Yesterday I sampled beers with names like Chocrilla, Blood Orange Berliner, and the Bee Sting Ale along with the spiciest shrimp I have ever eaten. I poured my own homebrewed Amber Ale called Yakima Sax to a few hundred beer geeks and watched the legend of Beercamp Philly Camp grow.
The first Philly Beercamp was the most fun I ever had as a homebrewer, so when they announced a 2nd one during Philly Beer Week, I signed up right away.
The weather was amazing all day (we spent the morning selling our crap at the town wide Collingswood yard sale) and perfect for outdoor drinking. Getting all my equipment to the event was a little bit of a challenge. I dropped off the keg, CO2 tank, and some other beer brewing related stuff to educate others on homebrewing and then drove over to the hotel in Philly I booked on points. While I was there, Jeanne texted me and said she felt a few rain drops so I lugged two packed up party tents with me in the cab back to the “camp site,” the Jamaican Jerk Hut on South Street. I didn’t need the tents in the end since it didn’t rain. We lucked out big time with the weather.
Pics by Marusula. See the rest of the gallery.
Another one of my favorite pics.
Once the event got going I iced my beer down and went to hook it up, only to find I was missing the tap connector for my keg! Disastrous!!! Having to go back home to get this would have easily taken me 30 – 60 minutes. Luckily, a fellow brewer saved the day and had a spare. I declared him my new best friend and started pouring.
The beers I tried were fantastic, but what was even more fun was just meeting and interacting with beer geeks from all over the Philadelphia area. One fellow brewer stopped by and declared to my wife that the best thing about Papazian’s Joy of Homebrewing I had on display was “the chick” in the HOWTO pictures of the first few chapters. Another guy stopped by and gave me some tips on getting rid of some after tastes I occasionally find in my beer. I was also thrilled to meet up with many, many people I have only talked to on twitter.
Here’s a list of all the beers and the ones I voted for in bold.
Brunch Stout
Transcontinental – California Common
American Pale Ale
Baltic Porter
Bee Sting Ale
Cherry Wheat
Wobbly Bass Brown
Mmmm Creamy Milk Stout
Blood Orange Berliner
Ryeghteous Brown Ale
Chocrilla
Redcoat ESB
Redcoat Stout
Dunkelweizen
Golden Pale Ale
Northwestern Pale Ale
American Porter
Yakima Sax (Amber)
The winners were:
1st B WeeRd Brew D – Chorilla
2nd Saint Benjamin – Transcontinental (I didn’t get a chance to try this, but I loved his other beer)
3rd Melloproto – Blood Orange Berliner
The beers and food were great and the plan so far is to have BeerCampPhilly 3 in October 2011, which would be awesome. I’d definitely do it again. Congrats to Kelani, Two Guys on Beer, and Indyhall for putting everything together.
