Philly beers and silly beers

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." -Benjamin Franklin

He may or may not have actually said that, but it's still pretty amusing, and an appropriate way to open this entry since I spent a chunk of my weekend in and around Philadelphia, and tried a few new beers while I was at it (two thirds of them were even brewed in Philly!). It was nice to see some of the historic sites that I last saw on elementary school field trips, and just to walk around a different city. Nice change of pace. After visiting the Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin's grave, we wandered over to Yards Brewing Company to taste the local brews, sharing pints of the following:

Love Stout: Good stuff. This was nice and lightweight, like Guinness (I know some people find that statement to be completely ludicrous but it's true). Straightforward and smooth.

IPA: Good. Straightforward. No complaints here, and the IPA fan (the other half of this mysterious "we" I keep referring to) who I was sharing this with gave it his seal of approval too. That means it's pretty legit.

Poor Richard's Tavern Spruce Ale: Speaking of Ben Franklin... this was a very interesting beer. I can't say if it was good or bad so much as interesting because it tasted exactly like a spruce tree smells. I love trees and all but I'm not entirely sure a beer should taste like liquid tree. The verdict is still out. Definitely a strong flavor though, so if you have any sort of spruce-sensitivity, don't go near this.

General Washington's Tavern Porter: This was a good porter. Nothing so strong tasting that it knocked me over or startled me, but definitely not a boring beer, either. Count me a fan.


After faffing about for a while in the city, we went to a Halloween party, to which I brought a variety twelve pack of Butternuts brews. I'd previously tried the Moo Thunder (great) and Pork Slap Pale Ale (also very good), and I figured Halloween is all about fun, silly, weird things, so why not get beers in goofy looking cans with ridiculous names? I would be driving to the D.C. area later that night, so I just stuck to trying the two I hadn't already had.

Heinnieweisse: What's not to love about a beer called named heinnie? Well, I guess that's an exaggeration. I liked this beer, don't get me wrong, but I didn't love it. It's a decent hefeweizen but nothing particularly remarkable about it (though as we've been discussing lately, sometimes that's ok).

Snapperhead IPA: This was not good, and it wasn't even the hops that bothered me. In fact, it wasn't that hoppy at all, it was just super sweet and weird tasting. I liked their other beers, especially the first two I tried, but not really this one. And all of the other IPA fans in the room didn't like it either, so it's not just me and my immature taste for the style.


Some winners, some losers, some in-betweeners, but as always, excellent adventures in beer and in life.
Paul: 300
Colleen: 317