It has been a great 11 days of Beer Week debauchery.  I met a ton of new people, drank 42 new beers ( I kept close track), and found a lot of really great bars and restaurants, most located in Northern Liberties and Olde City. All the money I spent was on food and beer.  Here is a list of the places I checked out during the week and plan to come back to again soon.  The list is in no particular order, it’s just what comes to mind first.

• Swift Half Pub in Northern Liberties was an awesome place and they are right in the Piazza, with outdoor seating available.  I went for the Cigar City afternoon, Stone Brewery night, Coronado Brewery afternoon, and the Brooklyn Brewery night.

Cigar City has really amazing beers. I had the Jai Alai firkin and the Maduro Brown Ale.  The Jai Alai was like smelling a freshly rolled cigar right out of the humidor. It has a flavor complexity of apricots and peaches with a nice carmel note in between.  This beer is full of hops from beginning to end, but is also a nice well rounded, full of flavor IPA.  Maduro Brown Ale on the other hand has a smooth, roasted, buttery, and chocolate profile that is completely different than the Jai Alai.  A very complex beer, but also easily drinkable even during the hot summer months.  If you can find a Cigar City brew during your next visit to the store, I highly suggest picking one up.

Stone Brewery, not much I need to say about them except that the beers they have are amazing and the ones at Swift Half were even better.  For the Stone night they had Ruination on firkin brewed with Centennial Hops, on tap they had a Double Dry Hopped IPA which apparently there were only 3 kegs in the state of PA, Double Hopped Bastard, and Saison Du Buff.  Okay, real quick, the Ruination was so loaded with hops it smelled like really super sticky marijuana and that’s all I can say about that.  The Double Dry Hopped IPA was good, again loaded with hops because it’s Stone and the color was a deep red, almost brown.  The taste was hoppy, floral, piney, citrusy, and it seemed to have some carmel notes.  The Double Hopped Bastard was also good. It is an Arrogant Bastard double hopped and it was a big one.  Now, for my favorite of the night, the Saison Du Buff.  It was a beautiful beer with a nice amber color and the smell of garden and herbs came racing out. It gave me a bright feeling like the sun just came out on a summers day.  The flavor was also bright with parsley at first, and then sage, rosemary, and citrus.  For such a lighter color beer, the flavor lasted for decent amount of time.  This was a really nice saison and I had to made sure I left Swift Half before 10pm so I could run across the street to The Foodery and pick me up some bottles.

Coronado and Brooklyn Brewery were quick visits.  I did have the firkin of Coronado IPA while chatting with a really cool person next to me and for Brooklyn Brewery I had the Savoir Faire.

The food at Swift Half was outstanding!  I had the burger with Sheep’s Milk Cheese one night, the Rueben another night, the freshly made Soft Pretzel bites, and the Peanut Butter and Bacon Brittle twice.  If your in to good food and good beer, you have to check this place out.

• Next up on the list is Kraftwork in Fishtown.  It was Lost Abbey and Port Brewery night. It was an event not to miss.  I got to exchange a few words with Tomme Arthur, the owner of Lost Abbey, while sipping on some Angel’s Share and letting him know how much I enjoyed his creations.  Kraftwork is fairly new to the Fishtown area and offers a great little menu with outdoor seating also.  Along side Lost Abbey and Port Brewery they had Southern Tier on tap. I didn’t get a chance to taste any of the Southern Tier due to the fact that there were some Lost Abbey beers I knew I may never try again in the near future.  I got a chance to try the Angel’s Share, Mongo IPA, Carnevale, and  Red Barn by Lost Abbey and then 4th Anniversary, Shark Attack, and Hot Rocks by Port Brewing.  I did enjoy all of the beers and not sure how I made it home that night, but apparently Tomme Arthur was going on a bar crawl!  Anyways, I did eat at Kraftwork also, the food was very good.  I ended up having the Crispy Pork Croquettes and the Burger with aged Cheddar and bacon onion jam.  The  brioche bun, nicely cooked burger, onion jam and cheddar made for a fantastic meal along with those garlic and herb fries.

• The Sidecar Bar and Grille in Graduate Hospital was the first place I stopped at during beer week.  I love neighborhood spots that pop where you least expect it and turn out to be a really cool place to check out.  It seemed they have specials all the time on different days of the week.  The afternoon I went there were 9 delicious taps of Ommegang for beer week.  My sister and I ended up trying Belgian Pale Ale, Triple Perfection, Rare VOS, Abbey Ale, and Hennepin.  After having a few Ommegang’s and eating some pork carnitas, pretzel crusted chicken fingers, and a rueben with homemade corned beef we both knew we had to come back and try some of the specials they offer.  Also, after a few Ommegang’s too many, I knew I had to go take a trip to Cooperstown NY and check out Ommegang Brewery.  Sidecar Bar and Grille is definitely a place to check out on a nice day when you can sit outside and enjoy a tasty beverage.

