Scottie Knows Beer » Philadelphia

Philadelphia Beer Raids

Scottie — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:19:42 +0000

I want to preface this post with the fact that I am not a lawyer, nor have I studied the liquor laws of Pennsylvania (where I was born and raised and visit on occasion). The facts I list below are based from articles that I have read and my personal opinion on the matter. Without further adieu…The Philadelphia Beer Raids.

Over the past two weeks (beginning on March 4, 2010), armed State Police officers raided three popular Philadelphia bars (the Memphis Taproom, Local 44, and Resurrection Ale House) and one distributor (Origlio’s Beverage) based on an anonymous tip. The State Police confiscated thousands of dollars worth of untouched craft beer and are currently holding it (ransom?) at an undisclosed location (sounds like something from a movie).

The raided bars and lone distributor allegedly purchased beers that had not been properly licensed in the state of Pennsylvania; a process that requires the brewers or their importers to pay a $75 registration fee per brand.

Fines for selling unregistered beer can range from $50 to $1,000. An establishment’s liquor license may also be suspended or revoked, depending on the severity of the violation and any prior violations.

Leigh Maida, who runs the three raided bars with her husband Brendan Hartranft, estimated that $7,200 worth of craft beer had been confiscated and that more than half the beer removed by the State Police was indeed properly registered.

For instance, the cops confiscated Monk’s Cafe Sour Flemish Red Ale, a beer brewed in Belgium specifically for the Philadelphia bar donning the same name, “Monk’s Cafe”. The problem is that the beer appears on the state’s list as “Monk’s Café Ale.”

Even more puzzling, the State Police also confiscated bottles of Duvel, a very popular Belgian beer. The beer appears on the PLCB list as “Duvel Beer,” while its label reads “Duvel Belgian Golden Ale.” This one shocked me the most. Almost every beer-centric bar I have been to in the state of Pennsylvania serves Duvel. How could the State Police not figure this out? (Um…no comment.)

The Philly beer distributor Origlio’s Beverage, had about a dozen cases of beer confiscated and was ordered to stop selling beers from several well-known breweries, including Duvel, Russian River, Hacker-Pschorr, Paulaner, and Monk’s Cafe Ale.

Vinnie Cilurzo, owner of Russian River, does admit that some of the beers may not have been properly registered in the state of Pennsylvania.

“We are a small mom-and-pop brewery and every once in a while something slips through the cracks.”

At least one person in politics feels that the State Police and PLCB went too far.

Rep. John Taylor, whose legislative district includes one of the bars, the Memphis Taproom, said that the State Police engaged in “a ridiculous use of enforcement manpower” last week.

“I don’t know why they would use that many people to track down an issue like this that could have been handled with a routine inspection,”

“There are other important things those personnel could be doing,” Taylor said. “Over the years we’ve had problems [in bars] with gun sales, prostitution, drug sales, after-hour operations, sales to minors – serious issues of concern to the community. I don’t think this is one of them.”

The Pennsylvania liquor registration laws are intended, in part, to protect the consumer from purchasing “counterfeit” beer. After reading several articles from different sources, I feel that the PLCB’s records need to be updated at the very least, especially since registered beers like Duvel were confiscated. Click here for the official list of registered beer in Pennsylvania.

Since beginning this blog, I have met so many kind and giving people in the craft beer industry. One of the words often used when describing the industry is brotherhood. Did an envious “brother” and owner of a competing bar contact the PLCB to try to bring down a competitor’s business? If so, that’s going against everything the craft beer industry stands for.

So who is to blame? The bars? Distributors? Brewers? The asshole who ratted out these establishments?

Are the Pennsylvania State Police and PLCB a mob of beer haters on a power trip? Or are the PLCB’s laws are outdated and no longer relevant today?

I’d like to hear how people feel about this situation. Feel free to send me your opinions, additional facts, and what-not’s regarding the raids.

For some reason, I have a feeling this is not the last time the liquor laws of Pennsylvania come into question……………………

2010 Philly Craft Beer Festival

Scottie — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:57:08 +0000

Philly Craft Beer Fest

This past weekend I attended the fourth annual Philly Craft Beer Festival, one of the top beer festivals on the East Coast. An evening filled with exceptional craft beer and fellow beer lovers; this was a party I was not going to miss out on.

