When 13 Is Your Luckiest Number

It seems like just a few weeks ago when we encountered Friday The Thirteenth and, best of all, the beer event that tops all others, Friday The Firkinteenth at the Grey Lodge in Northeast Philadelphia.

The only beer festival dictated by the calendar, FTF takes place THREE times this year, the result of the quirky leap year calendar. When we last told you about FTF, it was January, and tomorrow, April 13, brings another spectacular celebration of cask beer, served elegantly from firkins atop the bar, the mini barrels holding just 5.5 gallons of fresh, gravity-poured deliciousness.

This month's lineup is as strong as ever, numbering 20 rare or specially-brewed-for-FTF beers, from both local and cult-favorite breweries:

Current Cask List

Cricket Hill Hopnotic IPA
Dark Horse Crooked Tree
Dock Street Rye IPA, dry-hopped
Dogfish Head 75 Minute IPA
Flying Fish Farmhouse
Free Will Citra Pale Ale
Ithaca Nut Brown
Manayunk Oatmeal Stout
Nodding Head TBA
Philadelphia 1892 Stout
Prism White Lightning
Ruddles Country Ale
Sly Fox Chester County Brown
Sly Fox Oatmeal Stout
Sixpoint TBA
Stoudts TBA
Troegs TBA
Victory Headwaters Pale Ale
Yards Brawler
Yards ESA


The beers start flowing at NOON tomorrow, but some insiders know to arrive a little earlier to grab a barstool and stake out their territory. But have no fear, this is not a rowdy nor manic crowd, but quite the opposite; you'll meet some of the nicest, most hospitable and friendly folks you'd ever expect to encounter. Beer people are like that. I maintain that Friday The Firkinteenth is the most friendly, civilized beer festival on earth, hosted in a cozy neighborhood pub that was named by Esquire Magazine as one of America's Best Bars.

Find out for yourself tomorrow. I'll see you there at about 3.

PBW 2010: A Week Like No Other

The momentum has been building since before the beginning of the year, and it is about to reach a fever pitch the likes of which few cities have ever seen. And I'm NOT talking about the Flyers and Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup.

LET'S GO FLYERS!!!

What I am referring to is PHILLY BEER WEEK 2010, far and away the biggest (and likely the best) beer festival ever held in this country.

The schedule is both a beer geek's dream and a beer geek's nightmare. The festival's website boasts 1,000 events at 195 venues across the Delaware Valley. 1,000 EVENTS.

That is beyond impressive.

I would only be repeating the writing of hundreds of others across every medium from newspapers to Twitter, so I'll just encourage you visit the PBW 2010 website, as well as check in with prodigious bloggers such as Jack Curtin (his Liquid Diet is a must-read) and Lew Bryson (Seen Through A Glass will be blogging from all over town, I suspect) and Joe Sixpack (he's the Festival Director, so expect and insider's look at things on his Beer Radar blog).

I am still (mostly) undecided as to which events I'll be able to make, but I'll let you know as soon as I know. But for now, drink it all in, folks, it's gonna be a terrific, extended week!

LET'S GO FLYERS!!!

AMERICA'S BEST BEER FESTIVAL

I'm willing to stick my neck out now and then with regard to various areas of contention and opinion (remember the World Series prediction of "Phillies in 6, maybe even 5"? Well, shaddup already, especially you obnoxious, finger-pointing Yankees fans), and in beer aficionado circles, the "best" beer festival is always fodder for serious suds talk. I rank the Oregon Brewers Festival in Portland and the Great American Beer Festival in Denver among the finest examples of beer festing in America and I'm still waiting to go to my first Toronado Barleywine Festival in San Francisco someday. But for 12 years I've been attending the best beer festival in America, and only in the past few years did I come to realize it.



I'm talking, of course, about Friday the Firkinteenth at the Grey Lodge Pub in Philly, the only beer celebration dictated by the calendar: it occurs only on Friday the 13th. 2009 has been a very good year for FTF; this Friday's FTF will be the THIRD one this year!



They start tapping the firkins at NOON this Friday. Here are the details, excerpted from the Grey Lodge's website:




Kitchen will open at 11am serving our full menu.
Number of firkins is still TBA. We expect 20+.
With 20+ firkins, we should have cask ale going until at least 9pm. Time permitting Scoats will be updating the news page and tweeting throughout the day with cask status.
7 firkins will be pouring at any time (except when we get down to less than 7), tapping a new one as one kicks. The order of the casks will be random, but hey there should be no stinkers in the line-up.


Current Cask List (likely to change, it always does): more to come!


Arcadia London Porter, a robust London style porter 7.2% ABV
Clipper City Heavy Seas Loose Cannon, a triple hopped IPA 7.25% ABV.
Coronado Islander IPA, West coast IPA . 7% ABV
Cricket Hill Col. Blide's Bitter, 5.5% ABV
Dock Street Rye IPA, an aggressively hopped American Pale Ale 6.8% ABV
Dogfish Head 75 Minute IPA, a blend of its 60 and 90 Minute IPAs 7.5% ABV
Duck Rabbit double-dry-hopped Brown, 5.6% ABV.
Earth Tappist Pale Ale, ? ABV.
Flying Fish Grand Cru, strong golden ale. 6.8% ABV.
Iron Hill Totally Inappropriate. An Octoberfest primed with fermenting Quadruppel and dry hopped with American hops. 6% abv.
Iron Hill Hopzilla IPA. Classic rendition of an English IPA. 5.8% ABV
Lancaster Celtic Rose, traditional Irish Amber Ale. 5% ABV.
Manayunk Old Ebenezer Barley Wine, traditional English barley wine 9% ABV.
Nodding Head Anomaly, an unusual beer without any unusual ingredients… 5.25% ABV.
Philadelphia Brewing Co. Joe, brewed with locally-roasted, fair trade coffee, 5% ABV.
Sixpoint Otis, an accentuation of stout beer. 6% ABV.
Sixpoint Vienna Pale.
Sly Fox Chester County Bitter, dry -hopped, quaffable session ale. 4.5% ABV.
Sly Fox Rte 113 IPA, big, strong IPA for all the hopheads. 6.6% ABV.
Stoudts Winter Ale, a new version from Stoudts. 6.2% ABV.
Troegs Hopback Amber 5.6% ABV.
Victory Yakima Twilight, 8.7% ABV.
Weyerbacher Double Simcoe, a double IPA using exclusively Simcoe hops! 9% ABV.
Yards ESA dry hopped with East Kent Goldings True British cask conditioned flavor 6.3% ABV.



I expect to get there at the midway point. Hope to see you there!