Memphis Taproom Thirstoberfest!

It was amaz­ing! Beau­ti­ful weath­er goes per­fect­ly with great beer and peo­ple. Had a lot of fun.

What did I drink? (Looks at list.) Keep in mind they were 6 oz. cups. Oth­er­wise I’d prob­a­bly still be lay­ing in the biergarten.

List­ed in no par­tic­u­lar order:

  • Alla­gash Confluence
  • Cig­ar City Maduro Brown Ale
  • Dog­fish Head Bitch­es Brew
  • Dog­fish Head Sai­son du Buff
  • Green Flask Le Freak
  • Har­poon Wet Hop
  • Ommegang Cup o’ Kyndnes
  • Sly Fox Keller Helles
  • Vic­to­ry Sai­son du Buff

Jesse cooked up some mar­velous food, too. I wolfed down his chou­croute gar­nie. What’s that. Think meat plate. It was Boudin blanc, ribs, pork bel­ly, kiel­basy, pota­toes and kraut. Hearty. Just what the doc­tor ordered.

My Two Cents on Philly Beer Week

Philly Beer Week real­ly works for a select con­stituen­cy, main­ly the guys who are cov­er­ing the local beer scene. The rest of us can par­take in the bajil­lion events hap­pen­ing all over the place if we like, but if arti­cles like this one are any indi­ca­tion, Philly Beer Week has more in com­mon with the local music scene in Octo­ber than any­one would like to admit. Guys, all these events do is just can­ni­bal­ize each oth­er! (Hat tip to Lew Bryson for shar­ing that link on Face­book. I would’ve total­ly missed that piece in all the hoopla.)

I noticed an insight­ful tid­bit from Mithras, a great Philly blog­ger I’d not read in a lit­tle while. He wrote:

I under­stand that bars have to pay a fee to PBW to par­tic­i­pate. One bar own­er told me it was $500. With 1,000 venues, that’s a lot of rev­enue. Of course it’s in PBW’s inter­est to have more and more events — but it’s not in bar own­ers’ or in beer drinkers’ interests.

So there’s the fol­low the mon­ey angle, if PBW orga­niz­ers have no skin in the game for week to be a suc­cess­ful one from a stand­point of curat­ing a great city­wide beer experience.

Of course, I’m with the folks who just think that hav­ing Philly Beer Week dur­ing the first week of June is just sil­ly. I man­aged to get over to Mem­phis Tap­room — which is lit­er­al­ly around the cor­ner from my house, as I’ve writ­ten repeat­ed­ly — exact­ly twice. Helen and I squeezed in a quick din­ner and drinks before the Erykah Badu con­cert and I made it back over one evening for a hasty Hap­py Hour with Char­lie in my lap. I prob­a­bly drank three beers total at Mem­phis Tap­room that week, which is actu­al­ly few­er than most weeks.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the idea of mak­ing a fuss over Philly Beer Week. When I talk to beer-lov­ing friends who live else­where they nev­er for­get to remind me just how lucky I am to be a Penn­syl­van­ian, PLCB notwith­stand­ing. We need to cel­e­brate what makes this state so spe­cial to the micro­brew cul­ture that’s matur­ing into a sus­tain­able busi­ness and not just lux­u­ry brews for beer snobs. But aren’t we cel­e­brat­ing that very thing night­ly in this town? Do we real­ly need big­ger, bet­ter, faster, more? Philly Beer Week is verg­ing on SXSW Music in terms of sheer scope and insanity.

Jack Curtin seems to feel the same way. Sure, March can be tricky, too, what with the whole St. Patrick­’s Day thing, to say noth­ing of the impend­ing 96 team field for March Mad­ness, which may add an addi­tion­al week­end to the pro­ceed­ings. Fac­tor in the lousy weath­er we had this win­ter and maybe Philly Beer Week dodged a bul­let by mov­ing to June. With any luck, the orga­niz­ers will work some of the kinks out for next year and it’ll be the dream event every­one wants it to be.

(In case you’re won­der­ing, I drank a delight­ful impe­r­i­al stout from Brew­Dog called Tokyo. I thought it’d do me in. Need I men­tion what an amaz­ing job Leigh, Bren­dan and the crew do over at Mem­phis Tap­room dur­ing Philly Beer Week? No Repeat Beer Week for me is the epit­o­me of what makes Philly such a great beer town. My neigh­bor­hood bar can cre­ate the entire expe­ri­ence in a micro­cosm! As they say where I grew up, ‘Nix besser!’)

Happy New Year!

Helen and I spent a qui­et evening in our neigh­bor­hood. We ate a deli­cious din­ner at Mem­phis Tap­room — short ribs on a seafood grits bed — and I had a flight of Gift of the Magi, Port San­ta’s Lit­tle Helper, and Nøgne Ø‘s God Jul. The beer was amaz­ing as well. Our sec­ond New Year’s Eve din­ner was just as great as our first.

We can’t say enough how much we love that place and the peo­ple who work there. It’s like an exten­sion of our liv­ing room and kitchen. It’s our Cheers. We get great ser­vice, great food, and great beer. It’s hard to believe it’s been open less than two years. It feels like it’s been there forever.

We spent the rest of the evening at home, watch­ing movies, drink­ing beer, wait­ing for Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest to count down to the New Year. It’s a minor mir­a­cle that Helen and I were able to stay awake to see the ball drop. Char­lie’s usu­al­ly wak­ing us by 4:30 in the morning!

