Jack Curtin’s LIQUID DIET

Yes, I exaggerated just a tad when I suggested last night that the story I just posted at the Beer Yard site was “untold,” but, really, not all that much.

Unless I’ve missed it (and you can be sure I will informed right here and real soon if I have), there has been very little written about the Tap & Table in Emmaus and The Bookstore Speakeasy in Bethlehem in the brewspapers or on the beer blogs. Beyond that, I’m even more of the belief that no one has put the whole story of this burgeoning “chain” together in a single post or article prior to this (I’ll be doing this more extensively in one of the brewspapers for October).  Also,  the Bahnhof news is just that, news to most of you, I’d assume.

The Bookstore in particular, says Matt Scheller, one of the partners in the company, seems to have escaped the notice of you beer folks: “a lot of the beer culture doesn’t even know we exist and I think we offer something unique with the cocktails and the beer in one place.” Our old friend Mr. Bryson was actually there on August 21 following his very successful bourbon event at Allentown Brew Works. In the good old days, we might have been graced with an informative blog post giving details and his opinion, maybe even a few photos, but we seem to have lost him to teh Facebook and its hit-and-run culture. I find that sad.

So I’m sitting here feeling sorry for myself because two big interviews fell apart today, plus I have to send in a column to Celebrator Beer News tomorrow and I still don’t have it all down right (the beginning is brilliant, though, if I do say so myself), when the phone rings around 8 o’clock and…

I now have on tape one of the great untold beer stories in the region.

Look for the basics in a news posting tomorrow at the Beer Yard site.

No, I’m not talking about the world-class selection of beers, I’m talking about the chalkboard itself.

That’s the board above the bar at Teresa’s Next Door as of around 4:40 this afternoon, as clean and neat and readable an example as I’ve ever seen, done by staffer Carissa Just with something called a “chalk pen,” a concept entirely new to me. I find it astonishingly near-perfect.

I stopped in at TND after a heads-up call from fine human being Matt Guyer while I was on the train back from Philadelphia alerting me that Dogfish Head Bitches Brew had just been tapped.

There’s been a lot of talk about this one, created in honor of the 40th anniversary of the original release of Bitches Brew, Miles Davis’ 1970 paradigm-shifting landmark fusion breakthrough. It is a big a bold dark beer which is three-quarters imperial stout and one quarter honey beer made with gesho root, an African shrub from Ethiopia which is used in a similar fashion to hops. I found it a nicely balanced and drinkable brew, perhaps a bit sweet on its own, but one I could imagine enjoying over a plate of fruit and cheese.

I’d been downtown to meet up with a new friend, the Rev. Kirk Berlenbach whom many of you have likely met and know as “Father Kirk.” We met for the first time at Nodding Head during Philly Beer Week and have been trying to get together ever since, finally pulling it off today right back where it all started.

We enjoyed a good conversation over two pints of Bil Payer Ale on cask (for me) and one of those and a glass of George’s Fault for him. We were joined for a stretch by main man Curt Decker and brewer Gordon Grubb. The later brought out a bottle of their Saison, an leftover from those packaged to send off to the Great American Beer Festival. Actually, as Decker explained, not really a left-over: “We always do some extra bottles to keep and open the week of GABF so we can taste what they are likely tasting at the judges’ tables in Denver.”

All in all, a good beery day, as good a one as I’ve had of late.

Photo courtesy of Harpoon Eastern PA sale rep Sean Hamel, taken last year at Ernie’s Tin Bar in Petaluma, CA.

Remember I told you what the rules would be in my bar should I open one?

Well, read this.

It’s not easy being ahead of the curve….oh wait, yes it is if you actually are.

PS: Here’s a link to High-Tech Disconnect, the very good and must-read column by Karen Heller which is mentioned in Rick Nichols‘ story.

