Jack Curtin’s LIQUID DIET

I just got off the phone with Nancy Barton at Philadelphia Brewing Company and she tells me they expect to begin brewing on Monday (”that’s when our yeast arrives”) and hope to have their first four beers on the street before February is over, probably in about three weeks.

The first-ever PBC beer, though, will be pouring at the Ground Hog Day Hawaiian Shirt Beer Breakfast at the Grey Lodge Pub on Saturday, starting at 7am. Rowhouse Red is a prototype beer brewed at Porterhouse Pub in Lahaska by Dean Browne and Yards’ brewer John Rehm. The actual version will use a different yeast and slightly different malt recipe.

The company will self-distribute, concentrating on the Philadelphia five-county market at the start with hopes of expanding into South Jersey around May or June.

The new company is giving the brewery a real clean-up, it seems. Nancy says “we took the whole brewhouse apart, moved everything around, put windows in, painted, did the floors–they look great–and everybody’s having a great time putting it all back together again.”

It becomes official on March 29. Story up at The Beer Yard.

Well, that frantic Bryson drive to the finish of his first blogging year which is leading him to post around the clock do have it’s benefits: he’s just now pointed out this great piece on our very own Joe Sixpack in the American Journalism Review.

Congrats, Don. You know you got it made when they start writing about you instead of you about them.

So here I am, writing about beer in a market which is home to the writer guy who is taking over the beer world publication by publication, column by column, and the other writer guy who’s become an iconic figure.

I shoulda stood in bed. Or become an accountant.

Nah, stood in bed.

I’ve just confirmed the information and updated the Beer Yard calendar. The Philly Beer Week calendar isn’t. Updated that is.

I’m hearing that the Real Ale Festival event which is part of Philly Beer Week is being moved to Triumph (originally scheduled at Yards) and will take place on a different date. Checking it out…

Also word just in that Origlio has purchased Spaz Beverage in West Chester, a take-over than has been considered all but a done deal for some time now. Checking that out too…

America’s busiest beer writer, in the midst of a frantic posting frenzy in order to achieve some quixotic goal, recently took on the too-often overlooked topic of how brewers are ripped off by many “charity” beer events .

Of course, I’m talking about Lew Bryson. “Quixotic” and “frenzy” should have been your first clues. If I’d said “loudest,” it would have been a dead give-away.

Quoth the Big Guy, in part:

Brewers are invited to festivals, some of which are for charities, some of which are not (and as one brewer I’m friends with says, “Just because it’s your charity doesn’t mean it’s my charity.”), and then told how much beer they’re going to be bringing and not getting paid for. People are paying for tickets, people are paying for food, people are paying for breweriana, t-shirts, pint glasses, and everything else, but the brewers aren’t getting paid for their beer

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What really torques me about this is how many times there is entertainment at these events, and they’re getting paid! No one ever suggests to the band or DJ that playing at the beer festival will be great exposure so they should do it for free. Because they wouldn’t do it.

You know what? There are a LOT of festivals out there these days. Beer festivals are popular. Wanna bet you and I now know one big reason why? Low overhead. Do yourself and your local brewer a favor: start asking questions the next time, before you buy tix for a beer festival. “Is the beer at this fest paid for?” “What’s the charity? What percentage of the take do they get?”

If I might, allow me to climb onto this bandwagon. I thought Jim Anderson was right when he fought this battle nearly a decade ago and was astonished how little brewer support he received. I have heard the indignation from some event programmers when a brewer dares ask for payment for his beer (never mind the time and expense of just doing a festival). I have seen brewers shamefacedly shrug and say, essentially, “what can you do?”

It’s sad. And it’s wrong.

Look, there are great events out there, ones which really do serious good work for charity and which any brewer would be proud to participate in and happy to contribute services and beer for the cause. As an example, the Harrisburg Brewers Fest, a Troegs-hosted event, has raised just under $400,000 in four years for the Central Pennsylvania Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Now that’s a charity event, not an ersatz non-profit one which may, or may not, fit your definition of a charitable cause worthy of your money.

