March 2001

The Beer Flows Freely In Philadelphia

A beer lover looks at what makes his
home town taverns special

By Lew Bryson

I moved to the Philadelphia area ten years ago and pretty much stayed out in the suburbs for the first three years. I had come from drinking Sierra Nevada in Chico, Geary's in Portland, Guinness in Boston. What did Philadelphia know about beer?

Turns out they knew a lot. Philly is one of America's hotspots for traditional, cask-conditioned "real ale," drinks down Belgian imports like no other town, and even the town's mainstream beer drinkers often choose regional powerhouse Yuengling's beers over national brands. As Grey Lodge Pub owner Mike Scotese says, "Any town where a regional amber lager [like Yuengling] has Budweiser on the run is a great beer town."Philadelphia is simply the hottest town in America for beer variety.

	Philadelphia's Dock Street Brewpub

Philadelphia has one internationally-known beer bar: Monk's Cafe. Monk's is the place to get Belgian beers you can't find anywhere else in America... or sometimes even in Belgium. Last year owner Tom Peters put on a beer dinner that featured 12 lambics, over half of them on draft, that guest Michael Jackson praised as "unprecedented." If you have a Belgian beer on draft in your bar, chances are it was first served on draft at Monk's.

Common wisdom says you can't sell a lot of these extremely exotic beers; Peters laughs at that. "Nothing affects what I do," he said, "except what I want to drink. We're not market-driven. The beer's important. Life's good." Monk's, along with Belgian bistros Bridgid's and Cuvee Notredame, has made Philly mad for Belgian beers. Peters proudly relates that importers have told him that Philadelphia "sells more Belgian beer per capita than anywhere else in the country.

Much of the secret to Monk's success is the passion Peters and partner Fergus Carey have for the beer and for serving the customers. That passion drives them to hire a similarly motivated staff and keep them educated about the beer. "That's really important," Peters confirmed. "Every Tuesday I like to have a beer class for the staff. They all show up! We'll taste the wheat beers, Aventinus against Weihenstephan against Paulaner. So when a customer asks, 'what's the difference,' they know."

Peters is a more-or-less silent "partner" (his wife is the partner of record) in Philly's newest brewpub, Nodding Head, which has been planted in the space where the Samuel Adams Brew House once was. The beer at Nodding Head is traditionally British by style; brewer Brandon Greenwood has extensive education and experience in that type of brewing. Managing partner Curt Decker is running the brewpub after ten years at Brownie's, on 2nd Street.

EVOLUTION

He's seen Philly's beer scene evolve; his tenure at Brownie's helped it. Why is this such a great town? "There were a lot of people who dedicated themselves to the craft beer emergence," he said, "and there are still a lot of people who are very serious about good beer in Philadelphia. They do events, run establishments, they get good beer in front of people. I'll be in New York tomorrow, and it can't hold a candle to what we've got here.

Doing events proved to be the key to success for the Grey Lodge Pub, a lonely outpost of "better beer" in Northeast Philly, a land of rowhouses, cheesesteak shops, and Coors Light taps. I remember Mike Scotese yelling across the bar to me in the happy madness of his first "Friday the Firkinteenth" real ale event: "We're on the map!" He is, as the neighborhood local as well as one of Philly's more ambitious beer bars.

"I was determined to operate both as the neighborhood local and as a beer bar serving all of Northeast Philadelphia," said Scotese. "They don't have to be contradictory missions; in fact the incremental cost to do both was fairly minimal. I saw no benefit in chasing away our existing business by taking Bud and Coors Light off tap. There really isn't any friction. We work constantly to keep it mellow and friendly.

It's anything but mellow during the Firkinteenth events. Every Friday the Thirteenth, casks of live, "real ale" are delivered by local brewers, who usually stay for the fun. The casks are set up on the bar, the taps hammered in with a splash of beer, and they pour deliciously fresh, low-carbonation beer by gravity. "For the last one in October," Scotese recalled, "we kicked eight firkins [10.8 gallon casks] and had about 350 people." Not bad, for a neighborhood bar.

