Philly Beer Week Tripel

At Capone’s Allagash event Saturday, brewer Rob Todd filled me in on his new creation, Gargamel, which he actually named without any thought to the Smurfs wizardly character. He said Gargamel originated when a (former knucklehead) employee used the wrong malt in a beer recipe. The mistake was discovered the next day by the brewer and too late to correct, they performed some magic to the recipe, adding a potion or two and sat on it, tasting it every other full moon or so. It wasn’t anything special until near the end of last year, when age became beauty and the elixir came into its own. The BA Extreme Beer fest was one of the few places it’s been distributed to us commonfolk, but about 60 cases will be bottled and available before the summer. I’ll let you know the exact date after I’ve secured my booty! Rob said the best beers tend to start as accidents so maybe we can look forward to another delicious mistake coined “Azrael.”

Once a wasteland for craft beer, Phoenixville bars hosted a successful bar crawl although I’d suggest shuttles to transport people between River Street and Sly Fox and Epicurean next year. I ordered a sample of the Iron Hill medal winners from the 2008 Great American Beer Fest, which included the Vienna Lager, Lambic de Hill (Gold; Belgian style wild ale aged in oak for 3 years), Cassis de Hill (Bronze; Lambic de Hill aged on fresh black currants), Cherry Dubbel (Silver; wood/barrel aged sour beer with three fermentations- Abbey yeast, dark sweet cherries, and Brett Bruxx in a pinot noir barrel), Saison (Gold; Belgian farmhouse style ale), and Roggenbock. The Roggenbock is a nice earthy German style rye beer with hints of banana and clove and it earned the Gold medal for Rye beers. The Vienna Lager is one I’ve tried in the past but don’t tend to order for some snobbery I have for Lagers, I suppose. I’ll have to humble myself more often- this Gold medal winner has a sweet malt backbone and crisp finish. We headed to Pickering Creek for the Southhamptom, Weyerbacher, and Manayunk Brewing event. I love the hoppy California Dreamin’ IPA from Manayunk but never get many opportunities to try it since whenever I find it on draft, it somehow kicks when I order it. The bar was packed, half from PBW attendees, the others a sea of green celebrating St. Patty’s Day a little early.

I ended the night at Union Jacks on the Manatawny for the Stone Brew event. I used to live just up the street from the original Stone brewery (now Lost Abbey) and a short drive from the new Stone Oasis, complete with Gargoyle Aria at the entrance. I really didn’t think Lee (Mid-Atlantic Stone rep) would convince Greg to take the hike out to the boondoggles smack dab in the middle of two Center City events. I even had $50 on him not showing up and even then, nobody wanted to take that bet, but Greg and Lee commandeered a tractor to the suburban corn fields. Any Stone fan who didn’t make it missed an awesome event with a lot of opportunity to talk to the man himself. Patrons also had the chance to win Sawyers Triple (a limited edition brew that donates proceeds to ALD and was exclusively offered in bottles or on draft at the Stone World Bistro & Gardens) and a Stone “Beer Drinker” sized bike jersey. Not to mention the incredible lineup of Vintage Stone: 2007 Imperial Russian Stout, Smoked Porter, 08.08.08 Vertical Epic, Ruination Double IPA, Arrogant Bastard, Oaked AB, 2006 Double Bastard, and 2007 Old Guardian Barleywine.