Philadelphia prides itself as a big beer city and every year now hosts a week of beer events called Philadephia Beer Week. It’s been going on for a while now and I don’t really get that hyped up about it. This year however I saw that new brewery Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company was having a number of events. I checked the calendar on their site and wouldn’t you know it they were having a tap takeover at a bar around the corner called Bottle Bar East.
Bottle Bar is an interesting place. It’s a regular bar with a bunch of taps, but you can also grab a beer from their huge refrigerators full of beer bottles and then sit at the bar and drink that. It’s also common place to go in and buy some bottles to go. If you had to make a comparison I guess I would say it’s kinda like Foodery. The difference being that Foodery seems a tad more expensive and isn’t actually a bar in the traditional sense. I guess what I’m getting at is that I back Bottle Bar generally. I would have to say that I believe some of the bottles they have are a tad on the expensive side, while others are cheap. However, the prices as cheap as they are don’t really touch Wegmans prices. But who feels like driving to Wegmans just to save a dollar or 50 cents here and there? Protip: if you are interested in a great deal, get the Franziskaner big bottle from the cooler for 3 bucks and drink them. They are a great beer, and for 3 bucks? Awesome!
So anyway it was a great time. They had all the Neshaminy beers on tap sans the out of season beers. A pitty too because I think my favorite beer of theirs is the Neshaminator weizenbock they make. I had their Imperial Stout for the first time finally and it was pretty good, although I’m not the biggest fan of Imperial Stouts. After the initial burst of the Imperial Stout I switched to their Croyden Cream Ale. A lighter more refreshing beer capable of drinking en masse. I saw head brewer Jeremy Myers there holding court in the corner of the bar and had a discussion on the greatness of Juan Pierre, Placido Polanco, and Cliff Lee.
I only went to this one event all week that was official Philadelphia Beer Week and it was pretty fun. I usually skip beer events because I’m just too lazy. Perhaps I’ll do my duty as an authority on all things beer next year and go to some more events. I am a fan of this “hammer of glory” they have and am now submitting my bid to run with it next year. Apparently there is some kind of relay from event to event with the hammer. There is no one that will run with a huge sledge hammer with more ferocity and tenacity than me. That’s a fact!
