Whoa, we're more than half way there. Whoa-oh, Leuven On A Prayer!
Before I get into the event schedule of May 29 to June 7, in case you haven't heard, the official Belgian collaboration beer of Philly Beer Week 2015 is called Leuven On A Prayer. I was honored (lucky?) to be a part of the traveling PBW contingent that paired up Free Will Brewing Company's John Stemler with Jef Janssens at Hof ten Dormaal (HtD) just outside Leuven, Belgium. The brew day went down on February 5 at the honest-to-goodness Belgian Farmhouse Brewery roughly twenty miles east of Brussels.
The backstory of the brewery, the beer, and our trip was more multi-faceted than any previous PBW collaboration, largely thanks to the catastrophic fire at HtD in January. If you're not familiar with HtD or the fire, there'll be plenty of opportunities at Opening Tap, events during the week, and fundraisers during Philly Beer Week 2015.
Plus, check out Free Will TONIGHT in Perkasie for a great way to support Hof ten Dormaal and drink and win some great beer along the way.
If you'd like to get caught up on more of the backstory, please check my excellent (humbly submitted) wrap-up from a few months ago. Plenty of pictures to go with the words as well.
Now on to the business the ten-day Philly Beer Week. Or, as I like to call it, an Imperial Philly Beer Week — because in Philly there could be no other kind.
Last Friday, the official calendar of events at PhillyBeerWeek.org counted 185 events. Today, it lists 331. If you know my tendencies around here, then you won't be surprised to know that I took some time an effort to break it down....in a spreadsheet, but of course.
There's really no point in sharing the spreadsheet yet as we still have three weeks for the event schedule to build and shake itself out. Let's just do a bit of slicing and dicing to help get you through your Friday. Grab a beer, it always makes things better.
Number of listed events as of May 8
35 - Friday, 5/29
41 - Saturday, 5/30
38 - Sunday, 5/31
35 - Monday, 6/1
33 - Tuesday, 6/2
40 - Wednesday, 6/3
34 - Thursday, 6/4
30 - Friday, 6/5
29 - Saturday, 6/6
16 - Sunday, 6/7
Number of listed events at the Uno Family - 37
Number of listed events at Whole Foods - 35
Number of city-based events - 224
Number of non city-based events - 107
Number of unique establishments/locations - 55
Number of events at a brewery - 15
Number of events at a bar - 283
Number of events with "takeover" in the event name - 30
Most expensive event - $125 for "The Too Many Cooks In The Kitchen With Beer Dinner" at Sancho Pistola's
Number of events listed as pay-as-you-go - 276
Number of events listed as "free" - 2
Number of events listing Free Will and Hof ten Dormaal - 4
Number of Leuven On A Prayer kegs arriving from Belgium - Roughly 35 (to be confirmed)
My personal Best Of List from event listings as of May 8
Best Nod to Philly Beer History - Take a beer and history tour of Christ Church Burial Ground for $10 any day of the week at 5:30 p.m. - $10
Best Buzz for your Buck - Opening Tap at 23rd Street Armory on 5/29 - $46
Best Train Ride - After $2 Dogfish Heads (on 5/30) or Russian Rivers (on 6/4) at Teresa's Next Door - $PAYG
Best Bus Ride - From Bethlehem Brew Works to Philly on 5/30 - $55
Best Way to Firk Off - Johnny Brenda's stacks 'em high on 5/30 - $PAYG
Best Rugby Tailgating - Pretty sure there'll only be one this year, so if you want to tailgate a rugby match at PPL Park with Saucony Creek Brewing, this is it on 5/30 - $30
Best Pub Crawl - Numerous Passyunk Avenue establishments bursting at the seams with beer, food, music, and probably much more all day long on 5/31 - $PAYG
Best Dinner - Iron Hill descends on Good Dog every year for a killer dinner, this year on 5/31 - $50
Best Belgian - Focal brewery for 2015 collaboration beer, Hof ten Dormaal, is sending brewer Jef Janssens who will show up at least at Opening Tap, Standard Tap, Jose Pistola's, Memphis Taproom, and Monk's Cafe. He's also due to brew at Free Will in Perkasie. A real fun dude you want to meet. Lunch at Monk's is on 6/2 - $TBD
