Märzen across the Delaware

Philadelphia's Oktoberfest 2009 is Saturday, the same day Oktoberfest in Munich begins.

Unlike Bavaria, where the Märzens will pour over several days (Sept. 19-Oct. 4), you have only one day for the eins, zwei, drei g'suffa! in Philly.

Here's the link for the Philly nod to Ludwig and Therese's nuptials. Flying Fish is the lone Jersey brewer among the beer lineup, which also features the deutschers of Spaten, Ayinger, Hacker-Pschorr and Paulaner, plus enough pumpkin ale to float your gourd.

Meanwhile, New York City's Craft Beer Week wraps up on Sunday, which makes New Jersey – sans a beer week of its own – again that barrel tapped at both ends, as Benjamin Franklin is said to have described the Garden State. Only now, you can apply that notion to New York City and Philadelphia's drawing upon New Jersey's craft beer patrons, pretty much undercutting our beer identity.

Is New Jersey Beer Week the answer to burnishing our beer profile? The idea's worth some consideration.

Tria trip (Philly and back)

Philadelphia has been off our radar for a while now. Once there, you really don’t want to leave the city’s beer menu behind, it’s such a beer Shangri-La.

“Think Jersey, Drink Jersey” have been our watchwords; they still are, always will be. But allow us one an indulgence before summer folds its tent.

The trip to Philly started out as a quest for a pint of Sly Fox’s new schwarzbier, but the glass ended up going to a Belgian IPA and a rather robust London porter, rounded out with some exceptional blue-veined cheese. (With some luck, we’ll still get that schwarzbier.)

De Ranke XX Bitter (6% ABV) was a nice discovery on the beer menu at Tria café (18th and Sansom). Hoppy but not at all overwhelming, crisper than expected, quite good in fact. The one drawback: It’s a pricey proposition – $8.50 for an 11-ounce bottle (imports on Tria’s menu hit your wallet pretty hard).

But honestly, compare that to $10 for the same size bottle of Chimay at the tourist trap Phillips Seafood at the Pier on the Atlantic City boardwalk, poured by bar staff who don’t know much about the beer beyond sliding the requisite Chimay goblet in front of you, and then it becomes more about branding and less about the beer. (We’re not knocking our home state here, just pointing out a sad reality. But at least Phillips, a Baltimore import, has that choice on their beer list in AC.)

Tria’s all about matching beers and wines with great foods, so the timid and intrepid can pose their beer questions to the servers and get reliable answers.

We asked about the Meantime coffee porter on their menu, inquiring if they would bring one to our table. Meantime’s a London brewery that proudly wants you know they’re not a big UK national brewery. And they boast a cup of coffee in each bottle of the porter.

It’s a roasty, tasty beer, but to be honest it begs for some food to go with it, in our case, smoked chicken with Spanish peppers, cheese and herbed truffle mayo (a little less of the mayo next time, please).

Again, a price caveat – another $8.50. But the old saw about nothing ventured, nothing gained applies.

So how do you wrap up an excursion like this?

You hit DiBruno Bros. (Chestnut Street) around the corner for some take-home cheese (triple cream brie), then step over to Nodding Head (Samson Street) for a pint of Rubicon (we strongly considered the 3C Extreme Double IPA – Chinook, Cascade and Centennial hops – well, we did get a taste of it, and for a muscled-up IPA, it’s invitingly smooth), then you get naked, as in Naked Chocolate Café (13th and Walnut). The name pretty much says it all.

And for a nightcap at home base?

Well, this was supposed to be a Sly Fox moment, so their Royal Weisse fit the bill. And after all, it’s summer.

Milestones, Part 2

We’re not much on crowing about ourselves, but Beer-Stained Letter marked its first anniversary last week, Jan. 31st to be exact.

To give ourselves a perfunctory pat on the back, we headed to Firewaters in Atlantic City, not so much to toast the past year and usher in the next, but to dig into a couple pints of Baltic Thunder and chat with Victory Brewing sales rep Pete Danford, who was on hand for the draft release of the imperial porter at the bar in the Tropicana casino.

Baltic Thunder has grabbed some blogosphere limelight, owing to its artisanal Heavy Weight Perkuno’s Hammer ancestry (a bit of the beer’s history can be found here), and has now made its way to Jersey taps. Look for the dark clouds to form over P.J. Whelihan's in Haddonfield this month and High Street Grill in Mount Holly on Leap Day. It’s also in bomber bottles at package goods stores with good beer sensibilities.

Want three words to summarize Baltic Thunder? Try rich, velvety and inviting. But a heads up, Thunder has a clap, too, at 8.5% ABV. So, you can toss in a fourth word, too: hearty.

