Brewery

Attorneys for Philadelphia beer baron William H. Pflaumer yesterday asked a federal judge to let Pflaumer out of prison early and place him under "electronically supervised house arrest" inside Schmidt's brewery. This way, Pflaumer could help his ailing brewery survive, receive treatment for a life-threatening heart condition and pay his debt to society by donating time to community service, the lawyers told U.S. District Judge Charles Weiner. Under the proposed house arrest, Pflaumer could work at the brewery in the morning, perform community service from noon to 8 p.m., five days a week, and spend nights and weekends at his "residence within the brewery," the lawyers suggested.

Is there a more soul-satisfying combination in the edible universe than handmade pizza and beer? I don't think so. And it's a good thing, considering that pizza and beer are pretty much the main attractions on the menu at Mount Airy's funky new Earth Bread + Brewery. Actually, there are also a fresh salad or two, a creamy soup of the day, some mixed olives, and a cheese platter. There is also a surprisingly smart selection of international wines by the glass. But brews and "breads" clearly rule the yeasty ambitions of this welcome new addition to Germantown Avenue, where an igloo-shaped oven in the front blazes ash logs at 700 degrees, and a petite set of brew tanks tucked into the back pumps out some eccentric beers worth driving for. It's a willingness to focus on doing these two things well (even if there's yet some work to do)

Bruce Graham tries something a little different in each successive play that he writes. "Burkie" was his blue-collar comedy and "Early One Evening at the Rainbow Bar and Grill" his end-of-the-world comedy. In "Minor Demons" he tackled straight drama and experimented with a Greek chorus. For "Moon Over the Brewery," which last night opened a world-premiere engagement at the Annenberg Center's Harold Prince Theatre, he is back in blue-collar land and his chosen form is comedy-fantasy, yet again under the auspices of the Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays.

You walk the streets of the old neighborhoods and sooner or later you start to hear the sounds of a city's forgotten past. Buried like 300-year-old cobblestones 'neath layers of asphalt, the ghosts are still alive . . . if you know how to listen. In Fairmount, you hear the creaking of a wooden wagon wheel coming down Poplar Street. In Northern Liberties, it's the tapping of a barrel-maker's hammer in the basement of a brick warehouse at 4th and Brown. In Germantown, it's a whistling steam engine that heats a brew kettle.

Boston Beer Company Inc., which makes Samuel Adams Boston Lager and other beers, said yesterday that it had agreed to pay $55 million to buy a brewery in Breinigsville, Lehigh County, from Diageo North America. The company said that adding the brewery would increase its annual brewing capacity 1.6 million barrels, and that it could eventually produce 2 million barrels a year, more than doubling Boston Beer's current production. Boston Beer shares closed up $2.26, or 5.5 percent, at $43.32 yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange.

William H. Pflaumer, 76, the last of the local beer barons, died of heart failure on Saturday, May 22, at Pennsylvania Hospital. Mr. Pflaumer was a quintessential Philadelphia character widely known as "Billy" or, more grandly, "Billy the Beer King. " The final owner of the brewery that produced Schmidt's - Philadelphia's best-known beer - he was sentenced to federal prison in 1983 for evading more than $125,000 in excise taxes. The Christian Schmidt Brewing Co., between Second and Hancock Streets south of Girard Avenue, was the city's last independent brewery and had been a local institution since 1860.

William H. Pflaumer, owner of Christian Schmidt Brewing Co. of Philadelphia, has been granted a furlough from a federal penitentiary in Kentucky in order to return here and negotiate the sale of the city's last independent brewery, reliable sources said yesterday. The sources said Pflaumer is due to return tonight to the Lexington, Ky., prison where he is serving the final two years of a three-year sentence for federal tax evasion. He was convicted in July 1983. Reports of an impending sale of Schmidt have been circulating ever since its controversial owner began to fight the federal charges, which were not related to the company.

In 1698, two dozen years before Samuel Adams was born (the patriot, mind you, not the beer label), a mayor in Faversham, Kent, England, set up a brewery over an artesian well. Only last year, the brewery, which later become Shepherd Neame, finally began to export its products to the colonies. Today's beer companies are fond of prattling on and on about all the time it takes to craft a beer. Shepherd Neame, England's longest-operating brewery, could use that excuse to explain why it took nearly three centuries to reach out to Americans.

It's probably always a risky proposition to go out with an ex, especially if you haven't seen him in a while and there are still some unresolved issues floating around. But it's a much safer proposition if there's good beer in plentiful supply, as there is at Nodding Head Brewery. Nodding Head, which opened in January on the site of the former Samuel Adams Brew House, has become a hangout for the 20something set, drawn by brewmeister Brandon Greenwood's "handcrafted" beers. Greenwood, who earned a beer-making degree in Edinburgh, has done time at breweries in Scotland as well as Stroh's in Minnesota and a stint as head brewer at Philadelphia's Yards Brewing Company.

