Pace yourself tonight with that magnum of cheap champagne, and you’ll be rewarded with two straight weekend days of nonstop suds-sloshing action.

Tomorrow: Reduce brain function with a Mummers tune-up, then slip into a day-long stupor with 36 separate college bowl games.

Sunday: Remain comatose with another dozen or so NFL games that will decide which 8-8 team will lose in the first round of the playoffs.

Friends, that’s a lot of football, and that’s a lot of sitting around. We’re talking endless hours of gape-mouthed paralysis, the kind of motion-free inertia that flat-lines all signs of biological function.

To survive it, you need a comfy place to rest your keister. Deep cushions, plush fabric, large arms to balance a bowl of chips, and maybe an ottoman for the dip.

I thought I had this perfected some time ago with a big, over-stuffed couch firmly planted within 6 feet of the TV.

Then I got married.

The sofa was ugly, she complained. It didn’t match the “decor,” by which I presume she meant it looked as if it had recently housed a family of squirrels.

The couch was banished and abruptly replaced with. . .a love seat!

Too short to stretch out on, too confining for XL types, a love seat is the football-watching equivalent of disembowelment. I loathe to admit it, but Joe Sixpack was eviscerated.

The old couch had been a mammoth fixture, a physical and spiritual foundation that defined my being. The love seat was, dare I say, dainty?

Weekend afternoons were living hell. No lounging, no slumping, no idle hours of mindless relaxation. I had to sit up straight.

“And use a coaster for that beer,” she’d warn.

Word got around. Friends mocked me. “Did you enjoy that Stockard Channing movie on Lifetime last night?” they’d tease.

My back aching and my manhood at stake, I finally turned for help from the experts:

La-Z-Boy.

In the world of relaxation, these guys are the indisputable pros. They are the Babe Ruth of reclining. Their very name defines the essence of sitting around and drinking beer and watching TV.

Say it to yourself: La-Z-Boy. . .La-Z-Boy. . .it’s hypnotic, like Dunkin’ Donuts or Sansabelt.

Anyway, after a few minutes of man-to-man talk, the guy at the La-Z-Boy factory suggested I try out their newest recliner, the Oasis. I test-drove it a couple weeks this fall when the Eagles were in middle of their free fall.

Let’s just say the Oasis is top-of-the-line relaxation, the Cadillac of recliners. The only things missing are fins and fuzzy dice for the rearview mirror. Stuffed fatter than Andy Reid after Thanksgiving, this baby’s wing span is 41 inches from arm to arm. Under the hood, it features 10 vibrating motors and a heat system to massage you into la-la land.

But what caught the attention of Joe Sixpack, the People Paper’s voice of the beer-drinking public, is the built-in electric cooler.

It’s not every chair that comes with its own refrigerator.

Flip up one of its arms, and you’ll find room to chill six cans. Hidden under the other is a hand-held controller for the massager and a telephone with caller ID.

Self-sufficiency is the idea here. Stocked with a healthy supply of cold ones and a telephone that lets you ignore bill collectors, you could camp out in this recliner for the entire New Year’s weekend – as long as you don’t have to flush.

The Oasis is not without its flaws, however.

For one thing, the cooler won’t fit long-necks.

And for another, there’s the missus.

“It’s too big!” she cried. The La-Z-Boy was deported abruptly.

Tears welled in my eyes when the movers carted it away. I had always thought there were two things in life that cannot be too big.

One of ’em is a man’s chair.

The other?

A cold glass of beer, naturally.

Now, where’s that love seat?

Joe Sixpack, by Staff Writer Don Russell, was written this week with a glass of Young’s Old Nick.

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Saturday doubleheaders at the Palestra – was there anything better in the world?

For the hoops head, it was heaven, and not just because you got to see the best from the city’s Big 5 – Penn, Temple, St. Joe’s, La Salle and Villanova. You had Guy Rodgers and Jack Ramsay and Howard Porter and Chris Ford and Chuck Daly and Terrence Stansbury and Randy Woods and, damn, you could go on forever.

No, those doubleheaders were more than the game of basketball.

From the moment the paper streamers hit the court to the last blast from those ear-splitting pep bands, a Big 5 doubleheader was four hours of hoarse-throated sweat in a box.

We almost lost the Big 5. Network TV and the NCAA offered greater riches. Those quaint, old games between local rivals were sacrificed, a victim of big-money manslaughter.

After an eight-year absence, though, the Big 5 is back. Though it will not feature any doubleheaders, the unofficial local conference will show off a full schedule this season. All five schools will play each other.

