Jack Curtin’s LIQUID DIET

What a line up!

Allentown/Bethlehem Brew Works      HopSolutely DIPA

Nodding Head Brewery and Restaurant     4C DIPA

Troegs Brewing Company     Nugget Nectar

Dock Street Brewing Company     Barrel Porter

Weyerbacher Brewing Co.      Old Heathen

Elysian Brewing Co.      Prometheus IPA

Bell’s Brewing      Kalamazoo Stout

Stoudts Brewing Company     Fat Dog Imperial Stout

Victory Brewing Company     Storm King Stout

Wintercoat    DoubleHop

Rock Bottom Brewing Co.     Bitter

Triumph Brewing Company    Irish Dry Stout

One Guy Brewing      Brown Ale

Philadelphia Brewing Co.     Joe Coffee Porter

Sly Fox Brewing Company     Chester County Bitter

Yards Brewing Company     General Washington Tavern Porter

Yards Brewing Company     Brawler

Otto’s Pub and Brewery     Red Mo

Flying Fish Brewing Company     Hopfish

RCH     Pitchfork Bitter

Wintercoat     Mols Ol’

Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant     Pig Iron Porter

Stewarts Brewing Company     Highlander Stout

Dogfish Head Brewery     75 Minute IPA

Manayunk Brewing Co.    ??

That Manayunk beer looks particular interesting.

Tags: Beer Events, Philly // 1 Comment »

If this comes to pass, that whole Johnstown Flood tax thing would be a little more palatable.

Tags: Commentary, Opinion // 1 Comment »

I hear a that slew of local beer folks have been invited to Sierra Nevada Beer Camp, which is changing its focus somewhat to create classes of publicans and others from the same locale rather than all over the place. If local rep Patrick Mullin ever deigns to answer my request for names and information, you’ll hear all about it in a Beer Yard post which will be linked here.

Absent that response, I will, of course, make shit up.

Tags: News // 1 Comment »

Opening Tap basic info is now up at the Philly Beer Week website, Friday June 4, 7:30pm, at the Independence Visitors Center in Old City.

Two thoughts:

The Visitors Center sounds like a perfect venue but, given that when Brewers Plate was held there in 2008 there was serious customer dissatisfaction expressed about the “bottleneck” factor and the inability to move around, let’s hope the organizers have worked out a viable setup to avoid getting the whole week off to a bad start.

Update: Don Russell says “no sweat.”

I’m sure the mention of the Official Collaboration Ale of PBW caught a lot of eyes. I’ve been sitting on this for a while so I’m glad it’s finally out there. Not that I have a whole helluva lot, but as I understand it, it’s a collaboration in which six local brewers will participate in developing the recipe, which will be brewed by Brian O’Reilly at Sly Fox Royersford. There will be some draft, for that opening night and other major PBW events, but the majority of the brew will be bottled in corked 750ml bottles.

More to come…

Tags: Breweries, Brewers, Brewpubs, Cafes, Restaurants, Taverns, News, Philly Beer Week // 3 Comments »

What with all the PLCB talk keeping us distracted, here are few things which tried to slip under the radar but were captured at the border:

Blast from the past: Dock Street Brewing Company has brought back its Cream Ale, which won a Silver Medal at the Great American Beer Fest in 1992. Victor Novak, one of the original Dock Street brewers at the classic pub on 18th St.,  flew in from California to brew with present Dock Street Head Brewer Ben Potts (Novak is currently the head brewer for two TAPS Brewpubs in California and has earned GABF Gold and a Silver for his own interpretation). Cream Ale  is a light, flavorful 5% Ale  with a crisp malt profile and delicate fruitiness lent by both American ale yeast and a characteristic addition of dextrose (corn sugar). It will be available exclusively at the West Philly brewpub and for a limited time only with a special complimentary tasting session on March 24, 6-9pm.

McKenzie melange: The winner of the first Homebrew competition at McKenzie Brew House was Phoenixville resident Matt Tarklecki with his Belgian Dark Strong, Dark Night. Brewer Gerard Olson says they’ll be producing it on their  10bbl system in Glen Mills soon, and hope to have it on tap during the spring. Olson and Ryan Michaels are still bottling by and recently completed a batch of Saison du Bois, (Saison Vautour fermented in “one of our funkier wine barrels.”). It should be available for sale very soon. Another barrel aged beer—”a golden ale with Belgian candi sugar, a high dose of American hops and our English ale yeast, then dry hopped in the barrel with a bunch of Simcoe—has also been bottled but not yet named. “It falls somewhere between a funky IPA, a Saison and a Strong Golden,” says Olson. “We’re waiting for it to finish conditioning, but it should be available sometime in the spring.” Saison Vautour and Belgian Wit are now full time house beers, while Shane’s Gold has been cut to an occasional seasonal, and a new Bier de Garde has been brewed at Glen Mills. “Some of it made its way into an apple brandy barrel which we spiked with some Drie Fonteinen brett from local brett farmer, Jean Broillet of Iron Hill West Chester.” Finally, he added that  “we’re brewing our French Country Spring Ale in Malvern today; an Old Ale is in the works, and maybe some more sessionable bitters coming up too.” I’ve said it before: those two guys are having way too much fun.

O’Reilly’s world: If there’s one thing it appears we can count on when the semi-annual U.S. Beer Tasting Championship results are announced, it’s that Sly Fox will come out very well. That’s happened again and you can read about it here, along with other local honors for Weyerbacher, Victory, McKenzie, General Lafayette and Lancaster.

