News item: Laboratory tests show hamsters that drink the equivalent of two beers a day have less heart disease than teetotaling hamsters.

OK, so that’s good news for us health-conscious boozers. But the question I’ve got for Mr. Science is:

Where’d they find the tiny frosted mugs?

I’m picturing a bunch of furry little critters sitting around, hoisting brewskis inside their cages, maybe watching TV (reruns of “Rat Patrol”?) and snacking on beer nuts. It’s not a bad life. Occasionally, the energetic one tries to work off the load on the exercise wheel. But after a few weeks, they’re all just lying around in a drunken stupor, waiting for the guy in the white lab coat to serve the next round.

Remarkably, Joe Vinson – the University of Scranton chemistry prof who conducted the hamster study – does not hang up the phone when I ask him about the frosted mugs. He’s still psyched over the study, which he presented at an international conference last week in Honolulu.

“Beer is full of antioxidants,” says Vinson, who favors Yuengling Porter. “We need antioxidants to prevent bad cholesterol from being oxidized. “

That’s LDL – the low-density lipoproteins your doctor is always ragging you about. Oxidation of LDL is believed to be the first step in the development of heart disease.

“The average bottle of lager beer has about 45 milligrams of antioxidants. And dark beer has even more,” Vinson says. “That’s comparable to what you get from the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C. Not only that, but the quality of antioxidants in beer is better than what you get from vitamins. “

Cut to the chase, Doc.

“It turns out,” he says, “drinking beer is good for you. “

Right, we knew that. But what about those hamsters?

Well, it turns out there were no mugs. There weren’t even any beer nuts.

The researchers just mixed the beer into their water supply.

But at least it was good beer. Very good beer.

No, it wasn’t Rodentbach.

The study was funded by Pilsner Urquell, the Czechoslovakia brewery that originated the clear lager in 1842. Vinson’s lucky hamsters were drinking what beer critic Michael Jackson has called the world’s greatest golden lager.

I suppose that’s only right. If you’re going to give your body to science, you’d at least like your last drink to be something better than Pabst Blue Ribbon.

The lucky hamsters also sampled a dark beer, which Vinson found contained even more antioxidants.

A control group of nondrinkers stayed sober, while another set of hardcore hamsters guzzled straight ethanol. “They love alcohol even more than water,” says Vinson.

Then the researchers fed them a diet of cholesterol and coconut oil and watched their test subjects go woozy. Actually, the hamsters never got Schlitz-faced – they don’t process alcohol the way humans do, and their blood-alcohol level never reached high levels.

In 10 weeks, the nondrinkers showed early signs of atherosclerosis – hardening of the arteries. “It’s like rusty pipes,” Vinson says.

Alcohol alone had no effect on the amount of disease.

Same for the dark brew. Even though it contains more antioxidants, it had little effect on the hamsters’ arteries.

The pilsner drinkers, meanwhile, were clean. “Lager beer inhibited atherosclerosis by 50 percent,” Vinson says.

He’s not certain why pilsner is better than porter. It could be that roasting the malts in dark beers somehow affects the performance of its antioxidants. Maybe it’s the hops.

“It’s going to take more research,” Vinson says. “By the way, there’s a human study under way in Canada. “

If you’re interested in signing up, that one’s serving Labatt’s.

Beer radar

Maybe you’ve heard that George W. has tapped New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. What you may not know is Whitman’s dog is a Scottish terrier named Coors.

Not sure if it’s a sign of things to come, but Coors Brewing is one of Colorado’s biggest corporate polluters. Environmentalists say the brewery dumps about 123,000 pounds of ammonia into the supposedly pristine Clear Creek every year. Last August, a beer spill killed 50,000 fish.

New Year’s Eve

Joe Sixpack’s not a preacher, and most of you are responsible adults. But allow me to remind you: It’s amateur night out there. Don’t be the first fatality of 2001.

