A Summer of Beer at a Philly Park Near You

With the biting cold in the air these days it’s hard not to dream of summer. Let’s take a step into the future right now and pretend we’re already deep into June and reveling in the sunshine. To help make these winter months pass faster, the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation just announced a partnership that just might make your summer a little sweeter… or at least a little more beer-filled. In tandem with the Fairmount Park Conservancy, the Parks and Recs department is planning to host another summer series of beer gardens across the city — this time for five days each at a variety of Philly city parks.

And while there is no shortage of great beer in our fair city, how great will it be to wake up on a summer day and head to your local park to taste-test an ice-cold craft beer? Even more, though it’s a series of beer gardens, the permits will permit wine and spirits too. That means if your spouse prefers a sparkling spritzer on a warm Philadelphia day, they’ll have you covered.

This shouldn’t be new to Philly residents, the pop-up parade of beer gardens made their presence known last year. So how is this year different? Well, it’s planned for some new areas of the city. The partnership between the two parks organisations is aiming to promote use of all that green space local governments have planted, pruned, and polished.

These temporary beer gardens are still in the planning phase — that means we don’t have the firm details on which parks and which vendors. But the initial plans suggest that beer lovers can plan on a pop-up beer garden perhaps in some of these parks: Schuylkill Banks, Paine’s Park, Hawthorne Park, Lemon Hill Mansion, Belmont Plateau, and FDR Park, among others.

Each park will likely have a different vibe — the vendors may change it up at each venue — but you can plan on fairly large gardens. Initial reports suggest the permits will allow seating for 50-200 people.

The weather is so lovely in the summer months that it’s a shame we sometimes get too busy to enjoy it. Especially when thoughts of warm sunshine are all that get us through those frosty winter nights. Let’s make the pledge now to pick the nearest pop-up beer garden, get a sitter for the kids, and meet friends out for a frosty pint.