NEWS
June 14, 2013
MY FAVORITE BEER of Philly Beer Week 2013? I'll get to that in a few lines, but first, I asked my fellow elbow-benders, and their responses underscore two important features of Beer Week: 1. It's still all about bold, diverse flavor, with an emphasis on new brands. 2. All the naysayers who believe that no one will drink "big" (high-alcohol) beer in the summer's heat are just plain wrong. Just check out some of their faves; there's not a so-called session beer in the bunch: * Allagash Coolship , a mouth-puckering, American-made spontaneously fermented ale. * Yards George Washington Tavern Porter , aged in a bourbon barrel.
NEWS
June 11, 2013 | BY STEPHANIE FARR, Daily News Staff Writer farrs@phillynews.com, 215-854-4225
HOPEFULLY, what happened to Philly's most famous hammer doesn't start a "You can't touch this" policy. The Hammer of Glory, symbol of Philly Beer Week, was returned safely yesterday after it was stolen at a Beer Week event the previous day. The hammer, which had gone missing about 4 p.m. as it was being passed around for photo ops at the FestivALE, in Fishtown, was returned to Frankford Hall, said Joe Sixpack, a Daily News columnist also...
NEWS
June 7, 2013 | By Craig LaBan, Inquirer Restaurant Critic
This is an excerpt from Craig LaBan's online chat of June 4, 2013: Craig LaBan: Welcome to our annual Beer Week/Brew-vitational Edition of the Philly Food Chat. Check out Brewvi coverage at www.inquirer.com/food to find out which of the 49 beers won Best New Beer, and also Best Pilsner, a focused category added this year. Two guests today: Steve Wildy (a.k.a. @Sommillionaire), beverage director for the Vetri family restaurants, instrumental in bringing Italian brews to the city at Alla Spina, and a Brew-vitational judge.
NEWS
June 6, 2013
EVEN a year later, former game-show host Marc Summers can't explain the manic excitement that exploded over three wild nights during Philly Beer Week 2012. It was the return of his 1980s children's game show, "Double Dare. " Only, in the spirit of the festive week, the live show was called "Dunkel Dare. " The contestants were brewers, and the trivia questions and physical challenges related to beer. The crowd lined up for hours and rollicked inside as Summers gulped suds and dropped the f-bomb.
NEWS
June 6, 2013
Buzz: Hey Marnie, it's Philly Beer Week. Does that mean you whiners get the week off? Marnie: Not exactly, Buzz. Wine and beer have so much in common that most wine stewards are beer enthusiasts, too. For example, I'm particularly proud of Pennsylvania's German brewing heritage. I support our local lagers, weizens and bocks whenever I can. Buzz: I love German beer. Do you know where I can get a good maibock weizen lager dubbel pilsner? Marnie: Buzz, it sounds like you know as much about beer as you do about wine.
NEWS
May 31, 2013 | By Dan DeLuca, Inquirer Music Critic
Along with the privilege of judging the Brew-vitational, I was charged with a task: To make a beer-drinking music mix that would be a soundtrack for sipping, mulling, and scoring the local brews placed before Craig LaBan, his six esteemed expert panelists, and me, the IPA-loving, craft beer-quaffing regular schmo. We listened to this 36-song list, which is called Drinkin' Thing, while we drank (and, as soberly as we could under the circumstances, judged). And you, Dear Reader, can listen to a streaming version by going to my "In the Mix" blog at philly.com/inthemix , where you'll find a Spotify widget to play it, and also an annotated list of all the tracks.
NEWS
May 31, 2013 | By Joy Manning, For The Inquirer
By 11 a.m. on a typical Saturday, Jared Littman, 37, a Queen Village resident, has already been awake for six hours. He's mostly been working on PhillyTapFinder.com , the craft-beer-centric website he cofounded with his wife, Kristy, in 2010. Day and night, e-mails pour in to Jared's inbox from camera-phone-wielding beer geeks and bar managers across the city and suburbs with news of the latest beer-list updates and most recently tapped kegs. He spends hours each day entering that fresh data into his site.
NEWS
May 31, 2013 | By Craig LaBan, Inquirer Restaurant Critic
The "sour beast" was rising. When I'd first tasted it in the preliminary round of this year's Brew-vitational, the Inquirer's annual competition for local beers, my eyes almost crossed from the intense tartness of its barrel-fermented red fruit. But by the finals round, once we'd winnowed the 39 beers entered in the "new" beer category down to 10 top contenders, my taste buds had snapped to attention and tuned in to the proper frequency. And this sour ale aged in wine and whiskey barrels for a year-and-a-half with wild yeast and raspberries was suddenly an irresistible beam of bright fruit light.
NEWS
May 31, 2013
OPENING TAP . . . the Philly Beer Week Garden . . . the International Great Beer Expo . . . Craft Beer Day on East Passyunk . . . the Haddon Pub Fest . . . the Varga Pin Up Block Party . . . Throwdown in Franklintown . . . the London Grill Dunk Tank . . . Philly Beer Geek . . . Fishtown FestivALE . . . whatever incredibly exotic beer dinner Monk's Café cooks up . . . These are among the can't-miss events of Philly Beer Week, the traditional, signature...
NEWS
May 31, 2013
_ Practice good beer karma: Don't shove; there's plenty of beer. _ Carry a bottle of water. Don't waste valuable time and space ordering H2O from the bartender. _ Pick up the official Philly Beer Week keepsake guide at participating bars and restaurants. It's loaded with maps, events and beer information. _ Do a bit of pre-planning by searching PhillyBeerWeek.org's event calendar for favorite events, venues and breweries. _ Don't fret when you miss a great event. It's impossible to hit 'em all, so be content with your own beer karma.