The winners gets nothing more valuable than bragging rights.

Naturally, the best place to exercise those rights is over a tall, cold one at a favorite watering hole. The second-guessing about Coach’s defense, the whining about that ref’s lousy call, the comparisons and the predictions – they are best accompanied by a glass of beer and a bowl of pretzels and a bar full of fans.

Get your tickets and grab a hot dog – I’ve got the first round with Joe Sixpack’s guide to Big 5 dives.

The Palestra, 33rd and Spruce streets.

It’s the best basketball arena in the world, and fittingly, its home – University City – is the best sports junkie neighborhood in Philadelphia. Before and after every game, generations of Ivy Leaguers fill its pubs to rant about the Quakers.

There are so many places to celebrate victory or drown defeat there’s even room for the nearby Drexel Dragons crowd.

Smokey Joe’s (208 S. 40th St.) is a campus institution and shouldn’t be missed. But my favorite is Cavanaugh’s (119 S. 39th St.) because of quick service and an excellent selection of taps and bottles.

Shula’s Steakhouse (35th & Chestnut streets) has a zillion square inches of TV screens, big meat and lots of so-so beer faucets. After games, red-and-blue fans head to the New Deck Tavern (3408 Sansom St.) for quick service at loud, tight tables.

Avoid: The eggheads at the White Dog Cafe (3420 Sansom St.). Yes, it boasts an excellent beer list and good food. But the bookish reg’lars think Matt Langel is a Marxist philosopher.

The Apollo of Temple, 1776 N. Broad St.

TU’s dreams of turning North Broad Street into a destination will never happen unless someone opens up a decent watering hole. That and boot those so-called parking attendants who’ll watch your car for a buck.

For now, there is absolutely no reason to arrive early or stay late when attending Owls games.

Gone are the old Twist Bar and Doc Hollidays; Broad Street Eddie’s (Rising Sun and Germantown avenues) is still open and welcomes Owl fans, but it’s lost its campus feel.

Outside of a couple of pizza joints, the neighborhood offers nothing for hungry or thirsty fans.

The school hopes to solve that by next year, when it says it will open either a brewpub or a restaurant in its student center on C.B. Moore Avenue. On Park Mall in the center of campus, it is renovating a bar and grill that should be ready for next season.

Meanwhile, the Apollo has one big thing going for it on the suds front: It is the city’s only collegiate arena that serves beer. Unfortunately, it’s lame-o Bud/Heineken/Coors; limit: one per customer.

Avoid: The neighborhood and grab a beer in Center City or Fairmount instead. Then ride the Broad Street Subway – five minutes to the C.B. Moore stop.

St. Joseph’s Fieldhouse, 54th Street and City Avenue.

Big 5 fans owe St. Joseph’s big time. This school carried the Philly banner even as Villanova and Temple went national.

And now that the Big 5 is reborn, the Hawks are leading the return to the hallowed Palestra. St. Joe’s will play four home games in the West Philly arena.

The others are at Hawk Hill on the school’s City Avenue campus. This is a cozy (capacity: 3,200) place to watch a game; even the top row puts you within yelling distance of courtside.

Grabbing a beer is another matter.

Across the street, the Muddy Duck (183 City Ave.) looks promising, but it lives down to its name: it’s dirty and fowl.

You’re better off heading over to nearby Narberth, where a handful of bars welcome Hawks fans.

McShea’s Irish Pub (242 Haverford Ave.) features the best beer selection, including Yards hand-pumped on a beer engine. The Greeks (239 Haverford Ave.) is where the pre-Mike Bantom oldtimers hang out. The Great American Pub (Haverford and Narberth avenues) is full of TVs and chicken wings.

Avoid: The Lower Merion cops.

The Arena Formerly Known as John E. du Pont Pavilion, Lancaster and Ithan avenues, Villanova.

Most local fans would willingly banish ‘Nova from the Big 5 in exchange for, say, Drexel.

Not me. I’d trade ’em for Pharmacy.

Philly hoops tradition, though, thrives partly because of its villains, and these Main Liners have filled that role handsomely. The Wildcats take it in stride, of course; stumble onto their turf and start bragging about the Hawks, for example, and they’ll hand you your head. With a smile.

The passion is strongest on Lancaster Avenue from Ardmore to Wayne, where numerous suitable taverns feature cold beer and quick meals. Some, like Roache & O’Brien’s (560 Lancaster Ave., Haverford), have been around since Tom Inglesby was a Wildcat.

Increasingly, though, fans are heading over to an out-of-the-way section of Rosemont known as Garrett Hill.

