“Philly Beer Week was
a blast, but parts of me hope it's in another city next year. Mostly organ
parts.”
–-Joe Gunn
If that quote from Joe Gunn, owner of Jose Pistola’s in
Philly, doesn’t wrap up how I felt
after Philly Beer Week ended, I don’t know what could.
Don’t get me wrong. Philly Beer Week was singly the BEST
beer week I have ever been to (and I got to be a part of it), but there’s no
way in hell I will EVER do more than three nights in Philly for PBW again. I
spent practically a week in the city and the burbs doing events, having fun,
eating god knows how many late night cheesesteaks and food in general, and
drinking my liver into utter submission.
If you even want to begin to understand how PBW works, get the app. Or go to the website. But when you see the little red dots EVERYWHERE in Philly on the app, your mind is blown. Literally EVERY bar is involved. With unreal beer. And unreal events. I don't even know how the city itself functions during that 10 day period. The paper is full of events listings, and stories of the previous night's shenanigans, and the city revels in the drunken ridiculousness. I know the taxi drivers had to be in heaven.
But here it starts...
The first night, after
a 10 hour drive, I met Dr. Joel, my boss, at Boilermaker’s. Y’know, because there’s
nothing better than getting off of the road than drinking a bitter and a shot
of whiskey. Then came the first round of food (hot dogs and 3-4 apps), followed
by the trek to Pistola’s for the one and the only Joe Gunn Late Night. Like
Joel said, it’s like watching a better Jay Leno but with multiple bottles of
Jameson. And no TVs. And with really good beer.
Dr. Joel is from
Philly, and damn if you know it. Not only was he brought on stage by Joe Gunn,
he had three drinks in his hands in a matter of 10 minutes. (see pictures) I
was extremely busy making it my personal mission to drink the bar out of
Russian River Supplication, which was on draft, and sadly, kicked far too
quickly for my own taste. And we’re not done yet. We hopped on over to POPE,
walked in at 1:55am (bars close at 2am), only to order the most sessionable
beer in the bar.
I’m kidding. We all ordered Backwoods Bastard on draft and
proceeded to practically chug the beers just to get out of the bar in time.
AND THEN came the cheesesteaks.
AND THEN came the flooded streets around my hotel, where
Joel had to walk me to the hotel from the cab because the cab driver couldn’t
get onto the streets.
And that’s all in the
first night.
Let me break down the next crazy few days, all documented by
pictures in the attached album until I quite literally gave up on taking them.
At my final event, I didn’t even take any pictures. It was an awesome brunch,
but I was on a whole new level of dysfunction that I doubt that I could have
operated my camera even if it were necessary.
Ginger’s Log, Day #2
of PBW:
I wake up to a text from Joel, “I feel like a million bucks.
Seriously, I just woke up and I feel like a damn champion.” I note to him the
lingering funky taste in my mouth and he’s like, “Yep. We ate at Pat’s last
night.” Oh lingering cheesesteak fat, why??!
He gives me a time to meet him in Old City (where my hotel
was located) at Han Dynasty (Szechuan food that is ungodly amazing. See
pictures.), and I get ready and start walking. I normally cannot stomach that
much food, but it was so delicious I literally could not stop eating. Joel was
going to introduce me to the idea of 2nd lunch, but even he stuffed
himself too much to even think about conquering a second feast.
We hopped on the train and headed to Theresa’s for our first
event of the day. We walk in, and the next thing I know, I have a shot of our
original “gin” (juniper brandy), a drink of Kuhnhenn’s port, and some Michigan
White Grappa sitting in front of me. (HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?) Followed immediately,
by a Black Tulip, one of my favorite New Holland brews.
Holy mother of alcohol above, what was I thinking? Well,
after directions from my bartender to finish off all the drinks he poured, I
went to my favorite method of drinking beer at events: I order by the
half-snifter. Just give me a half of a snifter of whatever the hell I order.
Unless it’s whiskey. Then you give me MAYBE two ounces... usually only one.
Especially if it’s Zeppelin Bend.
After the next round of food, which, mind you, Joel
squirreled off and I had to go steal the remainder of the cheese from, we had
to get a move on. We had another event to go to.
Late Night Palooza at City Tap House. With a 3L of Dragon’s
Milk. So. Much. Beer.
Oh, and by the way, I accidentally flashed my bum twice that
day. Before I had even started drinking. My dress and I weren’t agreeing on
modesty, apparently.
To save you from the moment-by-moment insanity, I’m going to
rush this and just give you a bulleted list of the ridiculous shit that
happened from there on:
- · Visited the Liberty Bell with the Bell’s Brewing crew.
- · Russian River Consecration and mussels at Belgian Café.
- · Karaoke at Varga with Avery. One of our friends sang the following, “If you like Pina Coladas, and getting fu**ed in the ass…”
- · My first use of Uber, an awesome taxi service that picks you up using an app. Oh, by the way, they contract out with limo services, so you actually have a driver and it rivals taxis in cost. Not to mention, it’s charged directly to my card so I don’t have to worry about cash.
- · Barcade. My attempt to show some guys the moon in Rampage. $10 of quarters and 83 in-game days later, the bar is shutting down. Damn.
- · Cheesesteaks. Again. Peppers so spicy that hilarity ensues.
- · Prohibition Bar in the morning. More drinking.
- · Walked to Kite and Key. A bird literally flew into me. Everything in this city is either still drunk or ridiculously hungover.
- · Drank Sofie, and Lolita, and ate one of my favorite food combos: tomato soup and grilled cheese.
- · Had an awesome event at McCrossen’s Tavern involving food, Hatter Days beers, and amazing cheeses from DiBruno Bros.
- · Chiriboga blue cheese from Bavaria is singly one of the best cheeses I have ever had.
- · Tripe is not really something I enjoy, but pig’s tongue and fried chicken livers rock.
- · Varga Bar again. Helped pump a Troeg’s rep full of whiskey. Many “you don’t even know me”’s ensue. Hilarious. Then I started taking shots. I disappeared from the bar like a ninja, and crawled into my king sized bed and cuddled 8 pillows.
- · Wake up in the AM. Italian Market. AMAZING. Six cucumbers for a buck, an amazing visit to DiBruno Bros. If they had cots, I’d live there, and then eventually I drove to Horsham. I had an event at Iron Abbey that was awesome, and some sort of recovery in my liver began. It doesn’t get to last long… Mad Hatter on cask is delicious.
- · Magic Gardens in the City in the morning.
- · Eulogy where I eat mussels, drink Gueuze Tilquin, introduce some guys to Dragon’s Milk, and then end up drinking a bottle of 50/50 Grand Cru Eclipse with those guys. Hot damn.
- · Varga Bar for my event that night. Aww, yeah. Michael Jackson Hatter, good beer, amazing ravioli, and a damn good time.
- · Drive to Exton, PA. Sleep well for the first time since I got to PBW, and wake up to the FINAL event. Brunch. Delicious.
To put it lightly, I don’t know how I survived. After Joel left the 2nd night I texted
him asking, “How do you survive?!” He says, “You just close your eyes, keep
drinking your beer, and hope that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”
He was right.
That light was me hightailing it to the brewery in MI.
The bad news?
The tunnel was a lot longer than I expected.
But the story of the New Holland Brewing 15th
Anniversary party is a story for another time.
Cheers.
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