EYES WIDE OPEN

It has probably been years since I'd actually opened and tasted a Budweiser. But last night, I broke down and bought a six pack of those uniquely shaped cans and popped one open. Beautiful yellow pour, bright white head.  Gentle subtle aroma of, well, it was absolutely 100% Budweiser aroma. I could almost smell the beechwood and rice (yes, they use rice).  Big bright light crisp first sip, playful bubbles (they tickled my nose!), with a lingering Budweiser finish.

Something in Annheuser-Busch beers has always given me a headache. I've been told by brewer friends that there is something they put in the beer to make the head white that often doesn't agree with some people. Well, I am one of them, and I waited for the headache as I sipped each sip, sip after sip, until my glass was empty.  The head ache will come soon enough, I guess.

But I have seen the light.  I have been missing this experience for most of my life and now I feel free. I have grown SO tired of craft beer, so tired of the bourbon barrel aging, so tired of the hop varietals, so tired of the brettomyces, so tired of the wild yeasts running free. So tired of the collaborations, the blends, the bombers, the brewpubs, the tickets for Pliny the Elder and his son/nephew, Pliny the Younger, so weary of the wait for Pliny the Great Grandfather and Pliny The Grandmama.  I mean, what ever happened to simple , plain yellow beer with a bubbly white head (that tickles your nose!)?

This is my beer now.The voice of George Clooney in all those Bud commercials has finally broken through and spoken to me. And I have heard. And I have acted on what I have heard. And I have drunk the bright yellow beer and it was good. I can endure the headaches.

I'm a Bud man now.

Leiderhosen In The Sand

When you think of Oktoberfest, what's the first thing that comes to mind?  Well, beer of course.  But then, you also know it's about October, Germany, beer halls the size of airplane hangars, giant pretzels, giant liter steins, giant busty girls in dirndls, drinking songs, enormous pork shanks and all that malty, malty beer. Prosit!

The other day I got an e-mail  invitation from Philly's most famous tavern, McGillin's Olde Ale House, the 153 year old establishment (2nd oldest in the country!) that has become a reliable destination for very good beer and food and an atmosphere like no other place I know.  The invitation was titled "Oktoberfest Starts on August 26".  You read that correctly. "Oktoberfest Starts on August 26".

Now, just to be clear, I have the ultimate respect for McGillin's and the Mullins family, who have taken the legacy of the McGillin clan and burnished it brightly while keeping the historic landmark tavern as one of the best in Philly, and for that matter, the country.
So when I wrote back to McGillin's asking why their Oktoberfest was starting so early (it runs through October 6, by the way), their response was: "When the Oktoberfest beer comes in, McGillin’s serves it. There’s no holding back – when WE get it/You get it!"

And therein lies the problem, I think.  Beer companies are rushing both Oktoberfest beers and pumpkin beers to market WAY too early.  The shelves of my local beer stores are already packed with dozens of craft brew Oktoberfests and pumpkin beers and it's still AUGUST. Someone needs to talk to these guys and beg them to hold off just a little longer. Let us have our summer. Oktoberfest beers and hot humid weather, sand in our toes and the sounds of summer just don't work. Think about it. It's like decorating department stores for Christmas in October. Yeah, I know, it's already happened. 

The summer sun is far from fading, temperatures are still in the 80s and high 70s, mosquitos (at least here in the Garden State) are as abundant as ever, and backyard grills are still in full seasonal operation.

It's not time for beers best suited for the Fall.

McGillin's also sent me their lineup for Oktoberfest and it is damn impressive:

Yuengling's Oktoberfest, 
Stoudt's Fest, 
Lancaster's Oktoberfest, 
Flying Fish's Octoberfish, 
Ramstein's Oktoberfest,
Sly Fox's Oktoberfest Lager, 
Applachian Kiponafest, 
Penn Oktoberfest 
Warsteiner Oktoberfest,
as well as international Oktoberfest beers.

My mouth waters at the thought of all those great beers, the jovial, old-school atmosphere, and a plate of sausages from the very very underrated kitchen at McGillin's.

But can we just wait until maybe mid-September?

GETCHA BEER ON!

The most joyous time of the year for beer aficionados arrives in Philadelphia in less than 24 hours. Tomorrow marks the beginning of the 5th Annual Philly Beer Week, a 10-day celebration of the city's rich diversity and rampant enthusiasm for the brewer's art. Excitement for this year's festival has been building for weeks, thanks to the well-timed pre-publicity and very active presence of the participants and the organizers of PBW.