There, you’ll find the Wild Onion (900 Conestoga Road), featuring roomy booths and a decent tap list (Sierra Nevada Celebration was pouring last week). Order early, though; food service is s-l-o-w.

Across the street, the Brick Bar feels like a campus beer hall: lots of cold drafts and a Jagermeister tap at a huge bar that smells like last night’s frat party. There’s no kitchen, but the bartender boasted, “We have a very impressive selection of snacks.”

Avoid: Smokey Joe’s. The longtime Wayne watering hole was closed last summer.

Tom Gola Arena, 19th Street & Olney Avenue.

I like La Salle. Three of my favorite Big 5 players – Ken Durrett, Michael Brooks and Lionel Simmons – played for the Explorers. One of my top Philly hoops moments was the night in 1990 when La Salle hosted Brigham Young and the Explorers’ 6-9 center Milko Lieverst dominated future Sixers 7-foot-6 stiff Shawn Bradley.

But these are memories, and more often that’s the only thing that keeps me going to La Salle games. Memories and hopes that this team reaches its potential.

Since the hoops squad moved its home games back to campus, that has meant trooping up to Olney – a largely beer-barren neighborhood.

It’s so bad, the team advises you to head over to Roxborough, about 10 minutes away via Chelten Avenue. There, you’ll find the Henry James Saloon (Jamestown and Henry avenues), a classic Philadelphia tavern with excellent bar food and an OK beer list.

A lot closer to campus, drop in at Kirk’s Pizza House, a campus haunt next door to the arena on Olney Avenue.

Avoid: The stairs. The arena’s on the third floor of Hayman Hall. Take the elevator.

Joe Sixpack, by Staff Writer Don Russell, was written this week with a Victory Old Horizontal.

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Hang onto your barstools, an Irish beer war is brewing in the city.

The first skirmish broke out yesterday at an Old City pub, where angry Gaelic bar owners confronted execs from Guinness, makers of the world-famous stout.

No suds were spilled, but hot tempers had a lot of neck veins bulging from ‘neath the cardigans.

The uproar was prompted by word that the Guinness Bass Import Co., of Stamford, Conn., is offering start-up help to newcomers seeking to open Irish theme bars. The importer also has an arm’s-length relationship with an Atlanta turnkey company that outfits a chain of popular Irish bars.

Sparked by rumors that the chain is coming to town, about 20 local bar owners met with a half-dozen Guinness execs during a two-hour meeting at the Plough and Stars, 2nd and Chestnut streets.

“Every time you blink, another Irish pub opens up,” said Chris Mullins, owner of McGillin’s on Drury Lane, Center City, the city’s oldest bar.

“We just don’t need a multinational company to assist our competitors.”

Connie Doolan, director of Guinness Bass Import’s trade relations, tried to soothe tempers. “We’re not competing with Irish pubs,” he explained, “. . .We’re expanding the sales of Guinness.”

That’s a fine line for the city’s publicans, many of whom have been pouring the rich, black stout for decades. They regard themselves as loyal Guinness supporters; now, they believe, the company is stabbing them in the back.

The dispute is part of the increasingly troublesome interpretation of the nation’s post-Prohibition ban on so-called “tied houses.” Under federal law, breweries are prohibited from operating their own bars, or houses. The law stems from a fear that big brewers would buy up scores of bars and dampen competition.

(The exception is brewpubs, like Poor Henry’s in Northern Liberties, where breweries may sell beer they produce on site.)

Mark O’Connor, who owns the Irish Pub, 20th and Walnut streets, said Guinness is bending the rules. He charged the brewery is reaping financial rewards by providing business and management guidance to start-ups, which then serve thousands of pints of Guinness.

According to O’Connor, the brewery is also encouraging the popular Fado chain to open in Center City.

“Guinness is bringing tied houses to the United States,” O’Connor said. “The company that sells us beer is enabling people to go into the Irish pub business. . .”

An official at Fado (pronounced: F’doe) confirmed the chain had been interested in opening at 15th and Locust, but those plans fell through. The official insisted the chain has no business relationship with Guinness.

Even without Fado, the continued growth of Irish popular culture (from the music of “Riverdance” to the novels of Frank McCourt to films like “Waking Ned Devine”) means more shamrock saloons will likely join the 40 or so that are already here.

O’Connor and others want to stop Guinness from giving the newcomers any help.

“It’s time to make a stand,” O’Connor declared.

If this were a full-fledged war, you might expect the protesting bar owners to stop pouring Guinness – or at least toss a keg of the stuff into the Delaware.