A sixpack of suggestions:

1. If you’re going to drink all night, don’t drive. Find a warm place and wait for the Mummers Parade.
2. Eat something.
3. If you’re hosting a party, you are obliged to protect your drunken friends from themselves. Grab their keys, call a cab.
4. Don’t mix alcohol. I’m not a chemist, so I don’t know the reason, but the worst drunks come after downing beer, then wine, then gin, then a bottle of lousy champagne. Stick with one.
5. Take a break before splitting. Go alcohol-free for the last 90 minutes of the party – if nothing else, it sobers you up just enough to realize how drunk you really are.
6. Avoid lampshades and your boss’s spouse.

So, what are beer lovers drinking this New Year’s Eve?

At O’Neal’s (611 S. 3rd St, near South), they’ll be celebrating “2001: A Belgian Beer Odyssey. ” Look for LaChouffe and Chimay to be pouring.

If you’ve got a taste for champagne, Joe Sixpack suggests a lambic. Lindemans’ Kriek uses real cherries to produce a sparkling, dry brew that, at 12 bucks a bottle, is cheaper than champagne and tastes a lot better.

Around the same price, you might find Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus, a 2-year-old lambic that is aged in oak with raspberries and sour cherries. I love the sour tang from a mouthful of this stuff.

Both of these brews are classic Belgian ales – they won’t remind you even remotely of a Rolling Rock. But that’s the great thing about beer – there’s one for every occasion.

Down your usual lager while the Eagles toast Tampa Bay in the afternoon, then toast the new year with a lambic at midnight.

Hair-of-the-dog note: Dock Street Terminal Brewpub (12th and Filbert) will be among the handful of city taprooms open on New Year’s Day.

Joe Sixpack, by Staff Writer Don Russell, was written this week with a bottle of Scaldis Noel.

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You need somebody to watch your back, Keith Kelleher is the man. I’d trust this guy to hold my last paycheck.

Kelleher is the kind of man who can look temptation straight in the face and turn away without a second thought.

If Satan offered him the proverbial apple in the Garden of Eden, we’d still be walking around in fig leaves. Kelleher has so much willpower, he can eat just one Lay’s potato chip.

How do I know this?

Because last weekend he showed up at Sugar Mom’s Lounge (225 Church St., Old City) with a sixpack of beer he’s been saving for seven years.

It was Anchor Brewing’s Our Special Ale, the annual holiday beer produced by the San Francisco brewery since 1975. The sixpack has been sitting untouched in his West Philly basement since 1993, when Kelleher began collecting the distinctively spiced ale.

“I still remember my first Anchor Steam – it was at Mother’s in New Hope, in 1982,” Kelleher told me. “When I read this article in Barleycorn [the defunct brewpaper] about cellaring beer, I thought it would be fun to collect beers from each Anchor vintage. “

For most beer drinkers, an unopened sixpack is like the neighborhood flirt. In cruder circles, we’d call it a bock tease.

But Kelleher remains a master of his own domain. For him, as with other beer aficionados, collecting beer is a tasty hobby.

When beer is bottled with live yeast (a process known as bottle-conditioning), it continues to ferment slightly for years. Strong flavors and hop bitterness tend to mellow into a smoother taste.

Or the beer can just turn bad, like wine into vinegar.

So tasting beers that have been cellared for years can be a chancy step into the twilight zone – especially when you’re sampling a beer that was bottled about the time the Phillies last played in the World Series.

“That’s why I love to share beers with other people,” Kelleher said. “It’s fun. Everybody tastes something different. “

About 10 malt lovers, led by Jim Anderson of Beer Philadelphia, poured through seven years worth of bottles. Each year’s version of Our Special Ale is a different, secret recipe, which leads to unending debate among beer freaks. Those with fine-tuned palates can detect a range of flavors, including nutmeg, cinnamon, chocolate and even coconut.

Homesweet Homebrew operator George Hummel, whose schnozz is above reproach, said he detected a cardboard taste in the oldest bottle – a sign that oxygen had infiltrated the bottle.

Brian O’Reilly, head brewer at New Road Brewhouse (36 W. Third Ave., Collegeville), tasted mint and spruce in the 2000 version.

