2013 Philly Beer Week Cheat Sheet

Philly Beer Week, the largest beer celebration of its kind in the United States, starts Friday, May 31 and runs through Sunday, June 9.

22nd & Philly is here to help you with our 3rd annual Philly Beer Week Cheat Sheet. This list is a good start if you don't want to spend hours (like we did) researching the endless number of events to attend. We picked a variety of events with brewers and venues that we enjoy, plus some others that just sounded like fun.

You can find more info about each event on the Philly Beer Week Event Page. Follow Beer Week on Twitter or like it on Facebook for updates throughout the week. Even more details can be found via the official smartphone apps.

2012 Philly Beer Week Cheat Sheet

Friday, June 1 is the official start of Philly Beer Week, the largest beer celebration of its kind in the United States. Knowing what events, festivals, dinners, tours or tastings to attend during the ten-day celebration is a daunting task, even for the most ardent Beer Week follower.

Last year we created a cheat sheet of events you might enjoy and it became one of our most-read posts. Back by popular demand is 2012’s Philly Beer Week Cheat Sheet. We included an array of breweries, events, neighborhoods and bars to give you a glimpse of everything Beer Week has to offer.

Is this every event you should attend? Nope. But, it is a start, especially if you don’t have time to do all your own research. You can find more information on each event on the Philly Beer Week Event Page. If we missed events you recommend let us know in the comment section.

2011 Philly Beer Week Cheat Sheet

This Friday is the official start of Philly Beer Week, a ten-day celebration of beer. You can find hundreds of beer and food tastings, special firkins and meet-the-brewer events on the Philly Beer Week event page. The list is endless and you will surely find it difficult to narrow it down to a few go-to events.

We created a cheat sheet of events we thought readers might enjoy. It will be nearly impossible for us to attend all of these, but we hope to get to as many as we can and maybe see you there. Let us know the events you plan or want to attend in the comment section.

Have fun, drink safely and enjoy the best beer celebration in the U.S.

22nd & Philly’s 2011 Philly Beer Week Cheat Sheet (in chronological order):

It's coming! Philly Beer Week, June 3 - 12

Last year, we totally missed the memo on Philly Beer Week and didn't get out to partake in the festivities until the final weekend. Glad we did because we had the chance to meet a real live viking Norwegian brewer, next to whom my very average 5'5" build was completely dwarfed. His brewery was called Nogne, but don't ask me how to pronounce that. According to its website, Nogne is Norway's leading and largest supplier of bottle conditioned ale and the first and only producer of unfiltered sake in Europe. Sweet.

Philly Beer Week is a massive affair, drawing thousands of people and brewers from all over the world. They don't have 2010 stats up yet, but in 2009, Philly Beer Week included 700 different events spread over 10 days, making it the largest festival of its kind in the world. Approximate total attendance was 35,000 people!

Best conversation we had during our single Beer Week night out was with a guy from the Breckenridge Brewery in Colorado where we had stopped on vacation a few summers ago. Love their Agave Wheat. I believe their Avalanche Ale is pretty popular as well.

Turns out he was a South Jersey native who dropped everything on a whim and moved to Colorado to help a friend "get started." Some 20 years later, he's still there. Gotta love the randomness and of course the Jersey connection.


(P.S. If you need a good summer vacation idea, go to Colorado. Denver, Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park, horseback riding, coal mine tours, Coors Brewery, Frontier Days in Cheyenne, WY, white water rafting... all amazing. It was our favorite trip to date and highly recommended.)


Looking forward to this year's Beer Week - any 22nd&Philly fans want to plan a Beer Week outing? Can you say, guest post??

Here's the full schedule so you can start planning now: http://www.phillybeerweek.org/.

Philly Beer Week

Philadelphia has the biggest and best "Beer Week" celebration in the entire U.S. In fact it's so popular (and efficient) that by the time I got this post up, the official website was already switched over to tout the 2011 event. According to that site, Philly Beer Week was only started in 2008, but it's been so successful that 25 other U.S. cities have emulated it and launched their own.

We didn't pay too much attention to Beer Week this year (which is actually 10 days not a week) until the last few days when we decided we better check it out somehow. From examining the online schedule, Philly Beer Week had all sorts of specials, tastings, specialty brews, meet n' greets, and dinner pairings. You can drink all day and all night if you want! There must have been well over 100 area bars and restaurants participating, most offering one special or event during the day, then a happy hour 5-7pm special, and then a nightly 8-10pm special. Most bars would pick a theme too - like all Belgian beers or all Pennsylvania breweries.

Bradd and I decided to focus on one area of the city to make it easy to hit up a few Beer Week events in one night - Fairmount. Our first stop was Bishop's Collar. It's always good for a quick, cheap and tasty dinner, but at about 7pm they didn't have any Beer Week things going on so we just ordered off the regular menu. At least our tummies were full.

Then we tried Brigid's, a little dive up the road from Bishop's Collar that was featuring beers from the Breckenridge Brewery. It appealed to us because last summer we took an amazing vacation to Colorado and stayed in Breckenridge, just a stone's throw from the brewery. They have some great beers and the place was really a cool spot to hang out, even in a ski town during the summer. It was a clear mix of year-round local and travelers, sharing in their good times.

Anyway, back to Brigid's. I don't think I'd go back to the bar itself - its super tiny and you have to squeeze past the actual bar stools to get to the tables in the bar. Some reviews I'd seen online said it was all cozy and had a lot of character, so maybe it was just overcrowded for Beer Week, but I found the tight squeeze a little annoying. BUT the fun part was that we got to meet one of the brewmasters from Breckenridge! Told him about our trip and we learned about how he got from growing up in South Jersey to Colorado, and then stayed there. I remember that there was a girl involved, and some friend who was desperate for help making beer, so the guy just up and went and never looked back for 30 years. Nice, friendly Philly Beer Week experience. As for the beer, I tried Breck's SummerBright Ale but it was a little heavy for my taste, even though its a wheat beer. My favorite is still the brewery's Agave Wheat, which I had out in Colorado.

Then we headed down to The Belgian Cafe, where I love to eat for brunch or dinner. Steak Frites Salad is perfect for a not-too-filling-meal-that-includes-french-fries and the burgers are the same as Monk's so they are just awesome. The 8-10pm special there was all Norwigian brews that I could neither pronounce nor spell, but I know the brewery was called Nogne. I ordered whatever seemed like a 'whit' but what I got was really dark and thick. I wasn't a big fan but dealt with it cause I think it cost $14. Yeeesh. And that was the special price. BUT the fun continued here when we got to meet the brewer - who came allllll the way from Norway for Philly Beer Week. We had a short conversation with him, during which I remember his saying he liked Philly, but otherwise he was tough to communicate with. We got a great pic though, which appropriately depicts how absolutely giant this man was. We didn't even come up to his shoulders.

Philly Beer Week 2011 starts June 3 of next year. Until then, the website lists all sorts of other beer-related events around the city. Cheers!