While at Firewaters, we ran into Mark Haynie, a founding member of the NJ Association of Beerwriters (more on that in a minute). Mark came to the BT pouring armed with a cellared bottle of Perkuno’s Hammer, offering a handy taste reference for those at the bar sipping Thunder. Many thanks, Mark. Hope to cross paths again soon, owe you a pint.

Comparatively speaking, Perkuno’s alcohol flavors are more up front than Baltic Thunder’s. And since we were watching “High Fidelity” when we wrote this, and patting ourselves on the back for having Jimmy Cliff on our iPod (watch the movie, you’ll know what we’re talking about), we'll say we can’t decide if PH is the Bob Dylan version of “All Along The Watchtower,” while BT is the seminal Jimi Hendrix cover. Whatever, both make the charts.

Yearling
Speaking of Mark Haynie, he’s working on the New Jersey Breweries book with Lew Bryson. Mark says their efforts are being edited now, and Lew told us last month that it’ll probably be August (or sometime thereafter) when the book becomes available.

Speaking of this blog and books about New Jersey-brewed beer, writing a guide to the Garden State’s breweries, brewpubs and homebrewers market was the reason BSL jumped into the über crowded field of beer blogging.

But early on, it became obvious that gathering string for a book would take us a minimum of two years, three was more like it, to make up for five-year a gap in our tracking of the region’s beer scene. That’s about half the life of Jersey’s craft beer movement (we blame the hiatus on a mind-numbing five-plus years of working at the AP in Trenton and the subsequent demanding, all-over-the-place schedule; thankfully we said farewell to that insanity).

Nonetheless, when Lew announced in August 2007 that he was undertaking NJ Breweries, well it only made sense to stand clear and let someone with the time in, contacts and publisher do their thing. (Lew has written books on Pennsylvania breweries; likewise for Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and New York, and is/was a Keystone State member/founder of NJ Association of Beerwriters.)

We’re looking forward to the finished work on Jersey. And if you support the endeavor, buy a copy not from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Borders but at a book-signing; you’ll be supporting the author directly that way.

On camera
Meanwhile for BSL, stepping away from the book ambitions freed us up to pursue more video projects with New Jersey beer & brewers, which rather emerged as a passion and focus for us. (If you’ve appeared in the handful of vids we’ve done thus far, or have agreed to participate in an upcoming one, then we owe a huge debt of thanks.) Our favorite video over the past year was Oktoberfest (even though it’s a little off the top in the approach to the topic); our best work was the Brewers Guild festival on the battleship USS New Jersey. Our most successful videos have been on Rich Wagner’s Colonial brewing demonstration and an animation on Cricket Hill’s dart-throwing challenge, assembled from stills shot at the Philly Craft Beer Festival a year ago.

And as we noted last month, we have a few video projects under production now, plus more on the way. The camera never blinks.

Lastly, the focus of this blog has been more chamber of commerce-like to the Garden State’s microbrewing industry, championing those efforts, and not trying to gaze upon them with critiques and evaluation. For a state of nearly 9 million people, you’d think New Jersey would have a higher profile in the industry. Alas, no. Jersey’s micros and brewpubs are somewhat spread out, scattered, and we remain a state where the blandness of Bud, Coors and Miller still claims legions of drinkers, and observations like "at least they have Sam Adams (or Guinness) on tap" make you pine for the successes of Pennsylvania (and have you wishing you were in craft beer-friendly Philadelphia more often). Sigh.

So cheers and thanks to everyone who clicked on our site over the past year or took a phone call from us. Check out our new logo, but more importantly have a beer and salute the choice that craft beer provides.

Hammer of the grogs

This is short notice (but not really since Lew Bryson’s blog “Seen Through A Glass” has had it listed for a couple weeks now):

Baltic Thunder, Victory Brewing’s new rich, gale-force porter that is heir to the throne of Perkuno’s Hammer, gets a draft unveiling this Saturday (that’s Jan. 5th) at The Drafting Room in Exton, Pa. A kind, female voice at the bar today confirmed the event is still on and says serving starts at noon. (See Lew’s site for the on-tap details.)

The story thus far
Named after the mythological Baltic god of thunder, Perkuno’s Hammer was the imperial porter created (with some key and label-credited assistance from Lew) by Tom Baker of Heavy Weight Brewing, the diamond in the rough brewery based in Ocean Township, Monmouth County (just south of Red Bank, where the original Basil T’s puts pints on the bar and Tom has guest brewed).