Way across town, about as far as you can get from Northeast Philly in any number of ways, Manayunk Brewing Company (MBC) thrives on Main Street in its namesake neighborhood, a vibrant melange of bistros, boutiques, and bars. MBC is the city's biggest brewpub, and brewer Jim Brennan gives a lot of the credit to the neighborhood. "It's always about location," he said. "On Main Street you don't really have to do anything to get people to come in." They do come in; the brewpub seats over 500, and the line's out the door on weekends.

Dock Street Brasserie

Brennan's taking his Krook's Mill pale ale, a crisp Sierra Nevada clone, to the big-time. "We're waiting for February to brew a batch of Manayunk Pale Ale at Yards Brewing," he said. "It will be bottle-conditioned, same recipe as the Krook's Mill, and competitively priced. We'll be selling six-packs to go, from here." That's always a big step for a brewpub, but it might just get MBC the respect it's been looking for.

DOCK OF THE BAY

Philadelphia's landmark brewpub, Dock Street, has flirted with off-premise sales a number of times, and originally started as an anchor for the contract-brewed brand of the same name. The brand has been sold (and languishes in court), but Dock Street has seen a revival. New partners, including executive chef Olivier de St. Martin, bought the brewpub in February, 2000, and shortly thereafter opened a second brewpub across from the Reading Terminal market, a prime location, and took over a major bar in the Philadelphia airport.

Chef de St. Martin is coping with the loss of long-time head brewer Eric Savage, who just left to pursue other interests, but his replacement is competent and confident Tim Roberts. "He was a cellarmaster in England," de St. Martin said. "He treats his yeast like it was his kid, no one else touches it!" Roberts has always been a big fan of cask-conditioned beers, so expect to see more of them in the future.

You can also expect to see Dock Street remain in the vanguard of the Philly beer scene. "We are focusing on the beer more than ever," de St. Martin said, "or actually more like we did ten years ago. It's a good time to focus on beer again, to tell people we have fresh beer again, the best in Philadelphia.

Paul Ohlivier's beer isn't local or fresh at Ludwig's Garten, but with seventeen taps of German beer he's not worried. "The beer is brewed over there," he said, "shipped over here in containers, perhaps with time and temperature abuse, but you put it on tap and it's still better than what most American brewers make. The Germans are some of the best brewers in the world."

Ohlivier makes Ludwig's a more German experience than just beer and food. He quoted information from the census that tags the area as deeply German in ancestry. "There's a natural marriage between our concept and the demographics,"he said. "People should recognize and be happy with their German heritage, enjoy the great food and beer. The restaurant landscape in Philly has gotten chic, and nouveau, and we toyed with doing that. But you've got to give people what they understand, what their grandmothers made them, not German-Asian fusion. That's served us well.

When it comes to German-American fusion, that's different. Ohlivier has worked with the Victory brewery on developing an unfiltered Bavarian-style wheat beer that will be served exclusively at Ludwig's and the brewery's taproom. "Weissbier is very popular here,"Ohlivier said. "We'll roll this special one out in February, and call it Mad King's Weissbier." When you get down to it, drinking local beer is pretty German in concept, too.

Local is the whole heart of the concept at Standard Tap, though the word "concept" doesn't really make partner William Reed comfortable. "We're the anti-concept bar," he told me. "We're not sports, or phony-Irish. It's a place that looks like you didn't work at it. We just did age-ambiguous things so you can't really tell if it's old or new or restored." Reed and partner Paul Kimport did astonishing work; the interior looks as if it's been in place forty years.

LOCAL DRAFT

But they only started serving draft-only local beer last year. Why draft-only? "Multiple reasons," says Reed. "Draft is the best way beer can be presented. It's fresher, it's better. The other reason is kinda funny... If people are drinking bottles at a bar, at the end of the night there's four drums of empties out front. It's a travesty! It costs everybody more to use bottles. But if I really wanted to do draft, I wanted it to move. So I didn't give them a choice, I got rid of the bottles."