For Joe Sixpack, still suffering the numbing effects of a lousy cold, the dominant aroma was Vicks Vapor Rub. Otherwise, many of the spices had weakened, and the remaining flavor was chocolaty, almost like a root beer float.

And the Saint of Restraint?

“I remember ’94, it was like cherries,” Kelleher said. “I could still taste them.”

Beer Radar

Dock Street bottles are back. The city’s first craft beer in a bottle had been absent in recent months, following the bankruptcy of Henry Ortlieb’s brewery in Northern Liberties. After months of litigation, Dock Street founder Jeff Ware says he’s wrangled his old trade name and will re-introduce the beer in its original labels. . .

Yards Brewing is moving out of Manayunk. After five years on the Schuylkill, Brewery chief Tom Kehoe says he’s finalizing a deal to move into the old Weisbrod & Hess brewery at Amber and Hagert streets in Kensington. Research by beer historians Rich Wagner and Rich Dochter shows the 41,000-square-foot facility was used as a bottling house for Rheingold Beer. . .

Bill Covaleski at Victory Brewing in Downingtown reports the brewery – located in the former Pepperidge Farm bakery – has installed four more lagering tanks and a new fermenter. He’s hoping the new tanks will help keep up with the “insane” demand for Golden Monkey, a 9.5 percent alcohol Belgian-style trippel. . .O’Neal’s (611 S. 3rd St, near South) is installing StellaCam. It’s a Webcam sponsored by Belgium’s Stella Artois that lets you check out the action at bars around the world. Click on the Portside Pub in Budapest, for example, and you can try your best Hungarian pick-up lines and buy a beer for the blonde in the babushka. . .

R.I.P. to Celis Brewing. The Austin, Texas, craft brewery will bite the dust by the end of the month, a victim of cost-cutting by its money-grubbing parent, Miller Brewing. I hate to say told ya so, but is it any wonder that a multinational tobacco conglomerate couldn’t make a buck in the micro market? This is the company that first entered the craft beer scene by producing the odious Red Dog at its non-existent Plank Road Brewery. Conspiracy freaks are convinced Miller always intended to pull a Kervorkian on Celis. Beer freaks, meanwhile, are hoping that Celis’s originator will buy back the brewery. But at 75 years of age, Belgian Pierre Celis says he needs a partner to make that work.

Joe Sixpack, by Staff Writer Don Russell, was written this week with a glass of Trubbel de Yards.

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What’s in your basement?

Joe Sixpack asked local beer freaks to open their cellars for inspection.

* George Hummel, owner, Home Sweet Homebrew (2008 Samson St., Center City) – “Bertha. It’s a 15-year-old homebrew I made that’s completely over the top. It took five years for it just to carbonate.”

* Tom Baker, brewer, Heavyweight Brewing (Ocean County, N.J.) – A bottle of ’98 J.W. Lees.

* Jack Curtin, former Daily News scribe, free-lance beer writer – “I’m getting too old to save beers. You never know if you’ll get around to drinking them.”

* Gene Muller, president, Flying Fish Brewing (Cherry Hill, N.J.) – “Well, as a firm believer that ‘fresh beer is better’ (and also of ‘why walk down to the store if there’s beer in the basement?’) my basement collection is rather spartan: a collection of Thomas Hardy’s going back 15 years or so and a few bottles of Flying Fish Abbey Dubbel from 1997. The foil on the Thomas Hardy’s makes me think twice before opening it. I hand-waxed the Flying Fish bottles for that reason.”

* Scoats, owner, Grey Lodge Pub (6235 Frankford Ave., Frankford) – “We have some 25-ounce bottles of Sam Adams Old Fezziwig and some ’97 Victory Old Horizontal. I’ll be breaking out the Fezziwig soon. But I’m saving the O.H. for a special event.”