Robust, high gravity beers were the province of Heavy Weight, which sold its beer in four-packs (Smaller Package – Bigger Beer, as their saying went). Tom developed a following as an artisanal brewer before deciding to close HW (in August 2006, thereabouts), and take his mash rake and cross the Delaware to Philly (Mount Airy section), where yet even more blog words say he recently signed a lease for a new brewpub, where he can dust off his recipes under the banner “Earth, Bread & Brewery.”

The V sign
Beforehand, though, all the forlorn beer faces staring at the possibility that Perkuno’s Hammer would strike no more were buoyed by the news that Victory (of Downingtown, Pa., whose great beers we drank practically all December long, in between Jersey brews) had reached an agreement under which it would brew PH under the label Baltic Thunder, with some alterations here and there to the recipe, if we’re not mistaken.

A sneak peak
Tom was able to dole out a taste of the heir to PH as the finale to a talk he gave on the maltiness of beer last fall at Tria Fermentation School in Philly. If you were one of the 30 or so lucky folks there that evening, you can attest to the richness of PH’s progeny. (If you’ve never been to a Tria session, and you like to not just drink beer, but talk beer and gain a better understanding of the chorus of flavors that entice and wow you, then sign up for a Tria session. It’s fun and informative, and comes with great pretzels from Sansom Street, excellent cheeses and warm hosts and great speakers.)

Storm clouds are gathering. Listen to the thunder. It’s hammer time again.

What they (Victory brewers) say:
Truly a worldly beer. Baltic Thunder represents the Baltic Porter style admirably. Exhibiting the enticing, toffee roast of the British porter that originated the style in the 18th century, and the soothing, subtle fruit nuance of contemporary brews that flourish from Helsinki to Vilnius today, this dark lager honors the Baltic god of thunder. Created by an inspired collaboration of brewers and tempered with a touch of turmoil, Baltic Thunder rolls on to bring you enchanting light as the darkness fades.

Hops: European whole flower. Malts: imported German 2 row and roasted malts. ABV: 8.5%

The way you knew it:
A dark and mysterious, subtle, Baltic porter, a style difficult to find outside of the Baltics. PH's grain bill consisted of ample amounts of Munich malt with some chocolate and other specialty malts and Roman beans, fermented with a Bavarian lager yeast. Lew Bryson called it a collision of doublebock and imperial stout. 8% ABV

And Philly Makes Three, Reprised

No more talk, speculation.

Triumph Brewing’s doors are open and taps flowing in Old City Philadelphia.

The stylish brewpub that built a reputation for some great beers in Princeton has been serving to growing crowds in Philly since Wednesday.

On the slate you’ll find eight styles listed, including Triumph’s signatures like Bengal Gold IPA and honey wheat, as well as its gold medal-winning kellerbier (a German style unfiltered lager).

Rounding out the lineup are an amber ale, porter, oatmeal stout, chico ale and a dunkel lager well known at Triumph’s New Hope, Pa., location.

Triumph folks say they’re bullish on the Philly site (on Chestnut Street), and expect to do well in a city where beers of all walks draw legions of fans.

Makes you want to pull up stakes for Old City.

Two for the Show

Some quick notes from Sunday’s annual Brewer’s Plate festival in Philadelphia.

This is an affair that really underscores the inseparable tie between beer and food.

So if you weren’t one of the 1,000 people at the Reading Terminal Market savoring fine cheeses, seafoods, smoked meats and a some really kickin’ “beeramisu” at the third outing of this event, you’ll definitely want to put it on your calendar for next year.

Here’s why ...

The Brewer’s Plate (a fundraiser by nonprofit White Dog Community Enterprises) unites artisinal foods and dishes from some great Philly area restaurants with beers from craft brewers within a 150-mile radius of the city. Great food, great beer. Great expectations.

(This year, the festival featured 18 restaurants and 18 breweries, with each brewery and its two beers styles paired off with two different restaurants.)

But the event also makes a deeper statement about locally grown and produced food. And locally made beer. And that is, when you make those establishments your go-to purveyors, you create and nurture a community, not to mention giving an important boost to local economic development.

What’s that mantra about craft beers? Support your local brewery? Well, that’s part of what the Brewer’s Plate is saying.

And it’s one of the reasons we stepped across the Delaware to check out the pours from Jersey gems like Climax Brewing and Flying Fish and Triumph. (River Horse Brewing was also extended an invitation to the event but apparently could not make it.)

Some highlights of the Garden State at the event, a bit of what went on our plate and in our glass: Climax (Roselle Park) saw its very able ESB paired with a fantastic crab bisque from Ortlieb’s Jazzhaus, whose wonderfully spicy jambalaya was also matched up with the Farmhouse Summer Ale from Flying Fish (Cherry Hill). We’re big on spicy food, so this was a line we hit a few times more than we should admit.