Reed's got ten taps, two handpumps, and a big old white fridge in the center of the backbar that dispenses Yuengling Lord Chesterfield Ale. The blackboard above lists the simple yet delicious bill of fare that just won the Standard mention as one of the city's 50 best restaurants in Philadelphia magazine. It's comfortable, a joint, and it has become a city beer landmark in record time.

If you want to look at the Philly beer phenomenon from a point somewhat outside, just look up Chris Mullins, at his McGillin's Old Ale House. It's Philly's oldest bar, in continuous operation since 1850. Mullins and his wife Mary Ellen bought it from her father, who bought it from the McGillins in the 1950s.

The business at McGillin's comfortably straddles both the beer geek and sweating singles crowds, with a healthy leavening of business types and construction workers at lunch, and families for dinner. They all like to drink local. "Our biggest selling beer," Chris said, "hands-down, is Yuengling Lager. I have a commitment to the local-brewed beers. Regionally, we have a ton of very fine breweries. My McGillin's Genuine Lager and Real Ale are brewed at Stoudt's.

All that made sense, so I asked him why he thought Philly was such a great beer town. "Because we have a fairly sophisticated, well-educated group of customers who will try new things," he said. "There's nothing magical about it. Carol Stoudt and Dock Street were in there early, Sam Adams targeted Philly early, and you had the population base to support that. We've got 5 million people in the area. We've got a market that can support everybody."

People on both sides of the bar, people brewing beer, and the always overlooked wholesalers, finding it and delivering it. That's what this story is all about, and that's why I now make it a point to get to Philly for a little beer-hunting every month. It's a hot town for it.

Lew Bryson is managing editor of Malt Advocate Magazine.

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What are they serving on those taps?

Philly's a big beer market, and every brewer for miles around likes to consider it as local. Here are some of the breweries that are filling taps at the city's great bars.

YUENGLING

America's oldest brewery, Yuengling (say "YING-ling ) had 400% growth through the 1990s and is now a regional power with over 15% of the total Philly-area beer market, mostly on sales of Traditional Lager. With a large new brewing facility coming online, national brewery reps have to be dreading the long-threatened onslaught of Yuengling Light.

YARDS

Yards flagship ESA was the first beer to hit it big as cask-conditioned "real ale" in Philly, and remains the leader. With locals drinking up all the specialties like Love Stout (brewed with an addition of oysters!) and their spicy Saison, Yards is a well-kept Philly secret.

FLYING FISH

Just across the river in Cherry Hill, NJ, Flying Fish sells a lot of beer in Philadelphia. Their Porter is a dark standby, and their crisp, light Farmhouse Ale just had a fantastic summer of sales.

VICTORY

Highly trained and experienced brewers who refuse to compromise make Victory's beers some of the boldest, cleanest ones around. But they still have a deft hand with subtlety, as shown by their delicate Dark Lager and buoyant Sunrise Weiss.

STOUDT'S

Brewing since 1987 and carrying a fistful of awards to prove it, Stoudt's is a veteran of the Philly market that is finally hitting some bigger numbers. Their American Pale Ale is a hoppy, bright favorite.

DOGFISH HEAD

These Delaware brewers make bizarre, ethereal, wonderful beers, spiked with honeys, fruits, spices, sugars, and herbs. Though they have gained critical acclaim nationwide, Philadelphia has taken them to heart.

HEAVYWEIGHT

A new player, Heavyweight is a one-man operation from New Jersey that has cracked the Philadelphia market with Perkuno's Hammer, a huge "Baltic porter," and Lunacy, a big golden Belgian-style ale.

NEVERSINK

Wildly hoppy beers come from this Reading, PA, microbrewery, as well as some Belgian-style ales with idiosyncratic touches. Still largely the province of the bars in this piece, Neversink is trying to find a larger audience.

RED BELL

Once a busy micro, Red Bell has fallen on hard times after being on the losing end of several hard-fought legal and financial battles. Beer fans hope their Wee Heavy will return.