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By Scottie, March 11, 2010 7:57 am

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