(Climax’s Nut Brown Ale was paired with some excellent cured meats from London Grill. HopFish, the creamy IPA by Flying Fish, was served with pan-seared scallops from Patou.)

Triumph, which spans both sides of the Delaware, featured a dunkel larger (on tap at its New Hope, Pa., location) with pork loin and lentil pilaf from White Dog Cafe. (Triumph also poured its signature Bengal Gold IPA with a really tasty pulled pork sandwich.)

Great food and great beer always keep good company. Two for the show.

Light the way

Climax Brewing doubled down for Lent, and now brewer Dave Hoffmann is following that up by seeing the light.

The Roselle Park brewery plans to release Hoffmann Helles (4.6% ABV) about April 2nd in its customary kegs and half-gallon growlers (which are filled on a bottling line. The beer keeps longer than growlers filled from the tap, like it’s done at brewpubs, Hoffmann says.)

Signature flavors in Hoffmann's helles (which, as you know, is auf deutsch for "light," as in a reference to color): Spalt hops and a breadiness that tastes like it came from a decoction mash.

Hoffmann Helles comes on the coattails of Climax’s Lenten season release of a doublebock (named, as you can guess, Hoffmann Doppelbock; 7% ABV, Spalt and Hallertauer hops). It's the fourth year for both styles under Climax's brand. Incidentally, Climax is going on its 12th year as a brewery.

Climax’s beers can be found in draft and growlers across North Jersey, and on draft in Philadelphia bars. South Jersey folks may have to trek to Mount Holly or Florence (at Red White & Brew) to find Roselle Park’s finest in malt art.

And Philly makes three

The newest flower in the beer garden is set to bloom in early spring with some honey wheat, amber ale and Bengal Gold IPA.

We are, of course, referring to Triumph Brewing’s much anticipated new location in Philadelphia (two bars and a restaurant and a 15-barrel brewery inside 12,000 square feet), its third after Princeton and New Hope, Pa.

When the doors to the Old City site swing open, you can also expect a stout on tap, as well as beer on a hand pump.

Rounding out the location’s amenities: Internet WiFi, a 100-inch projection TV with surround sound, a private dining room and a business center.

The chat board buzz about Triumph pouring beer at Second and Chestnut has mentioned “early spring” since mid-winter. Regarding the grand opening, company reps were staying with that phrase on Monday.

If you’re the antsy type and not satisfied with that explanation, think about it this way: Spring starts Tuesday and Triumph probably wants to be open in Philadelphia as much as anyone who wants them to start filling pint glasses.

(Side note: Brewing operations chief Jay Misson will oversee the Philly location and Patrick Jones, the current New Hope brewer, will handle daily brewing duties.)

Trivial pursuits

Speaking of Triumph (which recently celebrated the 12th anniversary of its Princeton brewpub) …

The Oxford English Dictionary has just given the word wiki its lexicographic due.

Wiki's joining 287 other words in the latest online version of the venerated reference tome. (Wiki had already made the cut in the dictionary in Mac OS X that runs our PowerBook and G5, by the way.)

The word refers to websites that allow collaborative editing of content and structure by users and perhaps is most famously associated in mainstream usage with Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. (Wiki comes from wiki-wiki, a Hawaiian phrase meaning “quick-quick;” it owes its cyber life to programmer Ward Cunningham. We know all this because we looked it up.)

Winning a spot in the OED is probably a big deal somewhere to someone, but it has virtually nothing to do with Jersey beer, were it not for two entries in Wikipedia: Triumph and Flying Fish Brewing (Cherry Hill).

Somewhere along the line, the two Jersey brewers picked up some wiki-nality and were immortalized in Wikipedia. (See entries here and here.) Tun Tavern also has an entry, but it details the history as the Philadelphia birthplace of the U.S. Marine Corps and only offers a link to the Tun's Atlantic City brewpub.

Such wikognition doesn’t strike us as having the same bragging rights as grabbing a gold medal in Colorado in the fall.

But if you follow the logic that any publicity is good publicity, then appearing in a compendium that lives its life as a work in progress where anyone can chime in with his knowledge on the subject probably can’t hurt. (By the by, for the ambitious out there, you can bump up Wikipedia’s article count by authoring entries on the rest of New Jersey’s brewers.) We’re wondering: Is there a Pete’s Wiki Ale out there?