The festival doors didn’t open until 5:30pm, so I decided to hit up a local bar for a couple of pre-game refreshments. Luckily for me, this fine establishment happened to be serving Pliny the Elder on tap. Due to the beer raids that occurred last weekend, this hidden gem will remain nameless. After a couple of delicious Elders and a Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout, I reconvened with my fellow cohorts and headed off to the festival.

The Philly Craft Beer Festival was held at the Navy Yard in a massive cruise terminal. The venue was laid out well enough that the lines for samples rarely lasted longer than five minutes.

The only hiccup of the festival occurred when trying to enter the venue. A really intelligent rent-a-cop was basically herding a line of 500+ people around in circles. I’m still unsure of his intentions or if he even had any, but basically he led us to the front of the line. Obviously, I had no problem with this, but the hundreds of people that had been waiting for 30+ minutes in line were not going to stand-by and let this happen without a shout.

This is where it started to get comical. I do not condone line cutting, except when a rent-a-cop demands that you do it. Hell, I wasn’t trying to get pepper sprayed or hit with a Maglight. In true Philadelphia style, the crowd erupted into boos and screamed obscenities directed at the rent-a-cop who just forced us to cut everyone in line. One irate fellow yelled out to one of the women I was with, “Just cause you got legs hunny doesn’t make you special.” Got to love Philadelphians!

I suppose all of the restrooms (men’s and women’s) being out-of-order could be considered a minor hiccup – considering it was a beer festival. For the first 1-2 hours, all bathroom-goers were required to step outside and use a fresh Port-O-John, complements of Mr. John’s Potty Rentals. The only thing funny about this is the poor fools, myself included, that didn’t get the memo that the 8 large spacious restrooms had reopened, and therefore continued to wait for the plastic pissers, a dark corner, or an open section of fence.

Once inside we were ready to boogie. My goal was to hit up every table in the place (minus Michelob and a few others). Well, I know I didn’t make my goal but I did drink a lot of exceptional beers. Some from breweries that I have had before, some from breweries that I had never heard of.

Although beer is always my main focus at these sorts of events, I did enjoy sampling a variety of cheeses from Vermont, habenero spiced pretzels from who-knows-where, and hand-rolled Dominican cigars.

Other than having my Flip camera destroyed in a purse filled with water (yeah, I know that sounds odd), the festival went off without a hitch.

I have never been to a craft beer festival that I haven’t enjoyed, and the Philly Craft Beer Festival was no exception. With over 50 breweries serving 100+ beers there was something for everyone. If you have a chance to go next year, definitely consider checking it out.

Cheers to beer festivals and dumb rent-a-cops!

Full list of breweries and distributors:

*Allentown Bethlehem Brew Works
Appalachian Brewing Co.
Atomium Premier Grand Cru
*Ballast Point
*Bear Republic Brewing Co.
Beer Valley
Bitburger
Blue Point Brewing Co.
Boaks Brewery
Boulder Beer
Brew Dog
Butternuts Beer & Ale
Caldera Brewing Co.
*Cigar City Brewing
Cold Spring
Coronado
Cricket Hill Brewing Co
Dark Horse Brewing Co.
Doc’s Draft Hard Apple Cider
Earth Bread & Brewery
Eel River Brewing Co
*Furthermore Beer
General Lafayette Inn & Brewery
Gritty McDuff’s
High & Mighty Beer Co.
Hometown Beverages
*Hoppin’ Frog
Hoppy Brewing
*Intercourse Brewing Co.
Ipswich Ale
Ithaca Beer Co.
*Jolly Pumpkin
Keystone Homebrew Supply
Lancaster Brewing
Leinenkugel’s
Long Trail Brewing
Magic Hat Brewing Co.
Manayunk Brewery & Restaurant
Michelob Brewing Co
Middle Ages Brewing Co.
*New Holland Brewing
Old Dominion Brewing Co.
Original Sin
Peroni
Philadelphia Brewing Co.
Pilsner Urquell
Pretty Things Beer & Ale
*Prism Beer Co.
Ramstein
Reaper Ale
River Horse Brewery
*Rock Art Brewery
Rogue
Roy Pitz Brewing Company
*Six Point Craft Ales
Southampton Publick House
Sprecher
*Steamworks
Stone Brewing Company
Straub Premium & Light Beer
*The Bruery
Thomas Hooker Brewing Co.
Troegs
Twelve Percent
*Voodoo Brewery
*Weed Ales & Lagers
Yards
Yuengling