But bar owners – even irate Irish ones – aren’t ready for a bare-knuckles fight. Most are decorated with Guinness paraphernalia and the brewery’s stout is among their most-popular sellers. As one bar owner told Joe Sixpack, “You can’t very well call yourself an Irish bar in America if you don’t serve Guinness, now can ya?”

So, O’Connor and Mullins are urging the city’s Irish bars to do the next best thing: dump Bass Ale.

Yes, that’s a British brew. But Bass is imported by the same folks who bring Guinness to these shores. Maybe that’ll send a message, O’Connor said.

Maybe, but that will take something that Philadelphia bar owners – Irish or otherwise – rarely exhibit: cooperation.

“People in the tavern business tend not to work together,” said Jim Anderson, publisher of Beer Philadelphia magazine. “Maybe this is a start.”

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Just a few yards from the banks of the city’s scenic river, Manayunk Brewing Co. features a raspberry-flavored ale called Schuylkill Punch.

Until Sept. 16, head brewer Jim Brennan didn’t know how fitting that name might be.

That was the day Hurricane Floyd came through town and pushed the muddy Schuylkill into his brewery.

Within 24 hours, he had water up to his chin. Sacks of grain and hops went soggy, massive fermenting tanks were knocked from their footings and kegs floated off toward Boathouse Row,

“It was a mess,” Brennan told Joe Sixpack yesterday, just hours before the brewpub celebrated its reopening with a frothy beer bash.

The 3-year-old brewpub, located in a the basement of a 175-year-old mill, is a popular watering hole on Manayunk’s trendy Main Street. It was one of dozens of riverside businesses – boutiques, restaurants and clubs – that had to dry out after the worst rainstorm in city history.

Cleaning a flood-damaged brewery, though, was an extraordinary feat.

Since brewing requires absolute sanitation, the cleanup crew at Manayunk Brewing had to wash and rewash each piece of equipment a dozen times or more. Brennan and his crew spent hours just sorting out and sterilizing the web of dirt-filled piping beneath the tanks.

“You can’t take a chance in a brewery with infections,” Brennan said. “We took everything apart, even the hoses we used to clean up with.”

Assistant brewer Rich Wagner said: “I never thought I’d see the floor again. Every time I washed away some mud, it would just wash right back over with more of it.”

The power of the river ripped away tubing and filled pipes with dirty water. The copper brew kettle, where a malt-and-water mix is boiled, was banged around and dented. A heavy steam pipe ruptured. Wagner, a local brewing historian, said the brewery’s flood damage might have been unprecedented.

“At the last meeting of the Master Brewers Association, I asked for advice on cleaning up,” Wagner said.

“One 90-year-old guy who worked at the old Horlacher Brewery in Allentown remembered getting water in the basement, but nothing like this.

“We had five feet of water in here.”

The brewpub’s restaurant reopened within two weeks of the flood.

But without its own beer, the pub – known for its fresh, handcrafted brews – couldn’t simply tap ordinary kegs of Bud or Coors. So, in a tribute to the region’s world-class selection of ales and lagers, it served up pints from local microbreweries, including Independence, Ortlieb’s, Red Bell and Victory.

“So many people don’t realize Philadelphia has some of the best beer in the country,” Wagner said.

The brewery was up and running within six weeks, quickly turning out barrels of its most popular brews, including Bohemian Blonde pilsner.

Yesterday, with all the taps pouring Manayunk’s own brews, Brennan held up a glass of his golden brew and proclaimed, “We’re back.”

Time for a cold one.

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The quest to brew the World’s Strongest Beer – a feat that probably ranks up there with the discovery of penicillin and the first broadcast of Monday Night Football – is over for 1999.

The winner: Boston Beer Co.’s Samuel Adams Millennium, a mind-numbing 20 percenter.

This is bittersweet news in my book.

Hitting two-oh is an admirable achievement and I can’t wait till someone offers me a sip. But as much as I admire Jim Koch’s brewery for its extreme beers, hearing the news about Millennium was a little like watching the Yankees win yet another pennant.

Boston Beer, the largest of the nation’s craft brewers, has sat atop the charts for several years, since the introduction of its port-like Samuel Adams Triple Bock (17.5 percent). Moreover, Koch had ample resources to turn out this brew; his team of brewers went through an astounding 26 trial batches before it hit gold.

The result is as much of a marketing ploy as a salute to the brewers’ remarkable efforts. And at $200 for 750 ml (about 25 ounces), the brew – even if it does come in cobalt blue with platinum paint – is way out of Joe Sixpack’s league.