(Side note: We reached out to the Wikimedia Foundation and its founder Jimbo Wales last week to ask three important questions: Do you like beer? Ever been to Jersey? Ever had a Jersey-made beer? The foundation said he was in Japan, and we suspect our email to him posing those questions got snagged by his spam filter. Or he just plain thought we were drunk.)

Summer in April, no foolin’

And speaking of Flying Fish, April 1 will see the 11th release of the Farmhouse Summer Ale, the Ra of the Fish’s seasonal beers.

Once upon a time, Flying Fish made this beer with a dash of sour mash, an intrepid endeavor for any brewery. These days acidulated malt gives the beer the tang that Farmhouse fans expect.

If you’re sprucing up the back yard and wheeling the grill (or smoker) out of winter storage, keep this beer in mind. We like it as the denominator in a half and half with Guinness. Or try it straight up with a bacon cheese burger turbocharged with some jalapeños.

Foam by the Sea

When Atlantic City parties, you can bet there’s going to be some spectacle. It is, after all, the playground by the sea that once brought you midget wrestling, boxing kangaroos and, of course, diving horses.

Then perhaps that’s why the Atlantic City Beer Festival is really as much about the sideshow as it is the beer. It’s a raucous two-day party where you can lose yourself in the moment with silly hats, shirts, beer goggles, cheesecake (the leggy kind) and scooters made from coolers.

And it doesn’t hurt that the second annual Celebration of the Suds (held Saturday and Sunday at the Convention Center) had a wide selection of brews to sate every taste.

Details make the story, so here they are …

By the numbers

Beers: 200-plus that generously spanned the globe. The mix included a lot of familiar faces (almost too many; great festivals offer a chance to discover), such as domestic mainstays Sierra Nevada and Samuel Adams; regional craft brewers Brooklyn Brewery and Dogfish Head (Delaware); and imports Guinness, Harp, Duvel, and Young’s. (Alas, we didn’t see Fuller’s in the mix, a UK favorite that’s always in our fridge.) Toss in Singha from Thailand and Asahi from Japan, and you get the picture.

Full house: 2,000 or so beerheads (our estimate) at the first Saturday session (noon to 4:30 p.m.) that we attended (admission was $25 in advance, $30 day of). We suspect the remaining two sessions (6 to 10:30 p.m. Saturday and 1 to 5:30 p.m. on Sunday) had similar turnouts.

Jersey Guild brewers: One, the Tun Tavern. The Tun is the home team, located across the street from the Convention Center. We had several samples of the Tun’s quite able ESB. And for the second year in a row, the Tun served as our post-fest place to unwind and grab a bite to eat (try their One Tun Burger with a pint of the Irish Red). Some day we’d like to see the Suds fest attract more Jersey craft brewers and neighboring state brewpubs (like Iron Hill or Nodding Head), for that matter.

Serving size: 2 ounces. It’s what the New Jersey beer police say is the hard limit for serving patrons. For the hale and hearty, it’s a swallow; for the more relaxed, it’s a couple of sips.

Floor plan: 80,000 square feet of elbow-bending room. That’s a step up. (See below).

Details et cetera

Beers of note: Brooklyn Brewery’s Local One, a tasty bottle-conditioned golden ale that was really smooth for clocking in at 9% ABV; a creamy organic oatmeal stout from Wolaver/Otter Creek (Vermont), no harshness from the roasted barley, despite being poured under CO2 (and not nitrogen); Double White Ale from Southampton Ales & Lagers (Long Island, NY), a nice blend of oranges and coriander; and a dark lager from Podkovan (Czech Republic), rich but not cloying.

Obligatory beer: Guinness. This is after all March, and the color of the day was shamrock green. We love a Guinness any time of year, but seeing it poured in 2-ounce shots just kills the whole ritual surrounding it. Maybe we’ll pass on this next year.

Sweet memory: Tröeg’s Troegenator Double Bock tasted a little sweeter than we remembered from the Philly Craft Beer Festival (March 3). No matter, it’s a great beer.

Missed opportunity: Baltika … Russian beers. For a while, their station always had a crowd queuing up for a pour, which kept us moving. We never made it back before last call (4 p.m.). Hopefully, another time.

Music: Neo-Celtic band Birnam Wood -- kilts, bagpipes, fiddles, acoustic guitars, and a redheaded lass. They headlined the entertainment at last year’s Celebration of the Suds, and again this year, sharing the stage with Beatlemania Now, which we saw standing there. Speaking words of wisdom, let ’em be. We love the Beatles, and we were curious about Beatlemania Now’s run at Harrah’s casino this month. But there’s a difference between tribute bands and impersonations, and oh darling, please believe us, this was just kind of silly.