ADAMSTOWN, Pa. - More for the novelty of it than out of necessity, Elizabeth Stoudt commuted to work last week in her underemployed snowshoes, crunching down the hill from her big, old farmhouse here to her bread bakery a snowball's throw away. On her way she fed the sheep - Jacob's Sheep, a breed of varying colors, tending toward dark - and the Toulouse geese, who in less tranquil settings might find themselves being fattened for foie gras. There was a nod to the neighboring emu and the shaggy Angora goat.

IT'S A MOONLESS Thursday night in North Wales, Montgomery County. Down a dead-end street just past the giant Merck & Co. pharmaceutical plant, tucked along the SEPTA R5 railroad tracks, a darkened industrial building attracts a young crowd. The unpaved parking lot is full, light sounds of live jazz seep from the rear door, and the air carries the familiar aroma of malt. Welcome to Prism Brewing's Tap Room, one of the region's best-kept beer-drinking secrets and, it turns out, a harbinger of a remarkable surge of suburban breweries.

WESTERLY, R.I. - For two centuries it rested a mile from shore, shrouded by a treacherous reef from the pleasure boaters and beachgoers who haunt New England's southern coast. Now, researchers from the U.S. Navy are hoping to confirm what the men who discovered the wreck believe: that the sunken ship off the coast of Rhode Island is the USS Revenge, commanded by Oliver Hazard Perry and lost on a stormy January day in 1811. "The Revenge was forgotten. It became a footnote," said Charlie Buffum, a brewery owner from Stonington, Conn., who found the shipwreck while diving with friend Craig Harger.

NO OTHER American city celebrates Belgian beer like Philadelphia. I didn't say that, but one of the nation's biggest importers of Belgian beer did as Philly Beer Week hammered out details on a first-ever collaboration with one of Belgium's iconic beer makers, Brasserie Dupont. The makers of Saison Dupont , regarded by some experts as one of the top 10 beers in the world, will brew the official international beer of Philly Beer Week 2012. It's the first time the 167-year-old brewery has made a beer with someone outside its own family.

Anthony Koppany, 93, of Lansdale, an accomplished chess player who once played Bobby Fischer to a draw, died Monday, Oct. 17, at home. A native of Hungary, Mr. Koppany learned to play chess when he was 10 from a relative who became a chess master. After emigrating to the United States in 1949, he played with the North City Chess Club and was later director of the Franklin Mercantile Chess Club in Center City. In 1964, Mr. Koppany played Fischer at the Cheltenham Township Art Center.

PITTSBURGH - Two local brewers are battling over the rights to resurrect Fort Pitt Beer, the post-World War II king of Pittsburgh beers. Jones Brewing Co. of Smithton, which has brewed Fort Pitt, is vying for the rights to the latest iteration of the beer with Duke Brewing's Mark Dudash, an Upper St. Clair lawyer who resurrected Duquesne beer last year. Jones Brewing, which makes beers under the Stoney's label, has received federal and state approval for a Fort Pitt label.

* The Second Annual Philadelphia Honey Festival tomorrow and Saturday combines the resources of the Wagner Free Institute of Science, Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild, Bartram's Garden and the Wyck Association - all local groups that educate the public about natural science. Tomorrow brings kids' activities at the Wagner (100 W. Montgomery Ave.) during the day, then an adult "Honey Happy Hour" featuring honey-based beers from Earth Bread + Brewery and Prism Brewing Co. Saturday events at Bartram's Garden (54th Street and Lindbergh Boulevard)

McGillin's Olde Ale House has already turned its taps over to the Germans for the month. Brauhaus Schmitz has plans to shut down South Street for a pig roast with an oompah band. And local Oktoberfest lagers, from brewers like Victory and Sly Fox, are currently flowing at watering holes around town. As Philadelphia embraces all things beer, it was only a matter of time until we saw the Hallmark-ization of Oktoberfest, with more celebrations starting earlier, getting bigger and lasting longer, and more local brewers joining the party.

DUBLIN, Ireland - Though the Philadelphia Orchestra's current tour of European festivals leaves little time for the players do anything but travel, rehearse, and perform, some of them believe they'll burn out, stress out, or suffer some other unpleasant consequence if they don't find a way to break that routine during their few free hours in any given city. Counterpoint is one key to equilibrium. Several musicians are in training for athletic events. Some are collectors and hunt for local treasures.

On July 26, 2006, Jim Gebicki removed his wristwatch and placed it in a small box. He hasn't worn it since, nor does he plan to ever wear it again. The watch, bearing the green and white Rolling Rock beer insignia synonymous with Gebicki's hometown of Latrobe, Pa., had been a gift from his former employer, Latrobe Brewing Co., on his 25th anniversary with the company. July 26, 2006, was also the day the last bottle of Rolling Rock rolled off the line at the Latrobe brewery, marking the end of a 67-year relationship with the town it helped define.

Philadelphians are buying more craft beer than ever, but the region's brewmasters are bracing for the biggest name in beer to move into town. Anheuser-Busch InBev, maker of Budweiser products and the world's largest brewer, trademarked the name "215" this spring, along with the area codes for 14 other U.S. cities. The filing is the first public step toward creating a new beer by the same name. "We're being attacked," said Bill Covaleski, brewmaster and president of Victory Brewing Co., a craft brewery in Downingtown.