Philly, Craft, Beer and Festival Continuations

This is a continuation of thoughts of Philadelphia's Third Annual Philly Craft Beer Festival. The remaining thoughts of beer tried and reflections on the event as a whole.


On-Point Lager: Blue Point Toasted Amber Lager- Tried this lager and is one of the better to be had. Even though toasted, this lager avoids the smoky flavor and is very crisp. Just a great, flavorful and crisp lager.

A Couple More Rocky Runs: Manayunk's Tripel Lindy- Manayunk's Tripel offering. In general it did fit the style of a Tripel but came out a little flat. Expected it to be a little more interesting and flavorful, but instead was bland for it's style.

Best Name for Wanting to Drink Something Because You Would Never Drink It In Real Life: Manayunk's Schuylkill Punch- For those not from the Philadelphia Area, the Schuylkill is one of the rivers that goes through Philadelphia which people wouldn't want to touch around here, much less drink from. In terms of this beer, Manayunk's Schuylkill Punch is a Fruit Beer. Dominated by its Raspberry taste, it is a little too fruit flavored and sweet for my tastes and tastes nothing like a normal beer.

All Natural Drunk: Appalachian Organic Brown Ale- The organic movement is starting to enter the brewing world as well. Had my first organic beer the summer of last year and this provides a strong argument for the expansion of such a trend. The main thing I noticed with this brown ale was it being really rich in flavor. It was by far the most flavorful of any Brown Ale that I've had. If that's the organic impact, then there will certainly be a spot for organics within brewing.

Christmas in March: Verte du Mont-Blanc- This French Brewery tucked far away in the alps decided to make the trip to Philadelphia to participate and it was appreciated. Tried a juniper spiced ale. Generally more of a winter ale, spruce ales tend to be hit or miss with people. The piney flavor can be offsetting for drinkers, however this is a great version. The pine flavor is strong enough to taste but not overpowering to the point of not wanting to drink it. Just very well done and to bring out for tasting one of the rarer styles in beer was fantastic.

Other Thoughts:

That wraps up the new beers that were tried at the craft beer festival this year and here are a few other notes about the event.

A couple of the Californian Breweries had a bit of a disappointing showing in my mind. Stone and Anchor both came but had their most popular selections only. Stone with Arrogant Bastard and Stone IPA and Anchor with Anchor Steam and Anchor Porter. At a Craft Beer Festival one hopes to try some new or at least different beer offerings from breweries than what is the norm. Maybe it was the distance that led to them sticking to the standbys but the Colorado breweries that came seemed to have a variety of offerings.

Also disappointing was some of the breweries not at the first event. Unknown if they were only around for the second event and if the first event had some exclusive breweries of their own, but we did spend some time looking for some breweries and found only limited presence or none at all at the festival. Four+ we were especially looking forward to talking to the brewers of and finding out what brewing is like in Utah and what differences it presents towards the making of beer. Hopefully a chance shows up in the future.

The only other mild setback due to no fault of their own was Oskar Blues Brewery. It goes to show their popularity as by the time we got to their stand all of the beer was gone. However we have since picked up some of their beer and will have a review of it soon. Oskar Blues along with Sly Fox are once again showing good beer can in fact be found in a can.

Now for the long list of positives that made the Festival a truly great event. The organization of the event was superb with free transportation to the event, having the right number of people to stands making sure lines were basically non-existent for the event. It was great that the whole 4 hours could be spent for the beer and not for waiting in line. Also, everyone at the event running stands was very nice and approachable. Along with the introduction of some beers for the first time and a wide selection of great craft beer the event was well worth it and a great representation of what craft beer has to offer.

Philly Craft Beer Fest - The Review Part One

Oh wow guys, so sorry this is about a month late, but this was so good I needed to take a month to think about how good it was and put it into words. Quite honestly, this was the best forty five dollars you or I or anyone could ever spend. If you have a beer loving loved one in your life, purchase them tickets for next year's fest. It will surely please them mightily.

The Responsible Drunk official Beer Fest Festivities began bright and early at 11 AM at my place for a special breakfast of eggs, bacon and a solid wheat beer, which in this instance was the lovely German variety Franziskaner. After boarding the train to go to the fest we quickly realized that most of the city had the same idea. If you weren't going to beer fest, you were probably going on the Erin Express and thus riding the R6 at 11.30 AM with a nalgene full of Coors Light. Way to go Philly! World Fucking Champions indeed!

On to the fest. Basically, organizers FTW here folks. In essence the organizers found the perfect balance in the beer to people ratio that bordered somewhere between that of a Wednesday night frat party and a swinging local bar on a Saturday, only increased the scale by a factor of 10 and set it in the lovely Philadelphia Naval Yard facility. To give you a feel for the room, it was about a football field long, sides lined with beer and just the right amount of people. To be honest, Harry and I waited in exactly one line all day. That translates to about 4 hours straight of beer sampling from that nifty 6 oz souvenir glass (do the math).

And boy was that glass raised a lot that day. One beautiful if too-obviously macho thing about beer fest is the organic crowd cheer that I like to call the beer-wave. If you are at beer fest and the dude next to you raises his glass and starts bellowing, you and all around will be impelled to mimic his bellowing until the entire building is bellowing along with you. Then you all drink and for a moment, all is right in the world.

When you are trying over 25 new beers in one day, it can be a little hard to get a handle on what you liked and didn't like, what is good and what is not. There were a few newsworthy highlights, and I'd like to run them down for you all here:

Yuengling Bock - Our beloved hometown brewery has begrudgingly given into the seasonal beer craze and brewed its first new beer in 180 years. I say begrudgingly because if you go into this beer expecting much more than a glass of Yuengling, well, you will be dissapointed. Yuengling Bock is basically a darker, ever so slightly maltier version of its Amber predecessor. In this way, Yuengling has nodded to the movement of craft beer without succumbing to any of the pretension, and in essence pulling one over on the non-local beer-o-philes.

The Bruery's Saison Du Lente - This California Belgian influenced brewery does a wonderful job of mimicing styles from across the pond. I particularly like a good saison because the philosophy of a table beer is something that I think is lost on a lot of craft brewers, especially in the sweep of monster beers that has nearly taken over the industry in the last few years. This one is light, crisp but maintains a satisfying maltiness. It makes a great anytime beer.

Blue Point Brewery - This brewery from out on Long Island had a really solid representation with a Toasted Amber Lager and a RYPA (IPA made with Rye). The RYPA especially stood out because it seemed to be a popular style across the board at the fest and in my opinion this topped them all.

Alright, this is part one of four. Stay Tuned for Harry's analysis and then a recap of our epic post-fest bar crawl!