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.

Philly Beer Week

We took a spin over the Ben Franklin bridge yesterday afternoon to Nodding Head Brewery and sat in on an organizational meeting for the first Philly Beer Week celebration.

Putting in the face time were lots of names in the Philly region’s craft beer scene (i.e. Carol Stoudt of her eponymously named brewing company; Tom Kehoe of the remade Yards Brewing, plus Flying Fish’s head brewer Casey Hughes popped in from Cherry Hill; more on the Fish in a minute).

We went to check out the storytelling prospects from a video standpoint, then beat a hasty retreat from Sansom Street (after downing three great Nodding Head beers: Bill Payer Ale, 700 Level blond ale, and All Night Ale, which is dosed with some espresso) to finish shooting B-roll of city landmarks for a promo project for White Dog Café’s Brewer’s Plate event.

But all of that’s not the point … The point is, Philly Beer Week, March 7-16, is just a couple months off, and things are taking surer shape. Check the web site, for the events. One thing we have our eye on is the planned real ale festival. Cask conditioned ales, poured from the hand pump … hard to beat. If you’ve ever been to the Great British Beer Festival, well, real ale is what it’s all about.

Philly Beer Week is as much a boast as it is an extended bash. It’s Philly claiming bragging rights as “America’s Best Beer-Drinking City,” a place where the bars and restaurants’ tap handles offer a cornucopia of styles and flavors. (Sadly, that’s something difficult to say about our home state, New Jersey.) So for nine days, the city’s laying it on the line with what is intended to be an annual event, with a mind toward proving the boast isn’t just the beer talking.

Busy, busy, busy
One thing to note about Philly Beer Week is that it comes amid a hopping beer schedule (no pun intended). The Philly Craft Beer Festival is March 1 at the Naval Yard. The Brewer’s Plate is March 9 at the Independence Visitors Center, and the Atlantic City beer festival is March 8-9. (All three are on our schedule, and we're still wondering how to do both the Real Ale Festival in Philly and the AC festival on the same day.) So little time, so many beers.

Klatch Porter
We’d like to think it was our recommendation last year to espresso yourself that prompted Flying Fish to turn out a 2008 rendition of its Imperial Espresso Porter (8% ABV), the brew that appeared last year as a salute to the brewery’s decade-plus of longevity. But we’d be fooling ourselves. Folks at the Fish knew this well-received beer (dosed with some Colombian roast) was too good to not make an encore. It’s out now, and in our fridge, in our glass as we type. It's a seasonal, so get it while you can.

Labor of Love
Like, the animated graphic above? We cranked it out today, using Apple’s Final Cut Studio suite. Cheers.