I know beer festivals do not count towards the quest, however, my son obtained tickets for Sierra Nevada's Beer Camp Festival on August 2nd in Philadelphia. I could not pass up the opportunity to attend this unique festival that was traveling across the country to celebrate the opening of Sierra Nevada's new brewery in North Carolina. The event exceeded my expectations. Other than the Savor, this was the most organized beer festival I ever attended. People were enjoying and experiencing good craft beer. It was a great opportunity to visit with a few brewers such as Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada, along with Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo of Russian River. I also enjoyed one of the most unique bands, March Fourth, words cannot describe them. One last thing before I return to the quest, while in Philadelphia, we would have been remiss if we didn't visit Monks Cafe. Monks is one of the top rated Beer bars in the east. Both the front and back bars are small and crowded. However, the beer selection made it worthwhile during both visits.
OK......it's back to the quest. Attending the Beer Camp festival gave me an opportunity to visit a few breweries in Virginia, Maryland, Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. so the following is the highlights of a few of the breweries visited on this run.
- Vintage 50 - located in a small plaza on the outskirts of Leesburg, VA. The brewpub has a nice bar and eating area. I did not sample the food, However, the menu and food that was being served looked very good. The beer was very good, I recommend the Deux Mois Bie're De Garde, Mouthful Milk Stout, 50 Cat IPA and how could you not try a beer called "edible Underwear". The Beer Tender, Jeanette and Manager, Marieke, made the visit very enjoyable.
- Victory Brewing Co.- I must confess on this visit I was navigating while Jeff was driving. Unfortunately I directed us to Victory's new brewery in the middle of Pennsylvania cornfields...oops. So after a 13 mile re-route we landed at the Original brewery and brewpub in Downingtown, PA. Storm King was always my favorite Victory beer, so I sampled few that I had not tried before. The Wild Devil and Dirt Wolf were good, I was a little disappointed with stouts. The brewpub was very large and decorated with large cut out sections of copper brew kettles. This created a very unique decor in the bar and eating areas.
- Flying Fish Brewery- while in Philadelphia we crossed the river into New Jersey to Visit Flying Fish, known for their New Jersey Turnpike Exit Series. New Jersey State Law makes a brewery visit quite unique. Before the brewery can sell you beer at the brewery you must take a tour of the brewery. What...there are no tours available.........don't worry you can watch a video of the tour. I was always curious why New Jersey has so few Breweries, well politicians is the answer, surprise, surprise. Ok we ordered our flights of beer and watched the video....sort of. The Exit #4, Exit #16, FU Sandy and the Abbey Dubbel made up for the video. Just needed some popcorn.
- Yards Brewing- after the Beer Camp Festival we made the 1/2 mile hike up the street to Yards Brewery. I know it was only 1/2 of a mile, but that was after a 5 Hour Beer festival. As you could imagine the Brewery was packed with other festival goers that had the same idea as we did. Yards offered a nice flight brews. My favorites on the flight were the Brawler, Washington's Tavern Porter, Love Stout the IPA. After a small debate on the length of a shuffleboard table, we summoned the Uber Cab and it was on to dinner, then Monks Cafe.