* Bill Covaleski, president, Victory Brewing (Downingtown) – “I have a small supply of all years of Old Horizontal and Storm King. I’d also keep Golden Monkey but it seems to evaporate and the bottles move on their own to the recycling bin. The real intrigue is the two bottles of 1992 (pre-reformulation) Goudenband, a 1987 J.W. Lees Harvest Ale, four bottles of 1997 St. Victorious that has aged wonderfully, a 1997 bottle of Fullers Vintage Ale, and a single bottle of small-batch Snow Goose [brewed before Wild Goose sold out to Frederick Brewing].”

* Tom Peters, owner, Monk’s Cafe (16th and Spruce streets, Center City) – One of every batch (30-plus) of Hair of the Dog Adam.

* Tom Kehoe, founder, Yards Brewing (5050 Umbria St., Manayunk) – Two bottles of barleywine from Christmas ’96. “It’s the only thing left over from our original brewery [on Krams Avenue].”

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Like to cellar your own beer? Here’s a few guidelines:

1. Keep it cool. At most, 65 degrees. The basement floor is best.

2. Keep it constant. Beer sours when the temperatures range more than 20 degrees.

3. Keep it in a covered box. Light turns beer skunky.

4. Keep a record. Use a marker to date the bottle cap.

5. Keep drinking. Save a sixpack and sample a bottle every year.

*

Look for high-alcohol beers that are bottle-conditioned. The live yeast will continue to change the character of the ale over time.

Here’s my own sixpack that’s been sitting untouched for up to three years:

1. Dogfish Head Raisin d’Etre.
2. Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale.
3. Chimay Grande Reserve.
4. La Fin du Monde.
5. Flying Fish Porter.
6. Samuel Adams Triple Bock.

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Too lazy to cellar your own beer? Several area bars frequently tap cellared kegs.

Ye Olde Ale House (405 Germantown Pike, Lafayette Hill) just polished off a cask of 1999 Our Special Ale. (The 2000 is on tap now. )

Other bars that occasionally feature vintage beers include: the 700 (2nd and Fairmount, Northern Liberties), Dawson Street Pub (Cresson and Dawson streets, Manayunk) and Monk’s Cafe (16th and Spruce streets, Center City).

Or head to Belgium, to the famous Kulminator bar (32 Vleminckveld, Antwerp), where the beer list includes more than 200 vintage-dated ales.

When I visited a few years ago, I downed two of the best beers I’ve ever tasted: a 3-year-old Stille Nacht and a 10-year-old Westvleteren.

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Some lamebrain thought it would be a great idea to send Joe Sixpack shopping for a Christmas gift for the mother-in-law.

Right.

Why not just cut off my thumbs?

A gift for the ol’ battle ax? That’s the wife’s job!

But lamebrain’s the boss.

Faced with cold-hearted marching orders, there was only one thing a red-blooded man could do.

I spent the afternoon at the bar.

I mean, what d’ya expect when you ask a guy to shop for a mother-in-law? And what do you buy her anyway?

A doily?

I could just imagine the scene at the department store. (And, by the way, before I continue, has anyone noticed that Wanamaker’s is gone? )

Anyway, it goes like this.

Me: I’m shopping for my mother-in-law.

Beautiful salesgirl with heavy red lipstick and wonderbra: Hahahahahahahahahahaha. . .

Me: Seriously, I’m. . .

Her: Hahahahahahahaha. . .

Forget it.

I immediately headed to the new Irish bar on 17th Street, the Black Sheep. A pint of ale and a Bushmill’s put me into a reflective mood.

The guy with the Guinness looked liked he’d listen.

Me (slurring slightly): Y’know, there are some things you just don’t ask a guy to do. . .

Guinness: Right on, brudder. . .

Me: Like, the other night, the l’il woman asks me to watch figger skatin’ wid her.

Guinness: Yo, you check out the legs on that Tonya Nakamichi-a-call-it?

Me: Seriously – you can’t ask a guy to watch the Icecapades. We just don’t do that. You can’t ask us to hand-wash our underwear. We do not cry at movies. We do not drink wine spritzers. And we certainly do not go Christmas shopping for the mother-in-law.

Guinness: Wha. . .You’ve gotta go shopping for. . .Hahahahahahahaha!

