Inside Philly Craft Beer Fest 2014
Last Saturday, March 1st, the Philly Craft Beer Festival, an event that was crowned one of the “Top 10 Beer Festivals in America” by Forbes Traveler, made its way to the Navy Yard once again. With general admission tickets priced at $46 a pop, we can safely say the event was worth every penny for all who attended.
“The event will take place rain, snow, or shine,” says the event’s official website, and with the way the weather has been behaving, guests expected the worst. They’d have soldiered through even if it had been snowing, but the sunny skies and temperatures in the 40’s made the day all the more enjoyable.
More than 75 breweries (and even a meadery!) set up camp at this South Broad Street location. Each company hand-picked two of their beers to pour into the complementary, 2-oz glasses of the eager guests. They then situated themselves side-by-side, in alphabetical order, around a few huge tents, making it easy for the thirsty taste-testers to get a sip from all their favorite breweries or lazily make their way from line to line. Though the event was sold out and the size of the crowd wouldn’t have indicated otherwise, there were so many breweries doing pours that no line was too long to wait in and no palate went dry. It was the perfect opportunity to sip on local favorites like Flying Fish, SlyFox, and Victory, as well as brews from not-so-prevalent companies like Portland’s Widmer Brothers, Lebanon’s 961 Beer, and Belgium’s Grimbergen. The beers ranged from hard cider to wildberry mead to espresso stouts to a Lebanese pale ale and everything in-between.
Drinking high-alcohol and flavor-intensive beers all day can really make you work up an appetite, and the Philly Craft Beer Fest was not unprepared. Favorite local food trucks, like the Cow and the Curd and Prime Stache, were patiently awaiting within the gates to give you something to wash down. However, most guests chose to nibble on the event’s most popular accessory: hard pretzels weaved through strings of ribbon and worn like necklaces.
And what goes better with beer and food than a little music? Bangers and Mash, a band performs a fusion of traditional Irish tunes and rock n’ roll, set the soundtrack to the event and ensured that no visitor went bored.
People seem to have preconceived notions about what a craft beer enthusiast might look like, but this was no exclusive event. The crowd was speckled with beer-lovers young and old, of all shapes and sizes. Every ten minutes or so, someone would start a ‘cheers’ of epic proportions, and there wasn’t a single soul who refused to partake. It was living proof that a love for beer really does bring people together.