As usual, I was pulling for the underdog. In this case, it was Dogfish Head, the Lewes, Del., micro. It took a stab with its World Wide Stout, but at 18 percent, it came up short by just a few drops of alcohol per bottle.

Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione threw in the towel last week when he sent me a bottle of his stout.

“Our hats are off to them,” he said.

For many drinkers, high-alcohol beer is an oxymoron. Beer is the refreshing stuff you drink after raking leaves. At 4 to 5 percent alcohol, it’s a bracer. Pound a couple sixers, you might be silly; but if you want to go for a serious spin, you usually reach for something hard: a Jack Daniels, a VO, a Stoli, a spirit that’s 40 percent alcohol (80 proof) or more.

So why do brewers push the alcohol in our favorite malt beverage?

Some (and I’m thinking of el cheapo malt-liquor producers here) are just feeding a well-established market of serious boozehounds. By adding corn sugar, they can boost the alcohol in a tasteless factory-made lager by 50 percent and still sell the stuff for two bucks a 40. It’s mostly crap, but it does the job.

For craft brewers, pushing the alcohol content is more of a challenge. Their recipes, packed with huge quantities of malt and hops, test the limits of yeast. Usually, those little buggers poop out after they reach the 15 percent range. Forcing yeast to continue fermentation toward 18 to 20 percent is a worthy feat.

I’m not suggesting that craft-brewing is a purely academic exercise. As Caligione happily notes, “After you’ve had a few sips, we highly recommend that you stay clear of any instance in which you would need to operate heavy machinery.”

At $89 for a case of 12-ouncers, though, this is a beer to be sipped and savored

Beer radar

Ortlieb Brewing has released its first new Dock Street flavors since it bought the label earlier this year. Docktoberfest, a Marzen-style, is on the shelves for autumn. Britannic, a brown ale, will be in stores by next week. Both are available on tap at Poor Henry’s Brewpub (829 N. American St.) .

Oktoberfests are drying up and holiday beers are starting to show up. McMenamin’s (7170 Germantown Ave.) was already on its second keg of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale when I stopped in last week. Soon to follow: Anchor Our Special Ale ’99.

Joe Sixpack, written this week with a glass of Ayinger Dunkel, appears every other Friday.

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[NOTE: THIS COLUMN IS MISSING A CHART]

Flavor, shmavor – when it comes to choosing a beer for the weekend, nine times out of 10 it’s either advertising or price that makes up your mind.

You spend a few minutes traipsing around the distributor, eyeballing the dozens of cartons and scratching your head over the puzzling names. Brown ale, Irish ale, old ale, Flemish ale, red ale, golden ale, pale ale, India pale ale. . .unless you’ve devoted a significant part of your life to sampling the daunting range of brewing styles, you’re lost, boss.

Your head spins, you feel for your wallet, and you go for something safe – that $14.99 special on a 30-pack of Coors Light. Even if price is no object, who can resist those Budweiser lizards?

Sure, you’d like to experiment, try something different. But when you’re laying out big bucks, who wants to get stuck with a case of rotgut? Even your brother-in-law won’t drink the stuff.

Always ready with advice, allow me to direct your attention to this first Joe Sixpack Real Guide to Beer.

Unlike other beer style guides written by experts who actually know what they’re talking about, this one is based only on my own tastebuds. I’ve grouped beers not by style, not by alcoholic content or brewing methods, but by how they taste going down.

Maybe you’ll disagree. But if you’re tired of the same ol’ stuff, use this guide to try something better. And if you’ve been wasting your paycheck on pricey brews, maybe you’ll find something cheaper.

But before you dive in, you’ve gotta tell me – what kind of beer drinker are you? There are, of course, just three types:

1. Homer Simpson: Mmmmm . . . beer. Cheap beer.
2. Ralph Nader: After careful review by an impartial consumer panel, these ales and lagers scored highest when subjected to rigorous testing in our price/quality coefficient analysis.
3. Bill Gates: Money is no object.

Joe Sixpack (written this week with Smuttynose Old Brown Dog Ale) appears every other Friday.

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Brewers throw all kinds of crazy stuff into the mash tun.

They’re supposed to stick to four basic ingredients: water, malt, hops and yeast. But when you’re not looking, they’ll sneak in raspberries or honey or orange peels. I knew a homebrewer who tried pine cones.

And then there’s the guys at Yards Brewing in Manayunk. The other day, they finished off a batch of stout by dumping in a few bags of. . .oysters?