*Breweries I was most impressed with

New Year’s Eve – Philadelphia Style

Scottie — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:02:16 +0000

"Who loves amazing craft beer and partying in Philly?" she asks. THIS GUY

Why go to Philadelphia for New Year’s? Well, Philly is one hell of a beer and food centric city. I haven’t been there since I was legally permitted to drink, and I had 6 beautiful and party-lovin’ ladies offering to be my tour guide. SOLD!

I arrived in the early evening on Wednesday the 30th and immediately cracked open a Pilsner Urquell. After a couple of drinks, the tour guides and I headed to Monk’s Cafe. I had heard countless good things about Monk’s and I wanted to see for myself if this Belgian beer emporium lived up to all the hype.

The beer selection was better than I had imagined. The “kid in a candy store” reference comes to mind. To kick things off, I started with a Pliny the Elder on tap. This was the first time I have had the Elder and I was simply blown away. You really can’t ask for much more out of an IPA/Double IPA. Following the Pliny, I had a delectable Rochefort 8, some amazing Brussels Mussels, and a 17.5% ABV Mikkeller Black to wash it all down.

After the delicious food and drinks, we hopped a cab to the Eulogy Belgian Tavern for a couple of roasty Ten FIDYs from Oskar Blues. Delicious canned beer makes for a great nightcap.

New Year’s Eve began with a trip to Reading Terminal Market to hunt-down our lunch from the plethora of vendors, and later stopping at the Foodery (which sells no food, only beer) to grab beer for the pre-game celebration. The beer selection at the Foodery was on point; I created a mixed six-pack of De Dolle Brouwers Stout, Saint-Martin Cuvée De Noel, New Holland Dragon’s Milk, Stoudt’s Winter Ale, Hitachino White Ale, and a Terrapin Big Hoppy Monster. There were still some Pilsner’s back at the place, so no need to overdo it.

To ring in the New Year, our party of seven headed to Drinker’s Tavern (home of the original PBR ripcord, and “$40 buys the bar a shot” motto) to consume copious amounts of adult beverages. The selection of beer was nothing to rave about but the Dead Guy Ale and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale they were serving hit the spot. They certainly helped chase down all the random shots that people were passing my way. Drinker’s was a great time and a pretty good bang for the buck.

You (or at least I) would think that New Year’s Day would be somewhat tame after a crazy night of debauchery. This is not the case in Philadelphia, where New Year’s Day is when the real party begins. The people of Philly freak out over the Mummers Parade. “What the hell is a Mummer?” you may ask. Well, your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that people dress in elaborate-colorful-crazy costumes, have a parade, and party like it’s going out of style. If you’re in town for the holiday, this is a must-see event, just make sure to dress for the tundra.

My next day started with brunch and then a tour of the pubs by some old friends. My favorites included Johnny Brenda’s with lively Sly Fox Chester County Bitter and Victory HopDevil. Both were straight from the cask and very well-received. Also, Devil’s Den with Barbãr Winterbok and Boulder Mojo Risin’. After running, well actually cabbing, all over the city, I decided to meet back up with my tour guides and a fellow craft beer lover who was celebrating his birthday. Happy birthday Mark!

I joined the party – mummers, my tour guides, and several other thirsty patrons – at the Dark Horse. A very large establishment – easy to get lost in and many stairs to fall down. After shots, some sloppy-dancing, spilled drinks and drunken follies, it was time to call it a night. This was a great way to finish the three day craft beer bender that we were on.

Ringing-in the New Year Philly-style was an amazing decision. Drinking phenomenal beer, eating delicious food, and having exceptional company is the perfect way to spend any holiday.

Special thanks to my posse of beautiful party companions – Britt, Blaire, Erin, Alex, Maria, and Rebecca – for being the ultimate tour guides and tearing up Philadelphia with me. It was a New Year’s I will never forget…except for the parts I can’t remember.