Several helpful and terrifically useful articles dropped in the Philly papers today, the best by Don Russell (aka "Joe Sixpack" in the Philadelphia Daily News), who also acts as Executive Director for PBW, full of tips and suggestions for maximum enjoyment of the week's festivities. The Inquirer's Craig Laban chimes in with a look on the rapidly growing beer scene and the several small breweries and brewpubs opening in the 'burbs.

But I'll tell you what my main resource for scoping out the what's-what of PBW will be: Jared Littman's brilliantly ambitious website PhillyTapFinder.com, where Littman will track - and preview - the tap offerings for every participating bar and  restaurant during the festival. Not only is the website easy to navigate, it's very easy to read, even on a smartphone (which may become a factor the further one explores each day's events).


Here is how Littman himself describes his format for Philly beer Week:

This is what we're going to do:   During Philly Beer Week, from June 1-10, we are going to post the tap lists for the current  and following day right here -- BOOKMARK THIS PAGE!  We are also going to post lists for particularly appealing future events.  To make this service even more valuable, we have included the descriptions of the beers (where available) so that you know what these new beers are.  We already posted a whole bunch of tap lists for June 1 and June 2, and we will post more everyday so please check back.  Please like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and check out our blog, "Tap Talk," where we will be highlighting exceptional tap lists and events.

I think this website will make for a stress-free week of beer in and around Philly.  Now all that remains is the drinking--and sheer enjoyment--of the best beer-drinking city in America.  I hope I'll see you out there. Let's enjoy a few together!

The Luckiest Thirteens

What a great year this is about to be!

I assure you that this is not boilerplate PR hype, nor motivational speaker-speak, nor the results of any random wisps of reverie resulting from too much cold medicine (leave me NOW, oh phlegm of Satan!). Well, OK, maybe it's the last one.

This Friday is a Friday the 13th, one of three Friday the 13ths that occur this year (dontcha just LOVE Leap Year?). But the real significance here is that this Friday will be the 24th FRIDAY THE FIRKINTEENTH at the Grey Lodge in NE Philly, and to my mind, still the greatest one day beer festival in the world.

That's owner/publican Mike "Scoats" Scotese in the photo, tapping a firkin of fresh ale at one of the previous Firkinteenths, my favorite picture of the man who has quietly created an international phenomenon. This Friday, starting at Noon, the Grey Lodge will begin to tap up to 30 firkins of fresh ale, 7 at a time, some of which were specially made for this day by craft brewers from across the country, and this year, from England as well.

It is the most friendly, civilized and yet raucous fun time that one can possibly have drinking beer, and it takes place in a hip, cozy bar that also happens to serve terrific food. And it's the only beer festival dictated by the calendar.

If I've whetted your interest, and you're thinking about attending, try to arrive earlier than later (I'm planning for a 3PM arrival myself), as the roster of beers change fairly quickly (each firkin holds about 85 pints of beer) and the variety of brews is impressive. A firkin of England's Old Speckled Hen should be a highlight, as well as a first-time appearance of Landslide IPA from 50/50 Brewing Co., in Truckee, CA, a beer from multiple medal-winning brewer Todd Ashman, a good friend and an outstanding beer magician. There will even be a cask cider this year, made locally by Bucks County's Desiato Cider Co., and a tasty quaff at that. These firkins are set atop the bar in the Grey Lodge, tapped the old fashioned way with a hammer and the beer inside is served by gravity. The result is a smoother, silkier beer, the taste and feel of which you'll never forget.
Also, make use of smaller 7 oz. glasses so that you can sample a wider variety of beer. And drink LOTS of water, to hydrate your body and cleanse your palate. And stop and grab something to eat upstairs, like all the savvy beer aficionados do.

Here's the lineup for this Friday's Firkinteenth:

Current Cask List
Bavarian Barbarian First Snow
Boulder Mojo
Cricket Hill Colonel Blide’s Bitter
Desiato Cider
Dock Street Rye IPA, dry-hopped
Duck Rabbit dry-hopped Brown Ale
FiftyFifty Rockslide IPA
Flying Fish Scarlet Fever
Iron Hill West Chester Anvil Ale
Lancaster Milk Stout
Manayunk Rye of the Tiger
Nodding Head 60 Shilling
Old Speckled Hen
Philly Joe Porter
Prism Bitto Honey IPA
Ruddles County Ale
Sixpoint Gorilla Warfare
Sixpoint Vienna Pale
Sly Fox Sly Fox 113 IPA (113 on 1/13)
Sly Fox Robbie Burns Scottish Ale
Stone Stone Stone Smoked Porter - dry hopped w/ Chinook
Stouts Chocolate ESB
Victory ESB
Voodoo Four Seasons IPA
Weyerbacher Fireside
Yards Brawler


I hope to see you there! If, not, the next Firkinteenths will be in April and July!