Tags: Breweries, Brewers, Brewpubs, News // Add Comment »

Here’s the link to that Smithsonian Associates lecture series event I told you about yesterday.

I believe “beer raconteur” is code for “dissolute reprobate.”

Tags: Beer Events // 5 Comments »

Lost in all the understandable rage and inchoate scrambling about in the wake of the PLCB fiasco is the question at the heart of the entire mess: who was the one anonymous complainant?

Seems to me the PLCB folks are trying to send out a message, noting a few times this week that “most of our complaints come from other licensees.” If that’s true in this instance, here’s the next question:

Do we really want to know?

Think about it.

Tags: Commentary, Observations // 20 Comments »

I’ve actually gotten back into the writing mode despite my mood, crafting some of the easier parts of a long piece which can be plugged in and revised as needed when I get down to serious business. But, to do so, I figured I needed me a beer on the desk. I mean, it’s Saturday afternoon, y’know? After all those hours of computer frustration, a reward was called for.

On a whim, I decided to crack a bottle from the sixer of Dundee’s Original Honey Brown Lager which the brewery sent me a couple of weeks back. While I can’t remember ever having it more than once or twice back in its heyday, there was a day when Honey Brown was one of the staples at bars looking to get away from the Big Blands when the options were a precious few. Also, Dundee is now trying to reposition it closer to the craft segment the brand with its original label and lower pricing, which provides further justification if such is needed.

And, you know what? It was okay. Nothing special, but a bit of flavor, easy-drinking and refreshing. It has brightened the afternoon and I think I’ll make it my fallback beer for computer crashes and similar spirit-sapping events.

By the way, I will be taking part in a virtual tasting of Dundee’s new Irish Red Lager and two old mainstays, Pale Ale and India Pale Ale, conducted by brewer Jim McDermott, in just shy of two weeks from now. It will be done online and via conference call, using Adobe Connect Pro and I will likely feel all confused and out of my depth..

You will be the first to know.

Tags: Personal, Tasting // 5 Comments »

I don’t believe I’ve mentioned before that, on April 24,  I’ll be a speaker/moderator/host/whatever one of the periodic beer talks that the Smithsonian Associates put on at the Brickskeller a couple of times a year.

The broad topic is Pennsylvania beers and this was supposed to be a joint venture with The Big Guy, but he’s off drinking whiskey out of brown paper bag or some such in Chicago the night before and can’t get there in time. We’d thought The Pennsylvania Ale Trail: Curious Quaffs from the Keystone State was to be an evening presentation, but it actually runs from 1-4:30pm.

This means I will have to do some actual work; as it was originally laid out, I figured I’d just vamp a bit and fade into the scenery while Lew seized the spotlight and frightened folks with his laugh.

Honestly, though, the real work will be done by the four brewers who will be on stage with me, along with their two beers each which the crowd will be sampling. The concept was to bring Pennsylvania beers that are not currently available in DC and we’re three for four on that. The brewers in the house, from east to west, will be Tom Kehoe (Yards), Brian O’Reilly (Sly Fox), Terry Hawbaker (Bullfrog) and Scott Smith (East End). None of those breweries were in the DC market when we signed them up, but I’m hearing that Yards is back in Virginia, and I suppose that counts.

These events are coordinated by Jim Dorsch of American Brewer and Greg Kitsock of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News and the beer columnist for the Washington Post. I am a columnist and writer for both of those publications, of course, and my regular column in Celebrator Beer News just happens to be called “Atlantic Ale Trail,” so it all seems very karmic from my perspective. And I suppose a suddenly Bryson-less destiny is nothing to be sneezed at, even if it is likely to be brief.

Two nights in the Capitol (room paid for), drinking and talking beer for fun and profit with a quartet of fine brewers and a check in bank when it’s all over—I guess this might be considered my very own Washington stimulus plan when all is said and done.

And all will be said and done. That’s the gig.

Tags: Beer Buddies, Beer Events, Breweries, Brewers, Personal, Travel // 1 Comment »

The Liquid Diet Support Staff (me) was whacked upside the head last evening. The Editorial Staff (me) downloaded and installed a new free backup program that Comcast offered, figuring it would be another safe place to stash important files. Trouble was, it was an automatic backup system and it was based on Mozy, the backup system the Business Staff (me) chose for the task.

When these both started running, they both seized onto the same data files and slowed the system down to a crawl and made internet access through any browser other than Chrome too slow to bear. And they could not be removed in any way I could find, since the process would get down to the final stages and then refuse to finish since the main file was “being used by another  program.” That program, of course, could not be shut down either, for the same reason.

I spent from 11 to 2:30 last night on the phone with a tech who could not solve it and could not use one of those remote control programs to take charge of my computer since access was denied and he could not figure out why. Made a bit more progress over two hours this morning with another guy and we managed to shut down at least Mozy so things were not so slow, but that’s as far as we got.

I finally called Outside Technical Assistance (my son) and he solved the whole mess in less than an hour, doing many of the same things the other guys tried, but in a different order, and also figuring out other corrections and adjustments that need to be applied. I should have done that, called him, first thing this morning. I knew it, but I was trying to not to be the old man who needs help yet again.

But we are what we are and everything is humming along now that I accepted reality. I’ve lost the equivalent of a day’s worth of writing time and am not going to get much done in my present mental state, so tomorrow had better be super productive or I’m in big, big trouble.

This has been a plaintive whine from the Writing Staff (me). It appears we may be over-staffed and some of it is dead wood.

And as God is my witness, I will never do an automated backup again.

Tags: Beer, Personal, Website // Add Comment »