Best Geeky Commercial Brew - Meet Terry Hawbaker of Pizza Boy and Intangible Ales at Bottle Bar East on 6/2 - $PAYG
Best Local Benefit - Doobies does cat-related fundraisers each year, usally with Flying Fish. This year there are two on 6/2 - $PAYG
Best Returning Brewers - Buds, Casey Hughes (Coppertail, Florida) and Mike Fava (Oxbow, Maine), return to both host events at Jose Pistola's on 6/2 - $PAYG
Best Beer & Cider - I'm big on Other Farm and if you haven't had their beers and cider, check 'em out with live jazz at Time on 6/3 - $PAYG
Best Ice Cream & Beer - I'm also big on Bent Spoon Ice Cream from Princeton ever since they attended the Brewer's Plate several years ago. They team up with Weyerbacher on 6/3 at Uno's in Hamilton, NJ - $PAYG
Best Geeky Homebrew - Meet Randy Mosher at 2nd Story Brewing Company on 6/3 - $10
Best Nod to Philly Prison History - London Grill, Stoudts Brewing Company, and Eastern State Penitentiary have a long intertwined history. It all is on display on 6/3 - $40
Best SoCal-based event - Lucky's Last Chance in Manayunk is hosting both Ballast Point and Green Flash on 6/3 - $PAYG
Best NYC-based event - Brooklyn is nuts for Other Half. They're at Jerry's Bar on 6/4 and Local 44 on 6/5 - $PAYG
Best Reason to Head Downstairs - Conshohocken Brewing Company and Wyndridge Farm Brewery at U-bahn on 6/5 - $PAYG
Best Street Fest - Back to Fishtown for the blocks-long outdoor festival tying together Johnny Brenda's, Fette Sau, and Frankford Hall on 6/6 - $PAYG
Best Barrels - Check out Firestone Walker's Barrelmeister at Strangelove's on 6/6 - $20
Best Sours - You know they'll be at almost every turn of the tap handle. Check out Standard Tap's Sour Brunch on 6/6 - $PAYG
Best Way to find out what a Raingutter Regatta is - With Casey Hughes (Coppertail, Florida) and Dan Conway (Capt. Lawrence, NY), you can bet it will be a spectacle to behold on 6/6 - $PAYG
Best Music - Wrap up PBW '15 at Dock Street with a fun scavenger run and free local music fest on 6/7 - $PAYG
Best NorCal-based event - Each year ends with a Russian River event at Local 44, this year on 6/7 - $PAYG
Best Way to Get Your Wood On - Memphis Taproom again hosts All-Weekend Wood from 6/5-6/7 - $PAYG
Best Way to Multi-Task - Head to Whole Foods beer section at either Devon, Glen Mills, or Plymouth Meeting as, between the three of them, they have unique events scheduled each day of PBW - $PAYG
Check back next week as this best-of list will attempt to keep up with the master calendar of events as it grows by the day.
Showing posts with label Hof ten Dormaal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hof ten Dormaal. Show all posts
Friday, May 08, 2015
Friday, February 13, 2015
Farm to Philly - Philly Beer Week 2015 goes to Belgium
 (click to visit full gallery of photos at Picasa) |
Figuring many of you catch my stuff in social-land, I'm gonna go out on a limb and presume that you're aware I just returned from Belgium.
Brussels, to be specific. With Philly Beer Week, Free Will Brewing, and a cast of characters exploring the Belgian beer landscape and brewing a collaboration beer at Hof ten Dormaal in Tildonk to be even more specific.
And if you didn't catch all the social love that I gave to this trip, you may have caught the Philly.com food/beverage blog — in conjunction with Philly Beer Week — that John Stemler (Free Will co-owner/brewer) and I contributed to while across the pond.
Rather than repeat here, below I've gathered a handy index that you can go exploring on your own. The one additional thing you get here, however, is many more pictures. Click above on our group picture at Cantillon to head over to Picasa for a much larger photo gallery than was included at Philly.com.
(link to) Pre-travel thoughts and planning
— The PBW/Philly.com crew thought it would be a good start to talk about some pre-trip thoughts, planning, expectations, etc. So we did. May not be all that riveting, but it set the groundwork.
(link to) En route
— Slightly more riveting than the first entry, this got into more of the trip across the pond and arrival.