One hundred fifty-three of the scurvy, little mollusks – almost as happy as clams – were sent to their graves in the final 20 minutes of the boil. Then they were removed and the beer was sent along its happy way, to ferment and to be consumed as Yards Oyster Stout.

Joe Sixpack missed all the horrific, tortured cries from the sorry critters. By the time I showed up, Tuna and Tom the brewers, along with a crowd of hungry visitors, were downing the tender tasties with ample quantities of beer.

It’s an annual event at the brewery, which I imagine means there will be PETA protesters at the door next year. Tom explained, though, that chucking oysters into the pot is an old beermaking tradition.

“Actually, it’s the shells we’re after,” he said. “The calcium from the shells is like a brewing salt that helps clarify the beer.”

In other words, the shells – which are often powdered – do the same duty as Budweiser’s beechwood chips. Others think the shells reduce acidity, which could produce a better head.

Whatever, the practice stopped around the 1960s with the use of other, more readily available ingredients.

A few years ago, Pike Brewing produced an Oyster Stout with oyster liquor. The Yards guys believe they’re the only brewery that dumps in live shellfish.

How’s it taste?

About 50 kegs of the stout will be hitting local taprooms in a few weeks. I sampled a keg from last year’s batch and detected no fishy smell or foul taste.

I did, however, have an certain urge that sent me in the direction of Mrs. Sixpack.

Beer calendar

Tomorrow marks the 185th anniversary of one of the most tragic moments in the history of drinking, and I don’t mean the day they ran out of beer at Dirty Frank’s.

Disaster hit on Oct. 16, 1814, when a massive wooden vat holding 4,000 casks of brew at Meux & Co. in London exploded. The boom, according to Alan Eames’ “Secret Life of Beer,” could be heard five miles away. “A tremendous jet stream of ale shot out. . ., creating a tidal wave that smashed down the 25-foot-high, one-foot-thick brick wall of the brewery,” wrote Eames.

Several people drowned, but even more were killed when they were suffocated in the mad rush to get to the free beer. Still others died from alcohol coma.

Total death toll: 20.

Value of lost beer: 15,000 pounds.

Winners

Pennsylvania breweries kicked butt at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver last weekend. Our local guys stomped the turf at the nation’s most important beer festival, long ruled by formidable outfits from the West Coast and the Rocky Mountains.

Competing against 1,700 entries, the Keystoners brought home more medals than any other state – 18, including 6 golds.

The big winners were The Lion Brewery, Wilkes-Barre, named mid-size brewing company of the year, and the Stroh facility in Fogelsville, near Allentown, crowned best large brewery.

The Lion, known largely as a contractor for other breweries, showed off a few of its own labels. It won gold for its Brewery Hill Pocono Pilsner in the American-style specialty lager category, and gold in American lager/cream ale for Liebotschaner Cream Ale.

A pair of local brewpubs also brought home metal. Iron Hill, a winner in two previous festivals, took bronze for the Vienna-style lager brewed at its West Chester joint, and gold for the Maibock from Newark, Del. John Harvard’s Brew House in Wayne took a silver for its Georgia Smoke.

Here’s a full list of the Pennsylvania winners:

Beer: Old Milwaukee NA

• Brewery: Stroh (Fogelsville)
• Category: Non-alcoholic
• Medal: gold

Beer: Liebotschaner Cream Ale

• Brewery: The Lion (Wilkes-Barre)
• Category: American lager/ale or cream ale
• Medal: gold

Beer: Georgia Smoke

• Brewery: John Harvard’s (Wayne)
• Category: Smoke-flavored
• Medal: silver

Beer: Stoudt’s Pilsner

• Brewery: Stoudt Brewing (Adamstown)
• Category: German-style pilsner
• Medal: silver

Beer: Pillage Pilsner

• Brewery: Valhalla Microbrewery & Restaurant (Pittsburgh)
• Category: Bohemian-style pilsner
• Medal: bronze

Beer: Penn Gold

• Brewery: Pennsylvania Brewing Co. (Pittsburgh)
• Category: Munchner-style helles
• Medal: bronze

Beer: Old Milwaukee Light

• Brewery: Stroh
• Category: American-style light lager
• Medal: gold

Beer: Schlitz Light

• Brewery: Jos. Schlitz (Fogelsville)
• Category: American-style light lager
• Medal: silver

Beer: Schmidt’s Light

• Brewery: G. Heileman (Fogelsville)
• Category: American-style light lager
• Medal: bronze

