beer wk: sunday boozy sunday

what better way to delay the consequences of a fun saturday night of beers and excessive high fiving, than a boozy brunch with a beautiful broad? that's how i started my sunday - met up with my friend D for the beer week special allagash brunch at the pope. over pancakes, tofu scramble and 2PM beers, we kicked off what would be the first of a multi-hour hang out sesh.

wish every brunch was an allagash brunch

D is a seasoned bartending veteran and a true beverage connoisseur , so i followed her lead when she ordered the allagash vrienden, which turned out to be a stunning ale in the flemish sour tradition. it was, we learned, an allagash collabo with new belgium brewery, brewed with dandelion greens and elderberries (the two breweries even blended their special yeast strains! isn't that cute?). the quiet amber liquid in this glass is the stuff beer week dreams are made of: tart, fruity, strong, and just the right amount of weird. i loved every little sip. i had hoped to catch a bit of the live set by our pals the glotones, but alas, they were breaking their gear down when we arrived.

after our plates were cleaned and cleared, D and i hightailed it over to her place of employ - and the only place in old city i'll regularly patronize - the khyber pass pub. they were in the midst of a supreme beer week jam: saison sunday! ten rare and immensely intriguing saisons on tap. oh dear.


the first of quite a few tulip glasses to grace the bar before us was la moneuse by the belgian brewery blaugies. malty, barn-y, aged to a nice warmth, but still wonderfully effervescent on the tongue, this was a classic saison. literally the perfect beer for a sunday afternoon, though perhaps a brasserie in belgium would have been a slightly more perfect place to be drinking it. no matter: a dim bar in philadelphia with D was a really good place to be, too.

i must confess that i forget which saison was second on my list. the sun was still shining a bit too brightly for the level of tips i was feeling, but our spirits were high, and we were deep in one of those great, rambling conversations. amongst a hundred other things, we talked about men and relationships, food and dietary choices, and going fishing as little kids. the third (and last?) saison i ordered was voodoo brewery's bitchin' camaro. this farmhouse ale is apparently a very new release from the brewery. so new, in fact, that there wasn't really a description for it on the draft list, and in the column listing abv there a mysterious "?." i distinctly remember that the last line of the description read something like, "any beer named after a dead kennedy's song can't be bad." though D wasn't crazy about it, i liked the hefty, malty, boozy kick in the teeth it gave me. if you're already getting loaded on super high quality beers on a sunday afternoon, why not go big?

after dutifully chugging some water, we called it a day, and headed home. woozily walking down walnut at sunset, we hugged on the corner of 6th street. D said she was going home to take a nap, but i was headed off to band practice in east falls. being tipsy on small quantity of good, strong beer is a distinctly light, energizing feeling, with 0% hangover. alright, alright...maybe just a 5% one.

love,
emily

a new icon

it's deeply enjoyable to me that because The Cheesesteak is one of philadelphia's edible icons (enough to warrant a televised showdown), the vegetarian/vegan cheesesteak has become another kind of icon for this town. an impressive number of bars, cafes and eateries boast their own version of this copycat sandwich. truly, these seitan beasts are everywhere.

do you know that i've never had a real philly cheesesteak? i have followed a meatless diet for so long, that a pat's, geno's, tony lukes' or whatever else has never touched my lips. this is a fact i'm pretty proud of. however, i have sampled dozens of vegetarian versions. like most popularized food items, some are great, some are bad. most are just okay.

this being said, i feel confident in claiming that blackbird pizza's is some next level shit. ryan and i met for lunch on friday and tucked into these beauties, pausing only to exclaim our delight between massive bites.


the seitan was very thinly sliced, perfectly peppery, and piping hot. there was no skimping on the onions and mushrooms, and vegan cheese was melted (YES - MELTED!) evenly over everything. the roll was crusty and sturdy - a detail so often overlooked in mainstream sandwich construction. i usually like to save half my sandwiches for round 2, but this one was too good and i showed no restraint.

now at $8 and change (and, don't forget to tip the nice vegans!), this sammie ain't exactly cheap - but who can put a price on joy?

love,
emily

nicecap

this past friday night, we gathered at beloved shot & a beer joint bob and barbara's, for a birthdy throwdown. our bestie Halimah turned 25! so in her honor, we settled in at the city-wide special watering hole for long, solid bar session. you know, one of those nights where you park it at the bar, the hours roll by, the beers keep coming, and before you know it people are talking to strangers, jovially yelling over each other and dancing to the jazz band. maybe a few friends even trade smooches on a drunk lark. the bartenders start to hate you even though you mean to spread love through your tips. i wish i could elucidate this better but it just felt very...philly.

after the majority of the friends had disbanded, ryan, hammy and i stumbled out of the bar and into the clear autumn air. tipsy, but not yet tired, someone proposed a nightcap before turning in for good. we decided to get one more at tattoo mom, mostly out of its convenient location to pizza (eep!) and home. on our bike ride down south street, i proposed a slightly classier option - brauhaus schmitz. much to my surprise, my cohorts heartily agreed to abandon our punk rock destination for the german-themed bar. something about brauhaus has always been tinged with douchiness (is it that boot thing?), or fratiness, or something, but it also has the potential to be really nice. which would it be on that saturday morning at 1:20AM?

blonde, redhead, brunette

thankfully, the meathead contingent had already retired for the evening, and the bar was pretty quiet. yeah, there were still a few questionable looking/acting young men, but we ignored them and ordered our delicious final beers of the night. i can't remember what ry and ham ordered (full disclosure: i think i acheived 2.5 out of 3 sheets to the wind), but i ordered a big, beautiful mug of spaten optimator (the dark beer on the far right in the photo above). yes, 17 ounces of this 7.2%, bottom fermented, rich and roasty malted doppel bock was a bold choice for a night cap. but after a night of mediocre lager, it tasted SO good, and i really took my time sipping. if we'd actually gone to that other bar, i certainly would've ended up gulping yet another crappy beer, and probably would've ordered a second. instead, all three of us lingered, truly enjoying the complex, deep aromas and flavors of our brews. and at $5.50, this heady bev was worth every dime.

ending our night this way felt, well, very adult. adult in the best way - a savvy, relaxing way to spend a little more time together before hitting the sack. perhaps appropriate for a quarter century b-day, eh?

love,
emily