Staff Blog
Pregame: Booze Clues
posted by Felicia D'Ambrosio
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| This baby better live in St. Louis |
| beeristheanswer.com |
Fall is officially in the air, the Phils are primed to beat down on the Dodgers, and Wednesday is the perfect time to start sucking down local suds. Philly is rife with wicked good breweries, so please, stop pretending you like Pabst and glom onto a well-made native creation (and our hero Cali beer, Sierra Nevada).
Wed., Oct. 3: Dark beer fans: You have a sacred duty to help pasty Northern Libertarians fortify themselves by draining a cask of Troeg’s Dead Reckoning Porter at the Standard Tap. The firkin is tapped at 6 p.m. and flows until it’s dry. This unfiltered seasonal offering from Harrisburg is brewed with heaps of pilsner, caramel, chocolate and roasted malts and finished with vanguard and chinook hops. True to porter style, Dead Reckoning is a smooth as that one slick bartender at the Tap. You know which one. The Standard Tap, 901 N. Second St., 215-238-0630.
Thu., Oct. 9: Philly beer scenesters are hopping for joy at the the long-awaited opening of Mt. Airy’s Earth Bread + Brewery, owned by former Heavyweight brewer Tom Baker and his wife Peggy Zwerver. With licensing red tape requirements finally satisfied, the brewpub will be lighting up the wood-fired oven and turning out the flatbread pizzas alongside their four new brews. Check out the beer page for a complete listing of house-made and local craft beers on draft, as well as thoughtful bottle selections. Earth Bread + Brewery, 7136 Germantown Ave., Mt. Airy, 215-242-MOON.
Fri., Oct. 10: if you work in the corporate wasteland that is Conshohocken, drag your secretary spread to Flanigan’s Boathouse to agonize over the Phils and suck up free samples of Sierra Nevada’s uber-limited Chico Estate Harvest Ale. The seasonal is brewed entirely with hops grown on Sierra’s brewery grounds, which are added immediately after harvest — they must have heard how we love bitter buds fresh and not dried. Sierra reps will be there armed with company money, so flap your lashes at Patrick and maybe he’ll buy you a pint. The event kicks off at 8 p.m. Flanigan’s Boathouse, 113 Fayette St., Conshohocken, 610-828-2628.
Sat., Oct. 11: For hardcore beer nerds only (and those who like to mock them): Iron Hill’s North Wales location is hosting a simulcast of the Great American Beer Festival’s awards ceremony at 3:30 p.m. While every brewer, beer writer and classy pub owner of note (and various groupies) descend on Denver for this epic blowout of bad behavior known as the GABF, notebook-toting aficionados at Iron Hill will be finding out which beers they will be claiming to have heard about first this year. Iron Hill has entered a stable of their micros, including Munich Dunkel, Norse Nectar, Bourbon-Barrel Aged Russian Imperial Porter, and Vengeance (a Belgian-style Imperial IPA) which North Wales head brewer Larry Horowitz is confident can medal in the Belgian/American category. Samples of competing beers will be on offer, and the first 50 attendees get a pretzel necklace. Just don’t let any junior brewers drunk on glory chew on it. Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant, 1460 Bethlehem Pike, North Wales, 267-708-2000.
