Such were the reverberations of the Great Beer Raid staged the week before by the liquor enforcement arm of the State Police. The agents hauled off about $7,000 worth of beer from three bars, acting on a single complaint that alleged it was unregistered. (Days later, they hit a major distributor in the Northeast.)
The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) requires beer sold in the state to be registered by the brewer or importing distributor, the better to collect taxes and, in the words of chief enforcer Maj. John Lutz, to "safeguard the public" from amateur batches of bum beer.
But with the state's own listings sometimes out of date, and the imperfect record of small-time brewers in filing paperwork, bars all over town suddenly found themselves treading on eggshells - sadly, during a weekend that had been devoted to showcasing the city's hip, cutting-edge, big-time beer scene.
Let's be clear. This was not about promoting the rowdy drinking associated with fizzy green beer and stupefied St. Patrick's Day carousers. It was about celebrating the revival of the lost brewing arts; about pouring the anti-Buds - beer made with body, care, and full flavor, the stuff that was drained out long ago by the mega-manufacturers.
So it was heartening that despite the occasional moments of stage fright, the weekend's show went resoundingly on.
Close to 1,000 tickets were sold to the Brewer's Plate, the food-and-beer extravaganza that spilled from the rotunda into the Egyptian Room at Penn's University Museum on Sunday. (One highlight: Southwark Cafe's roast pig with the logo of Nodding Head Brewery, which supplied accompanying saison beer, tattooed expertly near its snout.)