Gotta LOVE Leap Year! And the Grey Lodge.

The Christmas Mix

First let me say God Bless Scoats, right off the bat, for keeping a beloved holiday tradition alive. Mike "Scoats" Scotese, owner of the Grey Lodge Pub and Hop Angel Brauhaus, orchestrated the return of any beer lover's holiday fantasy: a variety case of winter seasonal, Christmas and otherwise big beers for 24 lucky beer geeks, including yours truly. Last night we descended upon the Grey Lodge to pick up our most special of Christmas presents.

It was a wintry December night in 1998, bitterly cold and sleeting, and Scoats, my (now dearly departed) friend Gary Bredbenner and I, were hurtling through slush and ice on the Pennsylvania Turnpike toward Downingtown in an old and battered Chevy Suburban that I had borrowed from a housemate. We had been invited to participate in one of beer writer Lew Bryson's early experiments in beer cameraderie, the Bryson Christmas Mix. Bryson had selected 24 winter/Christmas/holiday/big beers and scheduled the assembly of these 24 variety cases for 24 lucky folks at the Victory Brewery and brewpub in Downingtown, on the same night that the brewery would be holding its annual Christmas party, a nifty beer segue of sorts.

I had known Scoats about a year or so by that time, and had become a Wednesday night regular at the Grey Lodge. We had decided to carpool to Downingtown, and Gary, who rarely drove anywhere, asked for a lift as well. It was a scary 90 minute drive in miserable weather.

But we got there, met the group of Christmas Mix participants, and Lew directed traffic as we assembled our variety cases on the loading docks of the brewery. It was a little bit Keystone Cops, but a lot of fun, and the selection of beers for the Mix were, for the most part, new to me, and that made it an extra special adventure.

The Christmas Mix plugged along over the next few years, but began to sputter a few years ago, as schedules got busier, lives more complicated, a lot of different reasons. So that why I heap praise upon Scoats for bringing our little beery tradition back. He, like many of us, can get sentimental that way.

He also worked hard to make this year's Mix really interesting, with classic winter beers that have always been a part of the Mix, and new beers that many of us haven't tried or even seen before.

Here are the beer treasures he assembled for the 2010 Christmas Mix:

21st Amendment Fireside Chat (the first can in the Mix!)

Abbey of Christ in the Dessert Monk's Ale

Anchor Our Special Ale

Breckenridge Christmas Ale

Brooklyn Winter Ale

Cape Anne Navigator Double Bock

Great Divide Hibernation

Great Lakes Christmas Ale

Gritty McDuff Christmas Ale

Kumbacher Eisbock

Lancaster Winter Warmer

Samuel Smith Winter Welcome

Saranac Season's Best

Scaldis Noel

Sierra Nevada Celebration

Summit Imperial Pumpkin Porter

Troegs Mad Elf

Victory Storm King

Wachusett Winter Ale

Weyerbacher Quad

Weyerbacher Winter Ale

Yards Poor Richard's Tavern Spruce

Geants Bier de Noelier

Stegmaier Winter Warmer


I can't wait to start sampling.

GREAT AMERICAN WINNERS

This year's Great American Beer Festival (GABF) has just concluded in Denver, CO. It was the 29th year for GABF and it hosted the largest number of brewers (455), served the largest number of beers (2,200) and welcomed the greatest number of attendees (49,000) in its history.

Both a festival and a competition, GABF awards medals in 79 categories. I always look foreward to the list of winners, and especially for the terrific names that brewers give some of their beers. This year I came away disappointed for a couple of reasons. The Philadelphia area, with exception of a gold medal for Stoudt's Brewery, two medals for Triumph Old City and several for Iron Hill Brewpubs in the region, didn't have a great showing this year, medal-wise. And the names of the medal-winning brews this year were not very clever or imaginative. Ah well, creativity was spent on the beers, I guess.

Here is the list of winners from this year's competition. Hope some of your favorites took home some metal.

A Craft Brewing Credo on Film

I'm pretty sure almost every beer blog and craft beer -related website will be featuring this, but for those of you who don't frequent most of them, or ANY of them, this well-made video features craft brewers from across the country talking about their craft, sort of, to kick off the 2009 Craft Brewers Conference in Boston this week. And if this video doesn't get you craving a good, local craft brew, well, then, replay the video.


It's called I AM A CRAFT BREWER