Beer: Old Milwaukee

• Brewery: Stroh
• Category: American-style lager
• Medal: gold

Beer: Schmidt’s

• Brewery: G. Heileman (Fogelsville)
• Category: American-style lager
• Medal: silver

Beer: Brewery Hill Pocono Pilsner

• Brewery: The Lion
• Category: American-style specialty lager
• Medal: gold

Beer: St. Ides Malt Liquor

• Brewery: St. Ides (Fogelsville)
• Category: American-style specialty lager
• Medal: bronze

Beer: Vienna

• Brewery: Iron Hill Restaurant & Brewery (West Chester)
• Category: Vienna-style lager
• Medal: bronze

Beer: Penn Dark

• Brewery: Pennsylvania Brewing
• Category: European-style dark/Munchner dunkel
• Medal: bronze

Beer: Mad Brewer Mailbock

• Brewery: Church Brew Works (Pittsburgh)
• Category: Bock
• Medal: silver

Beer: Iron House Stout

• Brewery: Red Star Brewery & Grille (Greensburg)
• Category: Classic Irish-style dry stout
• Medal: silver

Beer: Blast Furnace Stout

• Brewery: Church Brew Works (Pittsburgh)
• Category: Oatmeal stout
• Medal: gold

Joe Sixpack (written this week with a bottle of Stoudt Y2K IPA) appears every other Friday.

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You write about drinking beer long enough, sooner or later you’ve gotta take a break, if you catch my drift.

You know, the pause that refreshes.

Go see a man about a horse, point Percy at the porcelain, release the dogs, open the floodgates, empty the bucket, drain the lizard, kill the grass, spend a penny, make number one, take a leak, a splash, a piddle, a wee-wee.

I realize this is all slightly coarse talk in mixed company. Normally, adult discussion of bodily functions arises only during visits to the doctor’s office or Friday night poker games. But among beer drinkers, especially those who regard a sixpack as a nice start, it is an unavoidably frequent, occasionally urgent topic.

Thus, allow Joe Sixpack to direct your attention to the newest malt beverage from Down Under:

Piss.

Readers who have gone kangaroo hunting in the outback already know that Australians commonly call their everyday lager “piss.” Here we reserve that description for Coors Light.

Anyway, Canadian brew guy Stephen Beaumont reports that the Piss Beer Co. has capitalized on the terminology and is now bottling in Melbourne. The company says it wants to cater to young drinkers “disillusioned with the slick marketing efforts of the big beer brands.”

Naming your beer after a bodily excretion, I suppose, might attract disillusioned college students. But I can tell you, it didn’t work for Schlitz.

The company can also expect to encounter problems if it ever tries exporting its brew to these shores. Pennsylvania, you’ll recall, banned Belgium’s Manekin Pis from the state because its label featured an illustration of a boy’s tiny spritzer.

Nonetheless, the Aussies may be onto something. A company official told one newspaper that young drinkers “wanted a beer they could relate to and claim as their own.”

I say, right on!

It’s time to stop shelling out hard-earned bucks for smartly packaged craft beers and factory-made macrobrews. Instead, I urge those who’d like to “relate” to a beer that’s really their own to avoid the middleman and pull up a nice, warm mug of the real thing.

Pee – it’s the ultimate homebrew.

Now, before you retch, consider that not so long ago people regularly consumed their own urine. It was added to pastry, and women in labor would drink their husband’s straight up.

More to the point, as recently as the late 1800s (coincidentally, about the time the Busch family was gearing up in St. Louis), brewers often spiked the mash tun with a li’l pee.

It’s true – the People Paper’s Poor Ron Avery, who is an expert on the arcane, tells me it was commonly known as “lant.”

A reference book called “Forgotten English” says stale lant was added to ale, “apparently for the flavor it imparted.” Yum. Tipplers could order up single- or double-lanted ale, depending on the concentration of urine.

Now, I’ll concede that as a typically lazy American beer drinker, there is something appealing about lant. For one thing, it completely eliminates the necessity of a bottle opener.

But as much as I occasionally enjoy a bit of spice in my brew, this is one case where I’ll stick with the Reinheitsgebot, the German purity law. Water, yeast, malt and hops – hold the whiz, please.

Beer Radar

Tonight is Firkin Friday at the Grey Lodge Pub (6235 Frankford Ave., Northeast). On tap at 5 p.m.: a cask-conditioned Flying Fish ESB, served neat without CO-2. . .Tomorrow is the Kennett Square Mushroom & Beer Festival, featuring 20 regional micros from the mid-Atlantic region. Tix are $14 at the door. Info: 610-444-8188. . .