Me: Nudder whiskey, please.

You see, the problem with shopping for your mother-in-law is that it is the ultimate lose-lose proposition. If it’s a lousy gift, the mom will only assume her daughter married a loser. If it’s a nice gift, your wife will be all over you: “You never buy me anything that nice! “

It’s not like I didn’t try.

I tried all the finest shops: Home Depot, CVS, Pep Boys, the OTB, the Dollar Store.

Time was running out.

Stores were closing. The Parking Authority was towing on Walnut Street.

And then I saw a line of guys at 15th Street. This must be the place. I stood and waited. It wasn’t until I got inside that I saw the sign:

Phil Herman’s Cigar Shop.

Never mind. I told the cashier I needed something for my mother-in-law.

How much you spending? she asked

Thirty bucks.

Her ya go, she said.

It’s not much, but it’s the best I could do: A carton of Newports and two lottery tickets.

Merry Christmas, Ma.

Love, Joe Sixpack. Your son-in-law.

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It was when the bartender offered to glaze my glass with spices that it struck me that I may have gone a little overboard on my annual holiday beer hunt this season.

What began as a simple beer run to the corner deli had degenerated into a desperate drive down I-95, through pelting rain and savage traffic in the middle of the Thanksgiving weekend. And now this: a pint of suds decorated by Martha Stewart.

The beer hunt seemed reasonable at first, in a twisted sort of way.

Every Christmas season, mad brewers dream up a dizzying variety of hearty, high-alcohol specialties to warm us through the cold months. Holiday ales are a ticket to happiness, a pleasant way to get beer freaks from Oktoberfest to bock season. Problem is, most of these specialty brews never make it to this side of the Delaware. So, this year, I would track them down and haul them back myself. Never mind that there are plenty of perfectly good beers in Philly – I told myself I needed more. . .more. . .

“More spice? “

I looked up at the toothy bartender.

Pardon? I said.

“Pumpkin spices – we sprinkle them around the rim of your glass, like salt on a margarita. “

I’ll pass. He handed me a glass of something called Happy Trails Christmas Ale and I downed it in two gulps.

It was 10 o’clock – 15 hours after I’d left home. I was 30 miles outside of Washington, D.C., in a brewpub at a shopping mall, where all the waiters, inexplicably, have four ball-point pens clipped to their shirts, just below the collar. Don’t ask me how I found the place. It’s just a dot on a map in a suburb spelled Centreville. (What, was Centerville already taken? )

The joint is the Sweetwater Tavern, a friendly, crowded place run by former Dock Street brewmaster Nick Funnell. And the beer, despite my initial misgivings, was the kind of malty holiday brew that I’d been searching for.

But instead of fully enjoying this beer, I quaffed it and tried to retrace my steps. The Foodery (10th and Pine, Center City) to Voorhees Liquors (10 Berlin Road, Voorhees, N.J.), back to Kunda Beverage (349 S. Henderson Road, King of Prussia), through Delaware and down to State Line Liquors (1610 Elkton Road, Elkton, Md.), to Chevy Chase Wine & Spirits (5544 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.), and now this place in Virginia.

Two hundred miles through five states and the nation’s capital, for what – a trunkload of Christmas beer?

A trunkload of beer, indeed!

I’m still tasting my take, but here’s the inventory. When you’re traveling this season, get your hands on any of these. Don’t worry when you’ll drink them; they’ll age for at least a year.