The start of 2010 was much more com­fort­able than where we found our­selves on Y2K. As Helen and I sat on the couch, watch­ing tele­vi­sion, I could­n’t help but think how lost we were last year after we board­ed the R5 in the wrong direc­tion, jumped off at Wayne Junc­tion, and found our­selves strand­ed there until Helen’s aunt and uncle picked us up. We did­n’t even have cell­phones back then!

To add insult to injury, we end­ed up there after going to see G. Love at the Elec­tric Fac­to­ry. No fur­ther com­ment necessary.

As we start 2010, we’re thank­ful for our friends and fam­i­ly who’ve been there for us all along. We feel very lucky in these try­ing times. Here’s to a great 2010 and the decade ahead!

Dogfish Head Simul-cask @ Memphis Taproom

Last Thurs­day was a ban­ner night for this beer lover. I met my friend Adam and we strolled on over to Mem­phis Tap­room to enjoy a great Dog­fish Head stunt tap­ping for their 75 Minute IPA. We got there a lit­tle ear­ly think­ing we might have to twid­dle our thumbs for a minute before they tapped the cask, but no, we were just in time to knock down a few pints of this great IPA.The 75 Minute IPA blends their trade­mark 60 and 90 Minute IPAs, result­ing in a remark­ably smooth IPA that will still knock you flat if you’re not careful.

Adam and I end­ed up hav­ing a won­der­ful con­ver­sa­tion with my friend Der­rick, anoth­er Mem­phis Tap reg­u­lar and ama­teur beer afi­ciona­do like myself. We dis­cussed the mer­its of Dog­fish Head­’s approach to brew­ing and how great it is to be sand­wiched between so many great brew­eries, all of which are doing dif­fer­ent, dis­tinc­tive things. Dog­fish Head real­ly does a great job of brew­ing sig­na­ture IPAs, com­ple­ment­ed nice­ly by great sea­son­als. I think their spring and sum­mer beers, both of which fea­ture great fruit fla­vors, are among the most refresh­ing I drink, with­out being sick­en­ing­ly sweet.

As an aside, I want­ed to take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to men­tion Jay Hin­man’s great beer blog, Hedo­nist Beer Jive. Some of you may rec­og­nize Jay from his leg­endary music blog, Agony Short­hand. Now, instead of debat­ing issues of race with Black to Comm, he’s telling you why he won’t pony up for expen­sive bombers of Russ­ian Riv­er Con­se­cra­tion (and I don’t blame him!) Jay’s always been a great read, and his beer writ­ing is just as fun and engag­ing as his music writ­ing ever was.

Food: It’s All Good in the ‘Hood

When Helen and I left our Mum­mer’s Row apart­ment for our house here on Let­ter­ly St. in Decem­ber 2006, it was a sad affair. We left behind a deli­cious world of Ital­ian bak­eries and restau­rants, as well as some great sand­wich­es, too, for a new neigh­bor­hood where the most obvi­ous food options were Jovan’s Place, a quaint Yugoslav restau­rant around the cor­ner, and Key Foods Piz­za across the street. It pains me to tell you that one evening we were so des­per­ate for din­ner we got take­out from — gasp — Apple­bee’s. It was prob­a­bly our culi­nary rock bottom.

But there was light at the end of the tun­nel. In the two years we’ve lived up here we’ve found some great food, whether it’s Mem­phis Tap­room around the cor­ner when we’re just look­ing for a quick bite and some­thing to drink, or Bistro Juliana for the delight­ful Ital­ian food we loved so much in our old neigh­bor­hood. But that’s not all! I recent­ly made an ear­ly morn­ing run to Czer­w’s on Tilton St. for sev­er­al pounds of smoked kiel­basa and fresh-made piero­gies. If there is a heav­en, I hope it smells like Czer­w’s. There’s great Mex­i­can at Las Cazue­las, or quick Mex­i­can at Taco Rien­do. We’ve even found some decent piz­za, hav­ing recent­ly tried San­tuc­ci’s upside-down square pie. Now we feel like we have more options than we ever did back in old Pennsport.

We’re not alone. Our neigh­bor­hood has recent­ly been a new focal point in local cui­sine, fea­tur­ing both new­com­ers and old. The amaz­ing Rick Nichols recent­ly ven­tured up Rich­mond St. in Port Rich­mond, high­light­ing all the won­de­ful Pol­ish food the neigh­bor­hood offers. Think that sounds deli­cious? Then you should spend a Sat­ur­day after­noon with him on his Edi­ble World Food Tour that’s being orga­nized by First Per­son Arts! (I’ll add that you should check out the oth­er New Wave Cafe up on Alleghe­ny Avenue for a few rounds of strong Pol­ish beer and more than your fair share of kiel­basa and pierogies.)

Metro con­trib­u­tor and Foo­booz writer Arthur Etchells also reps for our ‘hood in his recent arti­cle, “Riv­er Ward Steps Up.” He talks about some of the restau­rants I men­tioned above, as well as The Pick­led Heron, a restau­rant that will bring fin­er din­ing to Frank­ford Avenue lat­er this spring. They also hope to take part in Riv­er Ward Restau­rant Week! That’s real­ly excit­ing, espe­cial­ly since there was some spec­u­la­tion about whether or not they would still be open­ing as the econ­o­my took the plunge. I can’t wait to try their menu!

When our friends Rick and Grace recent­ly moved up to Let­ter­ly St. just two doors up the block, we assured them it was a great neigh­bor­hood that we’d been beta-test­ing for over two years. It’s a great area that blends old favorites like Jovan’s Place and Mem­phis Tap­room. We have Greens­grow Farms and Philadel­phia Brew­ing Com­pa­ny around the cor­ner, too! Now when you think of Port Fish­ing­ton, think food!