Food: Gotta work on this one. There was a concession station shoehorned into a corner. It just looked so unappetizing. There’s quite a lot of talk and copy written about pairing food with beers, and cooking with beer, for that matter. Hence, the need to step up on this one. We understand trying to balance what’s realistic for a festival, but at the same time, food is really worth the extra effort. One bright spot here: Samples of a killer crab bisque from High Point Pub. High Point’s a bar (not brewpub) in Absecon (outside Atlantic City); they hit the festival to drum up some business with this awesome soup that’s worth a trip through their doors.

Disappointment: This year’s taster glass went plastic. Last year it was the real deal -- glass. We’ve cried in our beer over plastic vs. glass before, but when the topic came up while in line for the men’s room, well, we felt validated. True, plastic is safer and cheaper, and honestly the change wasn’t unexpected. But the taster is a keepsake, and it would have been great if they kept it glass.

Overheard: “Is this the line?” Speaking of the bathroom, there was just one location each for men and women (but additional facilities just outside the festival hall). So relieving yourself meant sacrificing drinking time in painfully long lines.

Smokin’ in the boys’ room: Yeah, you know it’s against the rules. But unlike last year, there was no re-entry to the festival hall upon leaving. Which made for that bitch of a line to the john, and turned the can into Marlboro Country when the nicotine crowd wasn't willing to wait.

Logistics, Take One: A bigger hall and rectangular layout of sample stations made for easy movement. Last year’s festival had a linear set-up, a stretched oval, with two main aisles that made for horrid bottlenecks in almost parallel locations. The improvement was welcomed. But …

Logistics, Take Two: Speaking of long lines … they snaked around the Convention Center from the ticket windows and from the turnstiles. There was also too much showing of IDs. Next time, please separate the will call window from the day-of ticket sales. Also, we understand the need to prove drinking age when buying or picking up tickets and for entering the hall. But patrons were carded yet again after receiving a wristband they could only get after showing their IDs. Overkill.

The wind-up: Yes, this is the same festival for which we held low expectations just a few weeks ago, based on our experience from the inaugural gathering last year, and perhaps a snobby comparison to the Philly fest and Suds 2.0’s shortage of Garden State brewers. We, uh, forecast AC to be a yawner and a frat party. Yawner? No, there was plenty to enjoy. Frat party, well it came close. We did see more folks who got drunk on the 2-ounce installment plan than compared to Philadelphia.

But this is Atlantic City, and the sideshow must go on.

FOOTNOTE: Look for a photo gallery, plus interviews with Beer Radio's Gary Monterosso and Tun Tavern Brewmaster Ted Briggs later this week.

The Way We Were

Reminiscing … there’s a danger to it, a danger in clinging to the past.

Then somehow gets a rose-colored upper hand on Now, no matter that a cell phone these days effortlessly fits on your ear, while that size-10 Topsider with an antenna and Motorola logo on it you once carried barely fit your mitts.

But glory days are something that go well with a beer. So what the hell, let’s pour one and talk about Then and less about Now, as last Saturday’s Philly Craft Beer Festival slips lower on the horizon and this weekend’s Atlantic City gathering (Celebration of the Suds) gets ready to take the stage …

Go big or not at all

Philly beer columnist Don Russell, dispensing advice for making the most of the 2007 Philly festival, pointed out the 10-plus years since Philadelphia beerfest planners went growler instead of pint to summon the thirsty for a giant mixer.

We checked with Don to see if he was referring to that April 1995 festival at the Philadelphia Civic Center. Indeed, he was.

There were other notable Philly festivals that followed -- the Electric Factory and Poor Henry’s. But the Civic Center bash still stands as a benchmark, as if some gates had just opened to a wider world. The official taster glasses even stirred up the crowd for more, with a teaser to a planned summer Atlantic City festival emblazoned on one side. (New Jersey’s beer police saw to it that a 1995 AC festival wouldn’t get off the ground. But the ball was already rolling in the bigger picture, and Garden State beer fans would eventually gather for festivals at Waterloo Village in Sussex County and elsewhere.)

Sometimes memory lane has potholes in it (there’s a joke in there; think about it). But if you recall, a dozen years ago, the microbrew craze (with the West already in its pocket) was homesteading in the Mid-Atlantic region. The import craze continued to whet appetites, too, and pretty soon you weren’t thinking about the ones you already knew: Beck’s, Heinken or Lowenbräu. St. Pauli Girl, well, you did end up forgetting your first girl.

Your palate was challenged to mature. And British ales were a major reference point, with ESB the call letters. (Seems like ESBs are to Then what IPAs are to Now.) At that Civic Center bash, beers you clamored for included some of the UK’s choice names, Fuller’s … Young’s … Batemans Good Honest Ales (their XXXB was pretty good; honest).