• Anchor Our Special Ale (San Francisco) – The first Christmas beer I ever tasted, and maybe the best. The recipe reputedly changes each year – sniffers with more refined schnozzes have detected clove, pine, cinnamon and chocolate in past years.
• Weyerbacher Winter Ale (Easton, Pa.).
• Saint Sylvester Flanders Winter Ale (France).
• Brimstone Big Ale (Frederick, Md.) – I found a plastic-sealed bottle from ’98; the label says it’ll improve for 10 years.
• Clipper City Reserve Winter Ale (Baltimore).
• Harpoon Winter Warmer (Boston).
• Blue Ridge Snowball’s Chance (Frederick, Md.).
• N’ice Chouffe (Belgium) – I found a bottle dated 1996. At 10 percent alcohol, this brew can probably stay in the bottle another two or three years.
• Rogue Yellow Snow Ale (Newport, Ore.) – I couldn’t find Rogue’s hoppy Santa’s Private Reserve this year; this one’s flavored with juniper berries.
• Widmer Winternacht (Portland, Ore.).
• La Moneuse Special Winter (Belgium) – An 8-percenter made by schoolteachers in a garage.
• Rudolph’s Revenge Winter Ale (United Kingdom).
• Sierra Nevada Celebration (Chico, Calif.) – Time was, beer aficionados just counted the days till this hoppy ale arrived on the East Coast. These days, I don’t hear as much enthusiasm for Celebration – and I blame that on excellent HopDevil IPA from Victory Brewing (Downingtown). This local beer has spoiled us.
• Anderson Valley Winter Solstice 2000 Select Ale (Boonville, Calif.).
• Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome (United Kingdom).
• Sam Adams Winter Lager (Boston).
• Pete’s Wicked Winter Brew (Palo Alto, Calif. – I picked up this raspberry-flavored brew despite a previous tongue-numbing go-round that was reminiscent of cough syrup.
• Bobby Dazzler Old London Style Holiday Ale (Portland, Ore.).
• Snow Goose (Frederick, Md.) – This brew lost something (the yeast) when Frederick Brewing took over the old Wild Goose brewery a few years ago, but this year’s version is the closest to the original.
• Delirium Noel (Belgium) – The best label of the bunch features a tipsy, mug-hoisting Santa and eight reindeer.
• Scaldis Noel (Belgium) – The country’s strongest beer (12 percent) is available in a four-bottle gift pack that comes with its own glass.
• Avec les Bons Vouex de la Brasserie Dupont (Belgium).
• Harpoon Winter Warmer (Boston) – Dark copper with that infamous pumpkin-pie flavor.
• Geary’s Hampshire Special Ale (Portland, Maine) – This may be the best holiday ale brewed on the East Coast. I’m still working on a half-case left over from last year. Can’t wait to see how it matches up with this year’s batch.
• Samichlaus (Switzerland) – Great story. Renowned as the world’s strongest ale, the brew had been discontinued three years ago because of production costs. An Internet campaign led by breWorld.com convinced another brewer, Eggenberger, to revive it last year. I haven’t seen any of the new bottles, but you can still find leftover four-packs featuring a selection of past vintages from the mid-’90s.
• Stille Nacht (Belgium) – Voorhees Liquors had bottles left over from ’96, last time I checked.

That’s more than two dozen, and I’m still trying to get my hands on three other locals:

• Old Salty (Ocean County, N.J.) – A barleywine-style ale from Heavyweight Brewing, this malty 9-percenter was concocted with help from beer cartoonist/homebrewer Bill Coleman of Ale Street News. Served in a 12-ounce, vintage-dated, wax-dipped bottle.
• Trubbel de Yards (Manayunk) – The new, 9.6 percent Belgian-style dubbel from Yards Brewing. Brewer Tom Kehoe describes it as “big, meaty, almost raisiny and cherryish. It’s a little big for a dubbel, but it works. ” Look for it on tap and, shortly, in bottles.
• Stoudt’s Holiday Reserve (Adamstown, Pa.) – This year, it’s a rye beer.

I’m not the only one driven to extremes by Christmas beer.

“It’s one of the reasons we started Brewery Ommegang,” Wendy Littlefield told me a few days after my beer run.

Up in Cooperstown, N.Y., she and her husband, Don Feinberg, had already owned a highly regarded Belgian importer, Vanberg & DeWulf. But they were growing frustrated when they couldn’t get their hands on some well-known labels. One of the final straws was the loss of Affligem, an abbey-style ale that traces its roots back to an 11th-century Benedictine monastery. The beer – including its chocolatey holiday ale, Noel – is MIA in America these days, thanks to some nefarious distribution practices by its owner, Heineken.