Save some room for the huge (60-plus) variety of beers and wines at next week’s Sippin’ by the River. The Penn’s Landing event, which benefits the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America, is 1 to 5 p.m. Sept. 26. Beer guy Jim Anderson will host a tutored tasting of Belgians. Info: 215-629-3200. . .

Latest gimmick brew on local shelves: Beer2000. It’s a contract brew from Newtown Square, cooked up by the Northeast’s Independence Brewing. . .Latest beer rag at newsstands and bars: Mid-Atlantic Brewing News. The tabloid is published, edited and written by many of the same characters who populated the sadly departed Barleycorn.

Joe Sixpack, written this week with a can of Caffrey’s Irish Ale, appears every other Friday.

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Free beer – universally regarded as the two greatest words in the English language – is no longer just an impossible dream.

At one local microbrewery, it’s an advertising gimmick.

Dock Street Brasserie brewer Eric Savage came up with the idea as a way to market his modestly named Savage Beer and bring more customers into his Logan Square brewpub. The hoppy brown ale, which has been available on local tap handles for nearly a year, is now being bottled at Yards Brewery in Manayunk.

Sharp-eyed sippers will note the fine print, which reads:

“Remove the label and bring it to the Dock Street Brasserie, 18th & Cherry streets, Philadelphia. You are welcome to a complimentary beverage. . .”

Surprisingly, the notoriously ill-humored state Liquor Control Board – which has previously banned finger-flipping frogs and urinating statues – did not balk at the freebie. Savage thinks that’s because the label carefully offers a free “beverage,” not a brewski.

And the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which oversees beer labels as well as gun-carrying religious cultists, only paused over the beer’s name. “Savage,” it initially felt, might improperly indicate the alcoholic strength of the ale.

The beer does chime in at a relatively potent 6.5 percent alcohol, but Eric convinced the agency to back down and let him name his beer after himself.

“After that, they didn’t seem to have any problems at all,” Savage said.

Note to the freeloaders who are already busily peeling the labels: The fine print sez, “Limit one per customer per day.”

London calling

Speaking of advertising, Joe Sixpack can’t let another week pass without mentioning Yards’ rude-boy soccer-fan posters, which have cropped up in local beer joints. That’s brewer Tom Kehoe, painted up and screaming his lungs out, just daring someone to take away his pint.

The ad is the brainchild of the creative folks at Elkman/Alexander & Partners, a Philadelphia marketing and communications agency.

“They mostly do health insurance and stuff like that, but they get bored doing that all the time,” Kehoe said. “So they came to us and told us they wanted to do something fun.”

A makeup crew painted the beefy brewer’s face yellow, then local photographer Paul Pugliese snapped the photos in Conshohocken while Kehoe, a former college wrestler, let the testosterone rip.

“It’s the flip side of Sam Caligione’s ad,” Kehoe said, referring to the slick Richard Avedon-photographed Levi-Strauss ad that features the boss at Delaware’s Dogfish Head brewery.

That advertisement is now showing up in glossy mags nationwide. The Yards ad, in contrast, remains mostly on the back burner, awaiting the needed bucks for a print campaign.

“We didn’t have enough resources for a full ad campaign,” Kehoe said. “So we fed the ad guys some beers, and came up with a poster campaign. Maybe we’ll do print ads later.”

Meanwhile, the brewery will stray a bit from its British roots this fall, as it produces a bottle version of Yards Saison, a Belgian-style ale that has been available in kegs for a couple of years.

Beer radar

Kurt Wunder, co-owner of 700 (2nd and Fairmount, Northern Liberties), is in mourning over the sudden disappearance of Royal Oak, the fruity ale from the U.K.’s Eldridge Pope brewery. Wunder’s favorite brew, on tap since he opened the bar in ’97, is no longer imported to America. In a fitting tribute, one of the bar’s reg’lars downed the last pint, then they hoisted the keg on top of a cooler and held a reverent moment of silence. Decorated with a black ribbon and an “R.I.P.” banner, the barrel sat there for weeks, till Wunder gave in to reason and returned it to the distributor for his deposit. . .

Slate, Bill Gates’ on-line magazine (www.slate.com), is publishing the results of its unscientific survey of American and imported lagers. Bottom line: Sam Adams rules, Grolsch is crud and Busch gives you the best bang for the buck. . .Unsurprising fact of the week: The most popular beer at the Yard House, a Los Angeles bar where drinkers can sample a vast variety of micros and imports from a mind-numbing 250 different taps, is lame-o Coors Light.

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