Philly Beer-Aholic Re-cap of ABW Craft Beer Festival

Friday, January 21, 2011
Philly Beer-Aholic
Allentown Craft Beer Festival Recap

Belated notes from 12/04/10 — Jim Shanholtzer

The Allentown Craft Beer Fest is put on by Fegley’s Allentown Brew Works, and it’s probably the best event they host!

It was held on 3 floors:

The Silk Lounge: In the basement of the building, it held the food–which was all included with the price of admission–as well as some vendors. They had wings, chicken nuggets, french fries, sweet potato fries, corn fritters, onion rings, fried portabello mushrooms, jalapeno poppers, and a chicken fajita station. Everything I tried was really good, and it’s nice to have some food included with your ticket, as most festivals do not. My only complaints would be the food was only available from 1:30-3, and with theVIP ticket the fest ran from 12-4 (and they ran out of the wings and nuggets pretty early).

The High Gravity Lounge and the Hamilton Room: On the 2nd and 3rd floors of the building, contained all the beer, as well as some vendors. Here is a list of most if not all of the beers:

Weyerbacher Tiny, Winter Ale, Merry Monks
Stoudt’s Scarlet Lady ESB, Winter Ale
Sam Adams Winter, Cream Stout, Latitude 48, Cherry Wheat
Brooklyn Brown, Lager, Pennant, Blast Pale Ale
Stegmaier IPA, Winter Warmer
Slyfox Phoenix Pale Ale, Pikeland Pils
Roy Pitz Old Jail Ale, Best Blonde Lay Down Stay Down, Daddy Fat Sacks
Lancaster Shoo-Fly Porter, Amish Four Grain Pale Ale
Yards ESA, IPA
Intercourse Paradise Pale, Mount Joy Light Pilsner, Bareville Pilsner, Blue Ball Porter
Harvest Moon DIPA, Pumpkin Stout
Cricket Hill East Coast Lager, Colonel Blides Cask Ale, Hypnotic
Flying Fish ESB, Grand Cru Winter Reserve
Victory Hop Devil
Michelob Shock Top, Wild Blue
Duquesne Pilsner Beer
Unibroue Ephemere (Apple), and Terrible Brouwerij
Duvel Moortgat Duvel
Boulder Beer Cold Hop
Rinkuškiu Alaus Darykla Missing Elf
Kostritzer Oktoberfest
Harpoon Octoberfest
Bullfrog Raspberry Cream Stout, Double Coffee Stout
Appalachian Pennypacker Porter, Hoppy Trails, Wheat Bock
Troegs Troegenator, HopBack, Dead Reckoning
Chris Bowen ESB
Brew Works Pumpkin Ale, Hop Grenade, Rude Elf’s Reserve, Hopsolutely, Bagpiper’s Scotch Ale,
Ar Belgian Rum Raisin cask, Cocoa Porter cask, Steelgaarden Wit, Bushey’s Pale Ale, Knuckleball, Amber Lager, Pawn Shop Porter,
Magic Hat Odd Notion, HIPA, Circus Boy, #9, (and a wheat IPA that I can not recall the name of, but was very good!)

As you can see there was plenty of good beer (Magic Hat even brought more then #9 and Circus Boy!)

The highlights for me were Bullfrog from Williamsport PA, the Raspberry Cream Stout was excellent as are most of their beers. Roy Pitz from Chambersburg PA, who’s Lay Down Stay Down and Daddy Fat Sacks were justfantastic, and I really enjoyed the Old Jail Ale and Blonde as well. Harvest Moon out of New Brunswick NJ, with 2 of the best offerings I have ever tasted from them. The double IPA was fantastic, and the Pumkin Stout was as well. And of course the host for this shindig, the Brew Works, where Beau, Nick, Josh and Lewis alway soffer good, quality beer.

I got to talk to the guys from Roy Pitz, Stoudts and Harvest Moon quite a bit and hope to tour these breweries in the near future. The good news I picked up on here is Roy Pitz is in the process of getting a bottling system, so their beers will become more readily available hopefully in the near future. I had a great time, and everyone that I went with, and spoke to about the festival really enjoyed themselves, and of course all the great beer!

Thanks for the re-cap Jim!