When Joe Sixpack can’t find a favorite beer at the deli, he climbs into the T-bird and drives 200 miles. Littlefield and Feinberg opened an entire brewery.

And it didn’t end there.

This year, the Ommegang crew went on its Christmas beer run nine months early, when they trekked to the east to New York’s Cave Country, with 280 cases of their farmhouse-style Hennepin Ale. On a snowy February day, they lowered the bottles 156 feet into Howe Caverns, where the beer sat at a constant 52 degrees until November.

The freezing folly paid off. Littlefield says the cave-aged Hennepin’s familiar ginger flavor has faded, but that’s been replaced by a stronger orange aroma. If you can get your hands on this bottle, keep it – it’ll age for up to five years.

OK, you don’t have to drive 200 miles or open your own brewery to collect a decent sack of holiday ales. Here are four upcoming chances to get into the spirit:

Dec. 8 – Brewer’s Reserve Night, Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant, Church and State streets, Media. Along with Iron Hill’s own IPA, Maibock and Saison, the brewpub will debut the previously mentioned Trubbel de Yards. No cover, and free pint glasses to the first 50 guests. Info: 610-627-9000.

Dec. 8 – City debut of Trubbel, along with a host of other Christmas ales, including Anchor Our Special Ale on tap, the Khyber (54 S. 2nd St. Old City).

Dec. 10 – Winter beer gathering and craft show at Sugar Mom’s Church Street Lounge (225 Church St., Old City). Sponsored by Beer Philadelphia magazine, it’s a chance to savor a half-dozen or more holiday ales on tap and get some Christmas shopping done. It starts at noon and there’s no cover. Info: 215-928-8219

Dec. 12 – Holiday beer dinner at Monk’s Cafe (16th and Spruce streets, Center City). A selection of holiday ales will be paired with a traditional American holiday feast. It starts at 7 p.m. and tickets are $65. Info: 215-545-7005.

Or you can just mix in a little brewpub-hopping. Here’s what’s on tap at a few local haunts:

• Nodding Head (1516 Sansom St., Center City) – Brewer Brandon Greenwood, always protective of his recipes, reveals his Christmas Ale is flavored with “some spices. ” It won’t be available for another two weeks; meanwhile, try his Old Willy’s Ghost, a dry-hopped barleywine.
• Dock Street Brasserie (18th and Cherry streets, Logan Circle) – Eric Savage’s Pumpkin Ale is still available; look for his barleywine in a few weeks.
• General Lafayette Inn & Brewery (646 Germantown Pike, Lafayette Hill) – Brewer Chris Leonard’s 9.2 percent barleywine and his Loch Ness Monster strong Scotch ale are pouring. Look for Holiday Cheer, a English strong ale with a hint of cranberry, cinnamon, nutmeg and apple, in the next two weeks.
• Sly Fox Brewhouse & Eatery (Pikeland Village Square, Route 113, Phoenixville) – Bill Moore (formerly of Stoudt’s and Independence) has created his own version of a Belgian-style winter ale. In coming weeks, look also for an English-style Winter Warmer and a mahogany-colored Christmas Bock.
• New Road Brew House (36 W. 3rd Ave, Collegeville) – Brewman Brian O’Reilly is pouring Christmas Ale, a medium-bodied brew with taste of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.

Joe Sixpack, by Staff Writer Don Russell, was written this week with Corsendonk Christmas Ale. 

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Have you taken a good, close gander at the beer cooler at your local deli lately?

It’s almost impossible to find an honest beer in there.

It was bad enough when that watery bile known as light beer started masquerading as the real thing. Now the shelf space is being chewed up by beers that really aren’t beers at all.

Hard lemonade and cider, twisted ice tea and berry coolers. Boone’s Farm, known better for its magnum-force wine punches, now makes strawberry daiquiri beer.