This email from Dave Wilby of the Dawson Street Pub is self-explanatory:

As some of you know we here at Dawson Street Pub have been involved with The Dude Hates Cancer! Charity Bowling Tournament since it began 5 years ago. This event was started by my friend Tim Maxwell after his father was diagnosed with Leukemia. It has grown from a small neighborhood event which raised $1400 to a nationally recognized event that last year raised over $27,000.

For more info please log on to The Dude Hates Cancer website.

There will be a pre-event party featuring beer by our friends at Yards Brewing on Friday August 27 at the Dawson Street Pub. The pub is also fielding a  bowling team and each team and team member is raising funds independently. If you would like to help by donating, please go to the fund-raising page.

All money goes directly to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and is tax deductible. If you work in an office, you might be able to set up matching funds with your company. Please donate what you can, if every fan of the pub on facebook donates $2 that would be over $1000 and you don’t even have to pick up a bowling ball or or leave your house.

And please pass this on, I won’t say that if you send this to 50 people your dreams will come true. But you might help some one you know or some one you don’t.

*I said it 15 years ago and I’m not about to back off now.

A beer blog long thought moribund (stories had it that proprietor had disappeared into a whisky bottle and was not coming back) has sprung back to life and one of today’s new posts, all bright and shiny, is about a review of Kraftwork, a relative new Philly beer destination which has received nothing but raves. The Big Guy makes some interesting points about how beer is at the very core of what Kraftwork does and not merely there to enhance the (apparently also quite exceptional) food. And he goes on to rave about the beer menu they have for customers because of its complete and thorough presentation of not only the beers currently on offer but those which will soon follow.

I must admit that , after I clicked and enlarged an image of said menu nicely provided with the story, I experienced some of the same sort of…I guess “dismay” is the proper word…expressed by some local brewers during the celebration of Philly Beer Week.

Where are the local beers? On a list of 25 beers on tap, only three are local–Stoudt’s Maibock, Philadelphia Brewing Walt Wit and the PBW collaborative brew, Brotherly Suds from Sly Fox. And on the accompanying list of what’s on order, only the latter two of those appear. I mean, there’s a PBR tap, for heaven’s sake, which seems really out of place and unnecessary; couldn’t that al least have given way to a brew from Victory or Yards or Troegs or some other local option?

Perhaps I am overreacting here—I am surely in that sort of mood at present—but I get the impression that there are fewer and fewer dedicated taps for local beers in some of our most renowned and popular watering holes these days and I wonder if Philadelphia’s reputation as a great beer town is becoming more a matter of “look what WE can get” rather than “look at what WE can make.”

I should note before I slink away to await the slings and arrows that I have not yet been to Kraftwork and in no way intend this to be a comment on or review of Kraftwork. Indeed, I have heard enough extremely positive things about the establishment to have it high on my list of “gotta get there soon” spots. Their beer list just struck me because, impressive as it is, there is very little that is “Philadelphia” about it.

All the brewspapers and brewsmags are out there now, available at the better beer locations around the area, and for my money, the one must-read article this time around is “Tapping into Belgium” by Tom Peters, which is in the August/September issue of the steadily growing Philly Beer Scene magazine.

This four-page tale (long for PBS) would be worth your time for the photo of  a very young, very thin Tom Peters with his porn-star ’stache alone, but, more importantly, his recounting his early days bringing Belgian beers to this area is a serious addition to local beer history.

I happen to have already known many of the details, having interviewed Tom extensively a couple of years back for a book project that just didn’t work out, but I’d guess most of this material, especially his first trip to Belgium, will be new to the majority of readers.

Well written, informative and definitely worth reading.

UPDATE: As the comment from Neil Harner below indicates, malware problems at the Philly Beer Scene site have all been cleared up and the Tom Peters piece is available online (should you be willing to forgo an opportunity to see that awesome photo) here.

But you need to know the password to get in.

Really.

Tom Peters just called:

We will have the back bar and middle room open for business at 5pm on Saturday; the front bar will probably not be ready until August 23. Customers will have to enter through the alleyway and use the magic word, “SEPTA“, to get in. No password, no entry.