Jack Curtin’s LIQUID DIET

Pete Ricks of Beer Valley Brewing Campany (Ontario, Oregon) was in town this past week. Before moving on to honest work, he did some writing for Celebrator Beer News and beloved editor Tom Dalldorf put us in touch a while back. Unfortunately, he was here only three days and spent most of that time enrolling his daughter at the University of Pennsylvania (on a full academic scholarship!) and we didn’t get a chance to talk until Thursday evening when he called, so we never got together for the beer we’d planned. That’ll happen, though, next time he comes to town.

Oh, he did one other kinda important thing Thursday afternoon. Pete had asked me during our email exchanges for a good wholesaler for a small micro such as his for this market and I put him in contact with Jordan Fetfatzes at Bella Vista (with Jordan’s permission) and apparently things went well. Pete, who was unaware of Philadelphia’s extraordinary beer culture and was overwhelmed by it all, was also blown away by the new BV facility which will open October 5 when they talked on Thursday.

They tasted some Beer Valley beers, of course, and Pete left behind four bottles of his popular Black Flag Imperial Stout and told me Thursday night that he asked Jordan to earmark one for me. I guess I’m buying when we finally sit down together over a couple of pints.

Don’t look now, but the people you’d probably most want to open a bar in your neighborhood, if somebody was going to open a bar in your neighborhood, have their eyes on a neighborhood. A terrible nuisance bar is about to be transformed and the good beer frontier will push further into West Philadelphia.

I’ve just been authorized to give you folks the skinny:

I plan to email blast the world soon with similar details, but you can start early if you’d like! It’s public information as of riiiiiiiight…..NOW.

Brendan Hartranft (managing partner at Memphis Taproom) and Leigh Maida (head silverware polisher at Memphis Taproom) will be opening a “neighborhood beer bar and kitchen” [at the bar formerly known as Kelliann's at the corner of 44th and Spruce Streets.]

It will be called Local 44.

Local 44 will be a completely independent operation from Memphis Taproom, with very little overlap in concept, outside of the “neighborhood beer bar that we’d most like to hang out at” vibe.

Local 44 will focus on craft beer from around the world, with a nod to our favorite local breweries as well. We will have an extensive and exciting draught beer list. Our kitchen plans are small scale, in the neighborhood ‘pub grub’ vein. We’ll do a few dishes and we’ll do them well.

We’re getting our ducks in a row for an opening in the coming months.

Long-suffering Leigh adds, when asked if this is the opposite of the “Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) attitude:

It IS our backyard. Well, technically, our front yard. but yes. And my commute is about to get a lot shorter.

She also told me that it’s just her and Spanky, not the other partners involved in Memphis Taproom, and that she will be the day-to-day operations person. “Spanky “will be in charge of the beer, as usual, and will be on the scene,” she said, “but the bulk of his time will still be spent at Memphis.”

Hey, smash a collarbone, get ready to open a second bar,  whatever. Just another week.

You can’t even slow these folks down, much less stop them.

And that’s a good thing.

Just posted over here, Imbibe Magazine’s four Philadelphia inclusions on its list of the nation’s 100 best places to drink beer. Not that it actually matters, but any publicity is good publicity, right?

[UPDATE] Spanky’s long-suffering wife, Leigh Maida, tells me that things aren’t too bad (note that it appears the accident was somewhat earlier than I speculate below):

“He’s in top form. like a cat with 900 lives. Thanks for asking. He’s got a broken collar bone and a rib or two, but is up and here at work for a little while. he gets the staples out of his head tomorrow (they’re gross) he’s pretty good tho. fast healer. it was scary the night of the accident.”

According to posts at Seen Through a Glass yesterday, Brendan “Spanky” Hartranft, the main man at Memphis Taproom, was seriously banged up when he was hit by a car while on his bike in center city, near the original Tria location. I assume this happened the day before but it could have been early yesterday.

I just learned of this within the last few minutes when I discovered a message on my cell phone from Lew, who was trying to find out himself, since all he had at that point was the initial message at his site. Only god and AT&T know why I didn’t get it first time around since I was in the car driving back from Victory when the call came in, with the phone in my pocket.

Sounds like Spanky is going to be in a lot of pain for a while but is essentially okay (a broken collarbone is apparently the major injury), but this is a terrible thing obviously, especially  just as the Mystery Beer Weekend event is about to launch. Damn.

Best wishes, pal.

