March 16–23, 2000

cover story

Brew Hub, part 3

WEARING THEIR COLORS: Standard Tap is local and proud. photo: Mike LeGrand

part 1 | part 2

Could Philly’s local beer resurgence be just a case of local pride run amok? Not according to Sir Anthony Fuller, chairman of London’s Fuller’s brewery, which makes Fuller’s Extra Special Bitter, considered one of the world’s finest ESBs. Some believe, and Fuller’s one of them, that the export of Fuller’s ESB to America inspired the microbrew craze.

He’s in town for the Jackson roast and has hit The Khyber for the first time for an event sponsored by Anderson’s Beer Philadelphia to welcome the beer world’s finest. At the suggestion of Chris Morris, Fuller — who isn’t terribly familiar with the Philly scene other than knowing that it is a "great center of craft brewers" — is set up with a Victory ESB.

His thoughts: "It’s got a very pleasant, refreshing nose to it. Very pleasant, quite hopped taste to it. If you compare that with Fuller’s ESB, Fuller’s ESB is a smoother drink. A style which is probably more similar to a Young’s beer than a Fuller’s beer. A Young’s beer is more highly hopped than ours, it would be more similar to that. But it is good. All beer is good, some is just better than others."

(What is it that turns all beer people into philosophers?)

Still, you may ask, what’s the difference between a beer brewed locally and a beer brewed by a national brand or a mass-produced import?

National brands specialize in producing consistent beers without a whole lot of taste. They’re designed to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. Jackson likens the homogeny to the white-bread craze after WWII. Anderson calls Budweiser the "best brewery in the world" because of its consistency, clarifying that Budweiser just doesn’t make the best-tasting beer in the world.

Small local breweries provide character, whether you’re talking about Dogfish Head’s Immort Ale, Victory’s Hop Devil or Weyerbacher’s Blithering Idiot barley wine. They’re never going to outsell Bud, but they’re not designed to.

Plus, you’re not going to get a beer that’s fresher than a beer made locally. "Why people are drinking imports, German and English, is beyond me because there’s no guarantee it’s fresh," hammers Hartranft (though incidentally, Belgian beers, like wine, get better with age). "People don’t open a craft brewery to put a bad product in their area. You know the guys who are making the beer. You want it to survive. You’re supporting their families."

According to Anderson, "In this community there isn’t a lot of jealousy or animosity at the better beer level. So you’ll get people working together, you’ll get people going to each other’s bars or stores, it’s a friendly community. And even the writers… there are so many beer journalists in this area, but we all help each other out with information, leads and that kind of stuff."

Daily News staffer Don Russell, a.k.a. Joe Six Pack, writes a regular column for the paper. Russell took home honors last year from the North American Guild of Beer Writers, including Beer Writer of the Year. He is the only beer writer at either of the dailies.

Hummell got turned on to local and home-brewed beer by his many years in the natural foods business, during which he found out that "there was a list of 57 chemical additives that could be put into a national beer without telling you about it." Unlike a package of crackers, he explains, which has to list every ingredient, beer is not held to the same standard.

And if you get a skunky beer from, say, Guinness or Budweiser, you can try all you want but you won’t get the owner on the line. Whereas with a local beer, the owner is just as likely to be sitting at the bar as he is to pick up the phone when you call.

Yards’ Tom Kehoe tries to get out to where his beer is being served as often as possible. "I guess it’s two-sided," he says of receiveing direct feedback from drinkers. "Yeah, it’s gratifying, but then again, I try to get people to talk about it, let them say what they feel about the beer."

He doesn’t go out to bars in order to encourage people to drink his beer. "I want to kind of hide for a little bit. If I go to a bar where nobody knows who I am, I don’t tell anybody. If they ask, ‘How come you know so much about beer?’ then I’ll be like, ‘Oh, I make Yards.’ Most of the time I try to be humble about it while at the same time be informative."

The response he gets is usually good. "Sometimes I get, ‘You look like a guy that would brew beer.’"

Once he actually had a guy bow down at his feet in reverence. "I was like, ‘Oh, get the heck out of here, it’s embarrassing.

"I’m just Tom. Let’s have a beer."