The Troegs guys are completely transparent, revealing their figures every year. Contrast that to the events which say that proceeds will go to charity but often don’t specify which charity (and sometimes don’t even know when you call and ask and have to call you back) and rarely specify the amount. A couple of thousand dollars out of an event which, on paper, seem to indicate potential profits of ten times that amount? Not unusual.

It’s tough to say no, I understand. But, with the cost of virtually everything they need to do business rising exponentially (or so it seems and feels) and in a climate where craft brewers are no longer some new and unknown sideshow but rather the movers and shakers of the industry, maybe more and more brewers will be willing to do so.

And, you know, if event planners want to save a few bucks up to pay for the damned beer, they can just stop issuing free passes to us beer writers unless there’s good reason for us to be there.

Chris LaPierre notes in a Comment to my posting about last night at Iron Hill that I forgot my last beer of the night, Bourbon Quadfather. He also notes that I was “way into the blackout stage” by that time, an astute observation.

Wow.

A great night and, because I hitched a ride with Big Dan and Cruella (who gets a bad rap around here now and again, but is truly a Fine Human Being and Skilled Chauffeur, despite laboring under the delusion that the folks at Iron Hill were going to set up a table for 16 when she asked), I was free to imbibe excessively. Which, sadly, I did.

This has not been a good morning.

Not by plan, at least not until I recognized the pattern and just went with it, every beer I had was from one of the Iron Hill locations.

Fred, concocted by Larry Horwitz at North Wales, who was either absent or cleverly escaped my company, was the best (nah, that’ll just get me in trouble down the line) one of the best Flanders Red Ales I’ve ever tasted. A beautiful red beer, 5%, tart, complex and oh so easy to drink.

Rudolph’s Revenge, out of Media, where Medal Machine Bob Barrar holds sway, was a horse of another abv, as they say. A Belgian Golden Strong Ale with more hops than you’d expect (”we bascially took our Belgian Tripel and hopped the hell out of it,” said the tasting notes on the evening’s beer menu), 9%, spicy and grand.

Both those, my co-favorites of the evening, with the vote going to Fred if I had to choose, were in 12oz servings, as were the Fe 10, the big Annivesary Ale brewed by the three founding partners of Iron Hill, a bottle of which I still have in my beer closet) which was brewed in Newark; The Cannibal, Chris LaPierre’s GABF Gold Medal winner, which was the West Chester host pub’s contribution, and Cannibal Nocturnum, a choclate-y, malty rendition using the same Belgian yeast strain as its namesake, from Wilmington. Showing some degree of moderation (much too late), I did 4oz tasters of Imperial Wit (Phoenixville) and Heywood, a 100% Brett beer, also from West Chester.

Did I mention I never ate anything all night?

The bus from Philly brought lots of folks not often seen out here in the ‘burbs to the event. I had a chat with Brendan “Spanky” Hartranft about the forthcoming Memphis Taproom of which his a part, getting him riled up to Bryson Volume Levels without much effort. I did my good deed for the week, hooking up Tom Kehoe with a guy who’s so passionate about Yards ESA that, when he couldn’t find it locally, map-quested the location of the new brewery and hauled his sixtel over there, only to find concrete pouring rather than beer, figuring Tom will work out get him a fill-up as soon as the brewhouse is up and running. Casey Hughes tried to convince me that it is my absolute obligation to trek over to Cherry Hill and see the new Flying Fish bottling line. I might actually do that.

And, folks, when I am considering going to New Jersey without being forced, you know I must be hung over.

I am somewhat chagrined to say I never heard of A. Serrill Headly until her obituary appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday. Chagrined because she was clearly an important, if obscure, figure in modern Philly beer history. Khyber Pass was probably the original “good beer bar” in the city, back in the day. I never got there in its original incarnation and, in fact, have only been to the revived Khyber a couple of times. Bad on me.

Rest in peace, Ms. Headly…unless, of course, your dream came true and you are currently haunting the old place.

You’ll have to go read the obit to understand that last.