The quote is from Jason Ebel of Two Brothers Brewing Company in Illinois and appears in this morning’s New York Times story, The Other Extreme: Low-Alcohol Beers,” written by Betsy Andrews.

Lots of locals are quoted on the topic, not the least of which is America’s Most Beloved Beer Writer (© Liquid Diet - the Blog, 2008 ), and also Tom Peters, Ron Barchet and Chris Leonard. There’s nothing in the story that you don’t already know or haven’t heard before, I suspect, and there is always the possibility that the ship has already sailed, as if often the case when what’s been happening in a cultural niche bubbles up into the mainstream, but it all makes so much sense that you have to hope that’s not the case.

In the story, Mr. Peters makes mention of Brasserie Dupont Avril, the new 3.5% abv Saison from brewery which is the benchmark for the style. I had a chance to try it last Saturday at the Union Jack Saison Event and it is a wonderfully drinkable beer, perhaps my second favorite of the afternoon. Glazen Toren Saison d’Erpe Mere was the runaway winner, but to be fair, I didn’t do the flight with the three Sly Fox Saisons: Saison Vos, Saison Brune and Grisette and I consider the first of those right up there with the best American interpretations. The other two locals in the 13-beer lineup were Victory V-Saison and Weyerbacher Muse. I’ve had the Muse a couple of times this summer but this was my first shot at the Victory version. I’ve enjoyed both in the past and nothing changed my mind Saturday.

On my way out the door, that nice Tom Steigelmann gave me a couple of bottles of New Holland Golden Cap Saison Ale. This did not make me unusual; the equally nice Dr. Joel, who moved from trying to promoted beer on the mean streets of Phoenixville into a job as a regional New Holland sales rep recently, made sure Tom got a case of Golden Cap and he was disbursing them to friends. “They were free so I can’t really sell them,” quoth Tom, displaying an admirable set of ethics.

I gave one bottle to Tom Foley for driving me to and from the event and drank the other last night while switching back and forth between the Democratic Convention (I am a political junkie) and the wild Phillies game (baseball junkie too), in which they–ho-hum, again!–lulled the ever-choking Mets into a false sense of security and then broke their hearts in 13 innings (long after the Inevitable Ruch, who I’d warned about this very possiiblity while we were sharing a brew at Victory yesterday afternoon, had left to catch a way-too-early train back to Downingtown). Golden Cap, since I know you’re wondering,  is a nice 7% saison, not gonna blow you away or anything, but crisp and clean and pleasant.

If all these beer comments seem terribly favorable, remember than Saison is my favorite beer style and that the Phillies won. I am in a most good mood this morning.

Regardless of your political persuasion, I’d have to guess that each and every one of you would rather be in Denver tonight than Minneapolis-St. Paul next week.

(Comes to that, and both beer preferences and politics aside, I’d guess that would be true pretty much all the time.)

There’s lot of good beer going to be flowing in Denver this week as usual, but it will include a lot of special brews made just for the Dems ( and Charlie Papazian has some advice for the nominee).

Damned Liberal Media Brewers.

Here’s Stephen on the top five beers in cans, one of which (surprise!) I have in my ‘frig pretty regularly. Thanks to Richard Ruch, who found it even faster than my daily Google search (I guess ’cause even Google sleeps now and then but a dedicated spammer never does).

In this morning’s Inky review (Ruch-submitted as well), Craig LaBan gets a tad nasty about the food at Devil’s Den (and toss in slaps at some other Philly gastropubs too), but he he sure does love him the beer scene a whole buncha lotta.

Leigh Maida, the lovely lady carrying Spanky on her back, checked in this morning to ask some help in imbedding this video on the Memphis Taproom website and mentioned in passing that

Someone from the Orval brewery watched the video on your site & got in touch with Brendan…you’ve got a global readership!

Cool. And I know you guys are all happy to know that you are part of an international community of readers. From my perspective, better it was a paying readership, really, but worldwide fame is a reasonably close second.

Or maybe not.

Finally, in a bit of irony, FedEx, that fine shipping company which seemed dedicated to protecting me from evil booze when it sent back two, count ‘em two, shipments of Budweiser American Ale in a row, ended up calling me at six in the morning one day last week so that they could be sure to have the correct address to get it to me on the third try. Go figure.

It was a lovely package, as most A-B PR shipments are, two bottles of the new Ale (which hits the market mid-September, two bottles of Bud (man, it’s got to be ten residences and a dozen or more refrigerators ago that even one of those rested in a ‘fridge of mine) a very nice embossed Bud glass and an even nicer engraved Bud Ale classic pint glass.