(link to) Monday, Feb. 2
— Now things are really humming
— Moeder Lambic, Delirium Cafe, Grand Place
(link to) Tuesday, Feb. 3
— Bruges must be experienced up close and personal to be appreciated. Hopefully, we've helped with that.
— Le Pain Quotidien. Halve Maan brewery. Cambrinus. De Garre.
— Walking. Churches. Bridges. Canals. Food. Beer. Not exactly in that order or quantity.
(link to) Wednesday, Feb. 4
— I referred to this day as epic. In hindsight, I stand by that.
— Cantillon, Nuëtnigenough. Never enough. Indeed.
(link to) Thursday, Feb. 5
— The day that this trip was all about. Brew day at Hof ten Dormaal in Tildonk, just east of Brussels.
— And, back to Brussels for Le Coq, Cafe Bizon, and probably a place or two lost to the beer-soaked streets of Brussels.
(link to) Friday, Feb. 6
— More epictasticality. Boon, 3 Fonteinen, Lambics, trains. Classic Belgian/French dining.
(link to) John's review of Feb. 5-7
— Stemler takes a crack at knocking out three days of catch-up writing in one entry.
(link to) My post-trip wrap
— A huge shout-out to all involved, including the importer 12% Imports.
Friday, January 30, 2015
There's this little trip to Belgium next week
Post by The Brew Lounge.
Remember that raffle that I won in December from Philly Beer Week and 12% Imports? Well, it's finally here. Not that it snuck up on me all that much, but any ideas I had about preparing adequately to maximize my travels have all but evaporated at this point.
I know I have a flight, a hotel room, and a valid passport. The weather looks clear (and cold) leaving Philly and overcast/rainy (and not quite as cold) when arriving in Brussels.
Beyond that, oy.
That's not really true, though. The level of communication has been much higher than expected amongst all the principals involved in the trip. Brian Ewing of 12% Imports (the importer of the host brewery, Hof ten Dormaal) is picking up the travel tab for myself and the brewer I tapped, John Stemler of Free Will Brewing, and has been playing his liaison role between the brewing entities on both sides of the pond. This role has become even more critical in light of the devastating fire that HtD suffered earlier in January. They continue to work like crazy at their brewery just east of Brussels to prepare for our brew day on February 5.
The dialogue between the brewers, myself, Tom Peters (of Monk's Cafe), William Reed (Standard Tap), Casey Parker (Jose Pistolas), and others around the recipe specifications has also taken on a life of its own in long-running e-mail conversations. While it's still too soon to say with 100% certainty, you can bet we'll be talking about the recipe next week as we tweet, burp, share, post, blog, bleep, blurp, write, and take pictures along the way. The free-wheeling conversation leading up to the trip has been fun and educational for me as an outsider to the professional brewing world — or at least to the part that involves recipe formulation, ingredient planning and sourcing, etc.
Side threads have also sprouted in e-mail around other group excursions apart from brew day. Staying in Brussels, Cantillon is an obvious choice. Drie Fonteinen and Boon are also likely visits. As he has taken the lead in planning these additional visits, the respect that Tom Peters garners in his home away from home in Belgium is immediately obvious.
Finally, as Stemler and I will both be coming into Belgium prior to the larger group (we expect a total of 11 from Philly, I think is our last count, in the complete traveling group), he has been taking the lead in establishing other brewery meetups and possible brew days in order to further his professional relationships abroad during this trip.
So my rough count is that there have been over 130 e-mails over the past few weeks leading up to what should be a most-excellent trip. Now, it's time for me to count some Euros I have at my home desk and figure out if/how to get more. Set up my international data and calling plan. Figure out the best route into the city from the airport (likely the train). Determine which, if any, "gift beers" I'd like to pack for the new friends we make over there. Clothes, toiletries? Eh, minor stuff!
Oh, and the minor footnote of being 89% of the way through editing my 416-page book manuscript, due by the end of this week--is that today?! Separate story for a different day. Maybe I'll write something about it on the plane ride to Belgium.
While I'm in Belgium, expect to see updates here at The Brew Lounge. I'll also be forwarding some material to Philly.com for Michael Klein to include in his column. Philly Beer Week will also have some fun content that we'll be chipping in with along the way. And the usual social media outlets — The Brew Lounge on Facebook and The Brew Lounge on Twitter — should be alive and well during this trip and full of fun things found, heard, and tasted along the way.
Here we go....
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