Joe Sixpack: Sixpack's six: The best of 2008

EVERYBODY WANTS to know, Yo, Joe, what's your favorite beer?

Depends on the moment, the place and, most importantly, who I'm drinking with. Naturally, my favorites are always changing.

But looking back, here are my six favorite beers of 2008, in no particular order.

Iron Hill Saison

Like all beer drinkers, I searched hard for the appropriate brew to toast the world-champion Phillies. I carried a bottle of Allagash Dubbel to the parade down Broad Street in a brown paper bag, but I wanted something local.

Then I tracked down Chris Lapierre atop a double-decker bus, along with a crew from Troegs and Sly Fox breweries. He'd toted a 10-liter keg of his saison, which had won a gold medal a week earlier at the Great American Beer Festival.

When Pat Burrell came by aboard the Budweiser beer wagon, all of us raised our cups to the champions.

Penn Weizenbock

My mission on a bright spring day in May was to find a draft beer to serve at the opening reception for Mrs. Sixpack's new business, a yoga studio in Roxborough. I found a sixtel keg of this hiding in a corner at the Beer Yard distributorship in Wayne.

The brew poured big, malty and aromatic with an exceptionally mouth-filling body. I should've worried that this dark beer would frighten all those delicate creatures who fold themselves into Downward Facing Dog.

Two things:

1. They ain't so dainty. Pound for pound, yoga students are the strongest people I've ever met.

2. This weizenbock is a brew that anyone will love - beer freaks, wine lovers, even those who profess, "I hate beer." Pound for pound, it was the tastiest beer I enjoyed all year.

PBC Walt Wit

It was a classic hazy, hot and humid July afternoon in Philly when I slogged out of the sun and into the cool dark of the Institute at 12th and Green streets. The joint had opened a couple of weeks earlier, and a row of taps beckoned.

Now, this corner is on no one's map of hip destinations. The neighborhood is known variously as Brandywine or Poplar or just plain North Philly.

But I traveled all the way here on the Rt. 61 bus because I'm fascinated by the owners, Heather and Charlie Collazo.

For them and the locals who occupy the barstools, the Institute is a community center - a place to talk about neighborhood issues and share ideas. They've even sponsored crime-prevention meetings.