Remember Double Diamond? Forget Foster's, how about Cooper’s Australian stout? U.S craft brewers weighed in, too. Hooked on Red Hook? Get Wicked? Hike the Sierras? And did an in-law sign you up for a beer of the month club? The beer geek in you was being groomed and served.

In New Jersey, The Ship Inn and Triumph would open their doors; Flying Fish would find a lane on the Information Super Highway and go from modem to a glass.

Planet Beer had Boston Beer’s Jim Koch inspiring the do-it-yourself set as a keynote speaker at the American Homebrewers Association conference in Baltimore (where an on-the-road version of the Great American Beer Festival would be held three years later, the same weekend the media would start spreading the news that Sinatra had died).

Speaking of homebrewing, seems like every time you mentioned to someone back then you had joined the brew-your-own crowd, they felt compelled to offer some tale of an uncle and exploding bottles in a basement.

And speaking of uncle, ready to cry it? Too much reminiscing? Well there’s more. But maybe another time, another beer.

(By the way, the Civic Center in University City is gone now, demolished, turned into a memory. Atlantic City Race Course has practically gone condo and shopping mall. Trivia tidbit: Joni Mitchell stormed off the stage during a 1969 pop festival at AC Race Course, pissed off at the audience. Legend has it, the experience soured her enough that she skipped Woodstock. Reality or Wikiality?)

FOOTNOTE:
A photo gallery from the Philly Craft Beer Festival can be seen here. And then there’s this photo animation ...

Eight bells and all is well

Here’s an update from Saturday’s inaugural Philly Craft Beer Festival. (We’re sure the cruise terminal at the Naval Yard has been swept and the deck swabbed by now, no small task when it comes to a building that nearly rivals a football field in length.)

If you’re one of the beer enthusiasts who may have ended up three sheets to the wind by drinking 2 ounces at a time, we hope the hangover was mild, although we didn’t notice anyone totally hammered during the noon-to-4 p.m. session we attended. Buzzed? Absolutely, but hammered, not really. We can’t speak to the evening session (6 to 10).

Incidentally, the festival's website reports both sessions sold out. (Admission was $35 in advance, $40 at the door.) Success!

And with that said, here are some details by the numbers …

Beer: Fifty brewers and 120 beers, more brew than you could possibly drink in two four-hour sessions, but so many different kinds that the beer geek in you might have been tempted to try. And we confess, those figures are what the promo literature declared. In our quest to taste some beer (we sampled from 17 breweries) and support these words with photos, we didn’t have time to check in with the management to see if any breweries were no-shows.

New Jersey beers: The Garden State five were Climax Brewing Co. of Roselle Park (pouring an ESB and an Oktoberfest); Cricket Hill Brewing Co. of Fairfield (a session IPA, East Coast Lager and Colonel Blides Alt Bier); Flying Fish Brewing Co. of Cherry Hill (XPA and Abby Dubbel; special thanks to Gene Muller for some key assistance to Beer-Stained Letter); High Point Brewing (Ramstein) of Butler (amber lager and blonde wheat); and Triumph Brewing Co. of Princeton (and New Hope, Pa., with a Philly location soon; Bengal Gold IPA, and our sincerest apologies for not taking down the other styles poured).

Details et cetera ...

The compass: Brewers came from near (Philly, Philly burbs, greater Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and of course New Jersey) and from afar (Colorado, Maine, Vermont and Upstate New York, to name a few).

Interesting beer: Origin, a pomegranate-infused beer from New York and San Francisco-based Shmaltz Brewing Co. He’brew brews, the chosen beers; funny schtick, pretty good beer.

Reconnecting with a brew: Pig Iron Porter from Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant (Delaware and Philly burbs). A former co-worker once slipped us a half-gallon of this porter back in the mid-’90s. It was good then and tasty still.

Attendance: Seemed like a battleship-load of people. Again, according to the literature, attendance would be cut off at 1,500 per session, and not oversold so folks could get served easily. Some of the participating brewers, however, marveled at the crowd size, speculating it was an aircraft carrier-load instead.

First session peak attendance seemed to be about 2:30 p.m. That’s when the dissonant drone of a thousand-plus voices chattering at once was the loudest. Also, navigating from port to starboard in the terminal was toughest about this time. Oh the sea of humanity. The lines to the heads were also quite long, but observant folks discovered a unisex head in the side room where the brewers’ panel discussion was held. Virtually no line! Way cool. Overall, a patient crowd, well behaved.

