Beer Radar

Phoenixville is getting another brewer. Unfortunately, he won’t be making any beer.

Chris Firey, who has been head brewer at Manayunk Brewing since January 2004, tells me he’s moving to P-ville to make agave-based fruit wine.  Firey tried to explain the shift to me last night when I stopped in for a couple rounds, but honestly I stopped listening the second he said “wine.”

The new brewer is Doug Marchakitus, formerly assistant at Iron Hill/North Wales. Doug worked there with brewer Larry Horwitz, who was Firey’s predecessor at Manayunk. Before I could say, “small world,” Marchakitus said, “Larry’s the one who helped me get the job here.”

Marchakitus told me he’d already cooked up his first brew: a Belgian tripel. Meanwhile, Firey leaves behind a solid tap lineup. The Philadelphia Porter that’s about to kick is one of the best-made brews I’ve had from Manayunk. And the Black Eye P.A. is an outstanding hop treat with a solid black malt body.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 10:24 am and is filed under Brewery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.