids' elementary school music teacher (and her husband and two toddlers). There were still plenty of very well-behaved kids this year.

That's what had a somewhat blissed Brian O'Reilly and a very happy John Giannopoulis so pleased when I ran into them. The Goat Races was not only still big in the rain, it was still big with the same kind of crowd. Folks brought their families, they watched the silliness of racing goats, they ate good food (really: we had bratwurst, I got some Shellbark Farms chevre), and some of them had really good beer, too. It was a really normal kind of thing; wonderfully so.

Eventually we had to go, before things had wrapped up. We got back on the shuttle bus, went to the car, and I let Cathy drive. But we had one more wonderfully normal thing to do...and I'm going to tell you about that over here. Because it's much more appropriate.

Why the Sly Fox Goat Races Mean a Stronger America

Not that Sly Fox and Brian O'Reilly need any help from me in making their annual event a success, but I do this for my own reasons:

Sly Fox Goat Races, this Sunday.

Okay, the Kentucky Derby is this Saturday, and that is a Big Deal. But I would submit that the Sly Fox Goat Races are an Even Bigger Deal in terms of shaping the reputation of beer and beer drinking in America. (Yes, easily so, because the Derby has nothing to do with that, but I will go beyond that!)

Go to the Goat Races because this event is one of the very best for enjoying as a family. I've said for years, in response to the New Dry whiners who say "You can have fun without beer!", that yes, you can have fun without beer, but you can also have fun with the option of beer. The Sly Fox Goat Races show that in spades. You can watch goat races -- pure, country-boy 4H-type fun, and usually generous with gut-rippingly funny moments (this picture really does show a young goat racer slipping on goat crap (on the right there; he's not break-dancing) as his own goat turns tail and runs away from the finish line -- very funny, once we ascertained that the kid was all okay), you can listen and dance to the music, eat good German food, or just have a seat and enjoy the crowd -- great people-watching at this. And if you so choose...you can have a beer.

The Goat Races put beer in its proper place: with people, as part of the fun, not as the lets-get-drunk focus, and not as the lets-get-geeky focus either. Even when I'm totally geeking out, like when I'm judging beers, the best of times is when there's good interaction with the other people. Great American Beer Festival? The best time is going out afterwards with friends.

Get beer together with a bunch of good people -- and some goats -- and it's great to watch people behave well, have fun, and keep things from getting out of hand all by themselves. It's a great kind of thing, and I'm looking forward to more of it on Sunday. See you there, but do check out the Sly Fox calendar for details: they're expecting a LOT of people, and they've got satellite lots set up to handle it.

Good Beer Day

I had no business whatsoever going to the IPA Project at Sly Fox today. Work, a concert to sing tonight, family issues that I don't want to go into...I should have stayed home. But I didn't, and it's all worked out. I should worry less.

I did go, and immediately ran into Matt "Beer Yard" Guyer, who confirmed my thought about the best way to go at the IPA Project: eschew the flights and just pick something to get a real size of. I grabbed a flight attendant (the ever-popular and brilliant Corey Reid (portrait of whom you see to the left...) and ordered up a 12 oz. Aurora.

Quick explanation: the IPA Project is a series of single-hop IPAs. In December, at the Sly Fox's anniversary, they pull out kegs of all the IPAs and offer them all at once. Brilliant. Except this year...Well, the Aurora was okay. The Fuggles was okay. The 2008 Odyssey (DIPA, multi-hopped, cask) was okay. The Mt. Rainier? A bit better, but in a crisp refreshing way, not a knock-out way. By this time, I'm starting to think, what the hell, the hops shortage has made all hoppy beer boring? Hate to dis Sly Fox IPAs this way, but damn, my socks were not being knocked off! (Kinda cool when former Sly Fox (and Independence and Stoudt's and Sunnybrook) brewer Bill Moore showed up, though; and yeah, Uncle Jack was there, looking pretty good after his brush with severe abdominal discomfort last month: that's Guyer, Jack, and Bill in the pic.)

Then Uncle Jack kind of talked me into getting one more 12 oz. glass, and I got the Galena. Now, Galena is generally considered to be an industrial-grade hop, a bitterness source, and that's about it. But...I remember back in the 1990s, Great Lakes (before Andy Tveekrem left there to become the wizard behind the curtain at Dogfish Head) had a barleywine they called Steamroller that was never offered for sale (as far as I know), just an "under the table" beer at festivals: huge, hi-alcohol, bitter, and dry-hopped on a bed of Galenas. And it was brilliant, as I recall. And so was this. The Galena was easily the best IPA of the day. Well, at Sly Fox, anyway.