Food: Concession fare, but we must offer some props. It wasn’t bad for an event that had to deal in volume and do it fast to keep long lines moving (24-minute wait when we ate). Sample purchase: Turkey wrap, soft pretzel (this is Philadelphia) and a crab cake sandwich. Pinch to the wallet: 16 bucks, (but we’ve seen worse -- six bucks for a half liter of Deer Park at a Meadowlands parking lot party for the New Jersey Devils’ 2003 Stanley Cup win.)

Music: The Bullets. And sadly, we couldn’t hear them aft. Not their fault, though. We did make a point to move to the bow and actually listen to them. (Caught their cover of the Wallflowers’ “6th Avenue Heartache.” Coincidentally, we listened to “Bringing Down the Horse” during the ride into the city.) Fender guitars (one with the fat headstock, a reissue of an early 1970s model), stand-up bass, fiddle, a modest 20-inch bass drum on the drum kit ("It gets the job done" we were told) ... we'd liked to have spent more time listening, but duty called.

Minor letdown: Keepsake sampling glass was plastic. We prefer actual glass. Some day we’ll get over this hang-up.

Missed opportunity: Dock Street. We liked Dock Street back in the 1990s and used to take a six or two to friends for the Kentucky Derby. Then the brewery closed. We read about a return of the beer, but alas we didn't get a taste before hitting our limit for safe driving.

Cool Display: Pint and shot glass setup at Raven Beer. With the sunlight filtering through from behind, it sometimes made for a ghostly effect in Poe's visage on the glassware. Quoth the Raven: You break, you buy.

Quotable quote: “Dude, are you Troegenating her?”A metaphoric, wink-wink, nudge-nudge appropriation of Tröegs’ double bock name. We’ll let it go at that.

FOOTNOTE:
Look for a photo gallery to go up soon. We’re still editing the nearly 300 frames we shot, weeding out the chaff. Also, if we took your business card and promised to email you some photos, we hope to get that done within a week.

A Tale of Two Cities

There’s beer. And then there’s great beer.

There’s run of the mill. And then there’s compelling.

There’s the Atlantic City Beer Festival, and then there’s the Philly Craft Beer Festival (just a week apart from each other).

Sorry to be a buzz kill, but judging from its Website, the AC beerfest -- the 2007 Celebration of the Suds (March 10th and 11th at the Convention Center) -- looks like it will be the yawner the inaugural version was last year: a frat party with a pumped up beer menu.

The inaugural Philly fest (March 3rd at the old Naval Yard), well it looks like the best bet for your hard-earned beer dollar.

Let's cut through the foam and take a look.

Suds 2.0 boasts some changes for '07. Notably, it’s now three sessions instead of the long, twin sessions that marked the two-day ’06 fest. It also claims a bigger hall at the Convention Center, so the parallel bottlenecks that choked the main aisles last year may be resolved.

But that’s just logistics. There’s a deeper ache that nags this young festival.

For instance, take the list of beers (not participating brewers, as the Website claims). It’s like browsing the import and domestic cold boxes at the big discount liquor stores. A been-there-tasted-that feel comes on. Sam Adams and a four-pack of Guinness anyone? Some Young’s? And we like those beers (ditto for a lot of the list). We even once toured Young’s brewery outside London. But notice the near absence of Jersey beers.

Now browse the lineup at the Philly Craft Beer Festival (it’s also a charity event, while AC is not). There's some overlap, sure, but Philly can claim loads of small microbreweries and brewpubs, as opposed to mostly beers from a distributor’s portfolio. And it says something that Philly landed Jersey brewers (five), while Suds 2.0, like last year, is Jersey largely by geography (an exception: The Tun Tavern, whose brewpub and restaurant stands in the Convention Center's shadow; recommendation for any AC fest-goers: do a whirlwind tasting, but settle in at the Tun Tavern for the real drinking).

We do give the AC fest appropriate points for promoting the culture of beer (and we hope they try again next year). And AC gets points for the 2006 keepsake sampling glass -- it was glass while everything these days is plastic. It’s just that this fest has the trappings of a monster truck rally or indoor motocross.

(Last year’s sideshow featured twin-sister Playboy Playmates from the 1990s. But the two sisters pouring at the Guinness booth were younger and hotter, especially the one in the halter top, pleated leather skirt and spiky boots. The Playmates were like Teri Hatcher trying to out-dazzle Sienna Miller.)

It pains us to grouse and be so brutal. We champion all things Brew Jersey. But giving folks more elbowroom to taste beers that can be had by the six at the liquor store is not value-added.

The tale of the two cities?

In Philly, the breweries and their beer are the entertainment. In AC, the beer’s just there.