• The Abbaye at 637 N. 3rd St. in Northern Liberties was another really nice place. On the night that I went they had Duck-Rabbit Brewery on tap for beer week.  Again, another place that had outdoor seating.  It’s funny how you go through the city not seeing any of the LadeDa places offering anything outdoors and then you hit the neighborhood places and they all seem to offer some type of outdoor seating which is great for warm summer nights.  Even if the place looks rough on the outside, you would most likely be surprised.  Back to beer talk, Duck-Rabbit is a brewery from Farmville, North Carolina that opened 6 years ago by a guy named Paul Philippone who was a college philosophy teacher.  He got away from that former life and start a brewery and thank God he did.  I happen to come across one of these beers in my local bottle shop a few months ago and absolutely loved it.  After seeing that he was coming up for beer week I planned to hit two of his many events.  I got to meet with Paul at The Abbaye and thank him for his amazing dark beers.  I would usually look at a dark beer and think right away that I would not like it, but his beers changed my perspective after the first sip.  I got to try his Milk Stout which was a creamy goodness, the Brown Ale with loads of hops and malty goodness, Rabid Duck which was a Russian Imperial Stout that delicious coffee, chocolate, and malt flavor that hid the 10%ABV very well, and the Duck Rabbit Barleywine.  The Barleywine was not my favorite at the first sip as it punched me in the face and beat me up at first.  After I looked at it and thought about what I was drinking, I tried again, this time savoring the flavor.  It was awesome. The smell of sweet cherries, candy apple, carmel, currants came through.  The taste of malt, brown sugar, and finished with some lemon and sour notes also surfaced.  I’m not big into these type of beers, but I think I may have to pick one up now and then to give it a shot.

• Standard Tap was the next place I remember I went.  They had Dogfish Head 75min on firkin and I wasn’t going to miss that one.  I thought it started at 4, but it was 5, soooooo I hung out and had some other beers.  One of which was Dogfish Indian Brown Ale. It had the smell of malt, caramel, chocolate and oatmeal and the taste of malt, hops, chocolate, coffee and caramel.  The flavors of this beer played nice together sip after sip.  Troegs had Nugget Nectar on a hand pump, a completely different taste then what comes out of the bottle or tap.  All I have to say about this one is that it tasted like apple juice and it was delicious.  Time for the firkin of 75min!!!!  Mmmmmm, could  not get any better than this.  You can not take half 60min and half 90min to make this beer, really, its cask conditioned.  Very low carbonation, cloudy in appearance with smells of pine tree and grapefruit.  Taste like a dream. It was not too much of an overpowering hop flavor, but a nice combination of hops and malt with the citrusy background.

• The Grey Lodge, a Northeast Philly Bar located on 6235 Frankford turned out to be a really cool place.  It was a Duck-Rabbit night and Paul Philippone, the Master Brewer, had a Short Rib dinner in the works.  After checking the place out and reading their great tap list I had to go with a Duck-Rabbit Brown Ale and the Short Ribs.  It was a good night, really friendly people, a neighborhood type bar with locals who all knew eachother.  The Short Ribs turned out to be really good and so did the Cuban Sandwich.  This is a nice bar to check out if you want to go out, but do not feel like worrying about city parking and traffic.

• How could you not go to Monk’s for beer week?  The night I went they had Sierra Nevada, with a special brew from the Beer Camp Crew.  Here is the list of beer I had and if I ended up explaining it all you would quit reading.  Sierra Nevada ExPorter-chocolate, vanilla and hops, very nice; Sierra Nevada Charlie Fred and Ken Imperial Helles Lager-malty, moderate sweetness and clean floral hops; Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest-fresh hops picked from the southern hemisphere (read the link for more info); Limb & Life-this is the beer made from the residual sugars after Life & Limb comes out.  It is a nice, drinkable beer with a maple syrup flavor, definitely one to try; Life & Limb-this is a big beer with big flavor. This is the Daddy of Limb & Life. It has the blend of yeast strains from both Sierra Nevada and Dogfish Head with birch syrup fresh from Alaska.  Take your time on this one it comes in at 10%ABV.

• Last but not least was Russian River Brewery day.  Hulmeville Inn had it on the first Sunday of beer week and Local 44 had it on the last Sunday of beer week.  This brewery is one of my favorites in California. The hops stand out but they aren’t too over powering where they hide the rest of the beers flavor.  My favorite beer is Pliney the Elder and Consecration, just because thats all PA laws allow us to have.  I had a few this week they I will not see again unless laws change OR some places decide to sneak in a few without the PLCB finding them.  One of those few was Russian River Resurrection. It had a strong apricot smell and taste along side the large amount of hops in there.  I do not know where it came from, but it sure was a treat for the last day of beer week.

This beer week was definitely one to remember for awhile.  With over 1000 events and close to 200 places participating, I wish had more days, more money AND a stronger liver to do more in those 11 days.  I am sure if you turned around next week to have another beer week, all Philadelphians would be out drinking again. I mean we are the best drinking city in the USA  and I know the bar owners and bar backs would hate that.

I would like to thank all the great people I met along the way and also to all the brewers and bar owners.  I will continue my work through Philadelphia and get more people on board the TapHunter site to make this the place to check out when looking for your favorite beer in Philly.  Hope to see you all soon.