I took one bottle of each and the Bud glass to the Beer Yard to share with Mark, Ryan and the munchkins, and drank the other two side-by-side, the Bud in a simple bar glass and the Bud Ale in the pint they’d sent. Okay, honestly, after a few sips of the Great American Lager, I had refreshed my memory more than enough  and concentrated on the Ale.

Not bad actually, decent hops in the nose, though less evident when drinking, but more flavor than all you geek-y types might have expected. This held true while the beer was still relatively cold, but as I allowed it to warm up, It moved strongly toward that flavor I can’t quite describe but which I’ve often found in mass market beers. A quick cold one or two at a bar or party where there’s nothing craft-y available? I’d have no problem with that, I think (more than one might change my mind, admittedly).

I suspect this beer is going to do reasonably well in the market (although the level which is “reasonably well” for A-B is pretty damned high and I might be overestimating). The package is attractive, Bud is putting its brand strongly on the label (other than with most of the other craft-style brews they’ve introduced and it should have its appeal to  Bud drinkers curious enough to edge carefully over into the growing world of flavorful beers. I’d also guess that other mainstream beer types would at least want to give it a try as well. It is inevitable that some of those people will find that tasting their beers has a strange sort of appeal–a small step, but a step–and some might even be encouraged to step things up a grade.

Among current craft beer drinkers, aside from a novelty try, I’m not sure there’s going to be much of an audience. Maybe some of the Yuengling drinkers? The folks who’ve never moved beyond Sam Adams Lager? I dunno. For them it would be a definite step back in flavor and complexity and, if they were so inclined, why not go to Boston Lager?

In sum: this is a better than a last beer at the bar at 2am option, maybe even a friends with benefits sort of option, but probably not a let’s settle down and create our own seasonals option.

Choose to date or not accordingly.

Ms. Suzanne Woods has introduced breastical naked nudity into the local beer blogging scene…and probably not a minute too soon.

Okay, it’s just a painting and not the real thing, but my sense of the cultural karma tells me that that this one nipple has opened the floodgates. The pressure for a new frontier has been building and this seems the right new thing at the right time. I mean, have you ever read some the beer review sites online? Many are as close as you can get to erotica without all the code words for private parts and awkward descriptions of what goes where.

We are, ready or not, ready for this. In a demographic which embraces the cutting edge, the next step needs must be taken.

The question is, who will bare bear the burden?

My prediction  is that we are no more than two weeks, three days and fourteen hours away from an online book advertisement featuring Joe Sixpack in his birthday suit on a bearskin rug. The man is a natural born promoter.

There are others who might leap into the void even sooner, but don’t even think of asking me to describe the possibilities involving the extensive beer library written by America’s Most Beloved Beer Writer (© Liquid Diet - the Blog, 2008 ). I just hope Mark Haynie has an airtight contract giving him approval of his public appearances.

Either way, shortly after the male barrier has been broken–just because he can–look for the sad, full frontal truth about Big Dan.

Or don’t.

Look, I mean.

(Yes, it’s been a slow day around here.)

…I have to do hardly any work at all to get up a post today.

My pal Carl and America’s beer-loving lovers, Ray & Cornelia, each sent me a piece of priceless art which captures the essence of my little world. See if you can guess who sent what.

Slyfoxbeer.com, Version 2.0, went live earlier this morning, followed by the August Issue of the Sly Fox Newsletter just now.

This baby was a bitch. I hope you all find it worth it.

At one point yesterday, Todd Palmer and the gang at Virtual Farm had five people working on this one project, just because they wanted to get it done and they wanted to get it done right. And that’s why anybody reading this who needs a design firm ought to keep them in mind.

All throughout the last few days and especially yesterday, Todd would email me the latest updates and/or a URL to which I could FTP and download pages with which I could tinker.  I’d do so and change stuff and then either upload the changes or email him back. Nearly always, I’d soon email again with another new thought or request, and he’d come back with…

Well, you get the idea. We’re still talking, so that’s good, and I think we determined at some point that he owes me a beer, which is even gooder.

Yeoman-like work on all this was also done–but not since the weekend which shows you what having your second child will do to a guy–by Brewer Operations Manager Tim Ohst, a guy with a vigilant eye for things that aren’t quite right (like about every other word I type some days).

Go check things out and look for the Newsletter in your email if you’re a subscriber. And feel free to leave comments and/or vicious attacks on the site in the Comments here.