Because when I left Sly Fox, I realized, I've got just time enough to stop at Victory and get maybe a growler or two of the great beers I've been hearing they had on tap right now. So I did. And it was good. Although it did take too long to get a beer, because two bartenders had a long talk about boyfriends, and Oh MY God!, and school, and NO WAY! right in front of me, and then walked off in opposite directions...till the guy sitting next to me at the bar called out to the one and said, "Hey, this guy's thirsty, you know?" Bless him. Bartenders at Victory; what's it take?

Anyway, I got me a pint of Uncle Teddy's Bitter (great, as always), and two growlers: St. Vic (which I'm polishing off right now, although I planned on saving it till Sunday, but I caught the bail on the flip-top when I was setting it down, and I had to drink it...really) and Yakima Twilight, a dark DIPA that tasted just fantastic when a guy at the bar offered me a sip. The St. Vic is great, smooth, malty, just a tad raunchy/smoky/chewy, and I love that. More about the YT when we drink up that one.

All in all: hell of a good beer day. And the concert went well, BTW, thanks for asking.

Sly Fox Oktoberfest

I stopped by Sly Fox Royersford and picked up a quarter of Oktoberfest for Labor Day weekend with Cathy's family in upstate NY. We like Oktoberfest beers. So I get there with the kids, we have a good lunch (with, unfortunately, some sub-par service...which, unfortunately, has generally been our lot at Royersford, which is why we usually go to the original Sly Fox in Phoenixville), and get hold of brewer Brian O'Reilly to hook up with the keg.

After I wrote him a check for the beer and deposit ($30 deposit, not bad, these days), he starts hauling out bottles of beer he wants me to have. (Larry Horwitz, brewer at Iron Hill North Wales, tells me O'Reilly's always like this: "He gives me beer," Larry wails, "like I need more beer!"). Two of the bottles were 22 oz. Oktoberfest. But Brian, I said, I'm buying a whole 1/4 keg of Ofest! "Take 'em," he says, "you can drink them at home."

So today I am, at least one of them. And it's bringing back the pleasure of Labor Day weekend. This is a solid festbier, with that beautiful copper color, big malty aroma, solid hefty body, a great finish. Extremely drinkable, too, as I found out on the holiday (note: when you have a keg back at the house, do not ride your bike over to the local beer bar, meet with your bros-in-law, knock back three pints of Brooklyn East India Pale Ale...and then go back and tap the keg).

Anyway, the only small complaints I'd have is that it maybe drinks a bit boozy (it's only 5.8%, according the SF website) for its weight -- there are bigger beers that don't taste this strong -- and might be a bit over-carbonated: there's some perceived bitterness that seems a bit much for festbier. I suspect it is carbonation, because it's mellowed as it sits in my mug.

Minor issues. Good with a lunch of spaghetti bolognese (left over from two nights ago; I bought round steak and ground it at home, deliciously fresh), good after lunch is over, and just great over Labor Day. I love this time of year. Bring on the Autumn!

Goat Races Every Day!

Cathy and I went to the Sly Fox Goat Races yesterday. We got there late -- we had a school event in the early afternoon for Nora and had to go to Sly Fox afterwards -- and missed the actual races and the tapping, but we were still there for the experience.

What experience? A very close thing to that great German beer garden experience, but with American personality. There were kids there, there was music, there was food, there was lots of beer, there were dogs, and people strolled about, talking to each other. It was convivial, and the beer was delicious (I did Jasper Maibock, a couple sips of eisbock, some Slacker Bock, and -- inevitably -- Pikeland Pils). We'd just come from a picnic, so I can't report on the food, but it looked good.

But the best thing wasn't the beer or the food, it was the beer being there with the families and dogs and all, showing that it wasn't necessary for beer events, beer-based social gatherings, to be binge fests. All of us were being reasonable in consumption and civilized.

Well, mostly: one stupid young feller was leaving and dropped his glass -- a shame, because they were nice Sly Fox willibeckers -- laughed like a boob and just kept walking. Nice, buddy: there's only dogs and little kids running around. Within a minute, though, four of us had converged and picked up all the shards. That's beer garden, too: the participants policing themselves.

It would be great to have this kind of thing every weekend. Beer gardens used to be common in this part of the country, but now they're hard to find. Relaxed atmosphere, friendly talking, mugs of beer (maybe something other than thin-walled glass, for safety and sturdy re-use), comfort food, and play time for the kids and dogs. The kids may see or hear some things the parents maybe wouldn't want -- I heard a bit of salty language and there was one instance of dirndl-flipping -- but I think the presence of children also has a moderating effect on that -- I saw examples of that, too, and people actually apologizing for their behavior, a great sign of civilization. Do this every weekend, and a code of behavior would come into being by itself.

Do we need the goat race part? Not really, though I'd be the first to back doing that every year, and bigger! But I'd love to see this kind of beer joy every weekend. It might teach us how to drink again: mindfully, joyfully, responsibly, together.