That's right.

Only bottle shops and beer distributors. There are plenty of these place though.

There are some new grocery stores that have a bar attached with basically a bottle shop in between the bar and grocery store. People are going nuts for it.

It's very similar in NJ, but the liquor stores can sell beer wine liquor whatever. But still it's only sold in liquor specific locations.

what is your favorite beer bar in philly coff?
im staying for a night or two and seeing a show at the electric factory. haven't been to philadelphia in years, any suggestions would be great.

SMaSH is bottled up. Will send out next week. If you brewed the SMaSH and want to try mine, wheat malt and centennial, PM me your address.

For me it depends on what youre looking for and where you'll be staying. Probably the 2 biggest cant miss places in Center City are Monk's Cafe (a world renowned Belgian joint with an amazing beer list and fantastic food) which can get very busy pretty much always but is well worth the wait. Then there is Nodding Head, a brewpub in CC that has the best Berliner Weisse I have ever had and Im not the only person who thinks so read the reviews in BeerAdvocate.


If youre going to the Electric Factory then you'll be in my neck of the woods close to Fishtown and Northern Liberties. You should check out, Barcade (Has a great draft list, something like 20 taps, and tons of vintage arcade games if youre into that), Then there is Standard Tap, a great beer bar with only local beers brewed within 100 miles of the bar. Finally Frankford Hall, which is a new Outdoor German Biergarten. I cant say the tap list is extensive but they have all the German hits and a few good local beers but the setting is unmatched.

Have fun, there are many many other places you could check out but I didnt want to overload you.

I am actually just keggin mine tonight, I have been a little back up without any free bottles or kegs. I'll counterpressure fill in 2 weeks and ship bottles out. Ill PM you.

Great thread, gonna take me some time to read it completely.

2 weeks ago I drove to Belgium (I live in the Netherlands so 20 minute drive for me) with a friend and I bought 48 different beers for little over 70 euro.

I will post reports with pics along the way.

My favourite so far is Gouden Carolus Tripel.

Thanks coff. All suggestions sound good. Between your write up and beer advocate I will be just fine.

Two morequestions if you don't mind. Philly like Boston has a bunch of good beer bars but usually the food is lacking if beer is the focus of the establishment. Any places I can get a good steak/meal at a nice restaurant and get quality beer? Because I can't find anyplace like that at home.

Does the electric factory suck or am I reading the wrong info? Everything I read says that security there are hard asses, that the sound sucks, and they oversell the venue and cram as many as they can in there.

On the topic of beer, boulevard single wide just started showing up at stores around me. Why does the 6 pack come in a full box like a 12 pack would? Im not a recycling nut but it seemed odd that they would use that much cardboard and material for a 6 pack. It reminded me of buying cd's circa 1992.

Is Pliny the elder on tap anywhere in Philly?

There are many PLCB Wine and Spirit stores in the Harrisburg area open on Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. I would guess it's the same across the rest of the state. You can check the hours of any store in the state at http://www.finewineandgoodspirits.com.

I live in Philly and there is only a coule that are open on Sundays, and only one of them is within 8-1 miles of me, its brand new and just opened 2 months ago. Until that one opened you couldnt find a Wine and Spirits open on a Sunday reasonably close to Center City unless you went down North Broad, which I tend to avoid.

I dont find that to be true in Philly at all actually. There are many beer bars with fantastic food and amazing beer selections. Monk's has some fabulous food, the mussels are out of this world and pair great with the wide variety of Belgian beers they pour. All of the places I listed have very good food to go along with the good beer. You might be looking for a higher end place? Most of the restaurants in Philly have embraced the craft beer culture, including the expensive Buddakhan (incredible) Butcher and Singer etc so you'll find 2-3 solid local crafts at the high end places.

Most of the places I have listed are Center City or towards my neighborhood in No Libs/Fishtown, but there is even more out in South Philly.

The Electric Factory used to be awesome, I loved it when I was 15-20. Most of the reveiws ytou are reading are correct. Its packed, tons of underaged wasted annoying people and the bar sucks and is a pain to get a beer from. The best place of comparable size is Union Transfer, great place for a show, great beer selection at a reasonable price and fantastic sound.

Currently POPE in South Philly has it on tap, not sure how long it will last since these bars get a keg at a time randomly and will sneak it on tap unadvertised so their regulars get to enjoy.

http://phillytapfinder.com/bar/pope/

***Tip, dont waste your time with any beers from Philadelphia Brewing Company, unfortunately their beer is very pedestrian at best and an awful representation of beer in Philadelphia, have yourself anything from Yards instead and enjoy.

Thanks coff. I appreciate all the info. Good to hear about well made beer and food can be found under one roof. Boston sucks for this.

That's weird, there are as many state stores in Harrisburg open on Sunday as there are in Philly - and Philly is about 10 times our size. If you ever get up our way you have to try Al's of Hampden. It's a pizza brew pub in Enola. Great selection of singles and full array of his own beers on draft. And great pizza, subs, etc.

No problem, report back on your trip we wann hear about the good beer you drank!

Sounds like a great place, I'll keep it in mind when Im in the area.

Yea actually, I thought that the new W&S on Girard was the only one opened on Sundays since its once of their crazy big new joints with tons of wine. Turns out there are more.

Just got my hands on a Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout, never been more excited to try a beer.

Enjoy! One of the best!

Scored a bottle of Frangelic Mountain Brown... It was stunning

At a bells takeover atm, firkin third coast and black note FTW

If any of y'all in the beer swap want some Cigar City beer in your box let me know. I'd love to try some beers local to you guys along with the SMaSH of course. I still haven't had Nugget Nectar or Heady Topper, so if you have access to those, that would be awesome!

Pliny, I got your box yesterday, the caps looked like they had a "C" and an "O" on them. What beer is what?

Barnes & Noble by me carries at least 3 different beer magazines, are there any worth regularly reading?

I can never seem to come across this even when I'm ordering online from a retailer that has a huge selection. Guess I'm going to have to actively hunt for it.

Also, has anyone tried the SA IPA Hop-ology 12-pack? Haven't found it yet.

Wraths- the green O is the berliner, the C is the Citra/Golden Promise SMaSH.

nyc999- I subscribe to Beer Advocate, it's a decent mag.

Ineedaride2-no KBS until next year. I have to drive ~3 hours round trip to GA if I want any. I did it 2 years ago but passed on it this year. It's well worth the drive though.

Yeah it's nearly impossible to find. Found out from a friend there was going to be some guy, who was connected to the Founder's brewery in some way, that was going to be at a liquor store selling at least 6 bottles. So we show up and he's in the parking lot, we approach him and tell him that we heard about his KBS sale. He said we could buy only one and only if we could impress him with a 90's hip-hop/rap song. We started rapping "Hypnotize" (notorious B.I.G.), impressed him, handed over $10 and got our KBS. Now I just need to figure out a time and place to actually drink it

Its been in my area for the last 2 months or so. I tend to be very pessimistic about Sam Adams ipa's because I've never had a good one.

It's not worth the $$

Yep. Typical Sam Adams fare, meaning average at best.

I have a few bottles of KBS, i drank one and laid the others down. It took me like an hour to drink it, I can appreciate the complexity of the beer but damn thats a rich beer. Dont get me wrong it was good, but Id be more inclined to trade my remaining bottles for some Cantillon.