Heading out of town for the holidays? If you find yourself in Terminal D at PHL, check out the selection at Jet Rock. Usually its 40 taps serve pretty much the same beer. But I just got word that Victory Hop Wallop (8.5%) is pouring.
Fact or myth? With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I take a look at the story of the Mayflower and the Pilgrims’ beer stash.
I love paging through old newspapers, a task that’s enhanced with Google’s newspaper archive search engine. While researching this week’s column, I dug up this cool-looking Bud ad . (Click on the ad for a hi-res pdf.)
Bryan Kolesar at the Brew Lounge has compiled a spreadsheet of what’s on tap at 15 - yes, 15 - beer joints throughout northern Chesco this weekend. I don’t know what’s more awesome: the fact that he managed to actually get 15 bar managers to actually tell him what they plan to tap, or the vast number of styles that will be pouring.
Check out these stats:
15 locations
185 beers (121 unique)
57 unique styles
14 styles show up on more than 3 tap handles (totaling 59 beers)
Most frequently found beer: Victory HopDevil (8 times)
Most common style: American Pale Ale (8 times)
Ales outnumber Lagers: 88-33
Fifty-seven unique styles. That’s diversity - one of the hallmarks of Philly’s beer-drinking culture. Also, when did Chester County become such a hotbed of craft beer?
Chick’s Cafe & Wine Bar (614 S. 7th Street, South Philly) has a helluva lineup for its Bière à la Française event on Monday, Nov. 26th. Beer importer Dan Shelton (who tells me I oughta write more often about French beer) will be on hand with varieties from Brasserie Theillier, Brasserie de Saint-Sylvestre and Brasserie Thiriez, paired with a charcuterie plate.
The National Parkinson Foundation says it has received just under $20,000 in donations from the Sept. 30th National Toast to Michael Jackson. While that’s a good bit less than what some of the event’s organizers had hoped, the foundation’s development director Rhonda Roseman-Seriani told me, “we’re very grateful and thrilled.” The foundation is still accepting checks in the Beer Hunter’s name. Just print “Michael Jackson Toast” in the memo field and send it to:
NATIONAL PARKINSON FOUNDATION, INC.
1501 N.W. 9th Avenue / Bob Hope Road
Miami, Florida 33136-1494
Joe Sixpack reg’lar brsrkrbob reminds me, upon reading my piece a couple of weeks ago on John Stuart Mill’s choice of beer, that Monty Python’s Flying Circus may have written the greatest tribute to Beer & Philosophy. For those who’ve forgotten the lyrics:
Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
    who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
    who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out consume
    Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
    who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.
There’s nothing Nietzsche couldn’t teach ya
   ’bout the raisin’ of the wrist.
Socrates himself was permanently pissed.
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
   after half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away,
    ‘alf a crate of whiskey every day!
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
    and Hobbes was fond of his Dram.
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart:
    “I drink, therefore I am.”
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he’s pissed.
I’ve written previously of my fondness for Bud Light’s Real Men of Genius (the commercials, not the beer). Youtube has a bunch of video mashups of the radio spots. Here’s another, slightly better version.
I finally found an internet connection over here in Bavaria. This will be short because of the freaking German kezboard. A partial rundown of the beer intake so far - Faust, Konig Ludwig, Hacker Pschorr, HB, fresh Schlenkerla rauchbier, Carl Furst. All lagers, mainly pils and many, many bocks.
I´m a pro, so I can handle the beer. It´s the freaking food that´s killing me. Non-stop pork knuckles, wurst, sauerbraten and dumplings the size of breast implants. I swear I went three days before I saw a veggie. I asked for a salad at one place, and they gave me shredded lunchmeat. I also had lunch with an actual princess who posed with a glass of her brewery´s fest brew for my upcoming book on Christmas beer.
Meanwhile the gang at the back of the bus is consuming vast quantities of schnapps and playing a Bavarian card game called Sheephead.
More details when I return.
This week’s column is posted, and it urges you to turn to John Stuart Mill to answer one of the great beer-drinking questions of the ages.
And speaking of drinking, I’m headed to Germany tomorrow for a week of research and I’m not sure if they’ve got the Internets over there. So this blog might be silent for a few days. Hang in there.
Looks like Shangy’s, the mega import distributor, has come up with a replacement for Hoegaarden after losing/selling distribution those rights to area A-B houses. It’s Blanche des Bruxelles, a somewhat beefier Belgian wit. It’s pretty light with the usual coriander/orange peel thing going on. I’ve seen it crop up in recent weeks at several joints, including Monk’s Cafe and Old Eagle. I wouldn’t expect it to knock off Hoegaarden, which is everywhere around town.
That little boy, by the way, used to be on the label. He’s Mannekin Pis, the whimsical fountain that has become the symbol of Brussels. A few years ago, Pennsylvania state liquor prudes ordered the kid off the label, claiming one of Europe’s most recognizable pieces of public art is obscene.  Â
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