All of them have about 5 percent alcohol – a little more buzz than your typical lager – but you wouldn’t know it. The citrus and fizzy sugar waters are meant to mask the taste of alcohol. You may as well be drinking soda, which I guess is the point.

Known as beer coolers or alcopops, the beverages are largely intended for young – maybe too young – drinkers. Critics say the sweet taste is designed to lure the teen-age set, who haven’t yet had their taste buds fine-tuned by a mouthful of straight bourbon. In England, the nannies went ballistic when someone actually marketed something called Power Rangers Freeze Pops, with 4.5 percent alcohol. Imagine the li’l Brit tykes bouncing off the walls, flunking the Breathalyzer at the day care.

The trend apparently got its start in the mid-’90s, when an Australian brewer – looking to dispose of an extra batch of lemons – dumped a bushel into his malt kettle and came up with Two Dogs lemon brew. Within two years, lemon beers and other alcopops accounted for 10 percent of Britain’s booze market.

It’s taken a little longer to catch on here, but in the last 18 months I’ve noticed the surge in these flavored beers at area distributors. Just as the industrial brewers glommed onto the microbrew trend a few years ago, they’re now brewing flavored beers, like Tequiza and Doc Otis from Anheuser-Busch.

The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board lists about 100 different brews that could be called alcopops – everything from fuzzy navel to spiced apple.

All of them are brewed with a malt base, which is why they’re classified as beers, not liquor (which is distilled) or wine (which is fermented fruit). But the malt beverage designation is purely a technicality, as shown by the latest to hit the market.

Namely, alcoholic spring water.

That’s right. Perrier with a punch.

It’s called DNA, and it’s so clear, it makes Coors Light look like Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout.

What’s in it? According to DNA’s Web site, the original Australian version contains carbonated water, fruit wine, sugar, natural lime and thyme extract.

Sure sounds like a wine, not a beer, to me.

The version brewed at F.X. Matt in New York, though, apparently contains malt, according to the LCB.

Like I said, it’s a purely technical classification. They can call it beer.

I say it’s kid stuff.

Nonetheless, I sacrificed my palate for an afternoon taste test. The results:

Zima – The original, from

Coors. It smells like 7-Up but is actually closer to water than DNA.

Mike’s Hard Lemonade – It sure looks like lemonade but lacks the tartness. It’s about as hard as a day-old lemon rind.

Doc Otis – Brewed by Anheuser-Busch, its fizzy, soda pop head is balanced by a sharp aroma of Ivory soap.

Tormolino Spumante & Peach – From Italy, it comes with a twist-off plastic cap that’s supposed to look like a cork. It looks exactly like a sparkling wine, but the peach aroma takes away your breath – reminiscent of 89-octane Exxon.

MacGillivray’s Australian Original Two Dogs Apple Brew – From the inventors of alcopops, it has the taste of an overripe apple. Bottle says “serve over ice. ” Joe Sixpack sez: “Serve over my dead body. “

Old Yardley’s Green Mamba – Served in a green bottle, the brew has the color of Berliner Weiss with a shot of woodruff. . .or possibly anti-freeze.

Bodean’s Twisted Tea – It claims it’s “handcrafted according to the original Southern recipe,” which I would believe if the plantation kitchen pantry was stocked with aspartame and chalk. Hands down, this is the worst of the bunch.

Melbourn Bros. Strawberry – At $7 a bottle and a fancy label, I’d expect this Merchant du Vin import to stomp the competition. It does, mostly because it’s not overwhelmed by fruit; instead, its yeast gives this a drinkable lambic-like tang. Still, strawberry?

Boone’s Strawberry Daiquiri – Now we’re getting to the rotgut. This one describes itself as a malt beverage with natural flavors, caramel and “certified colors. ” I’d guess that would be Crayola. Without a hint of alcohol taste, it’s closer to Kool-Aid than Coors.

Bartles & James Berry Flavored Cooler – Remember when Ottens Flavors on North Broad Street used to stink up the neighborhood with some sickening, god-awful, gut-wrenching smell that you could never quite identify? This is it.

Joe Sixpack, by Staff Writer Don Russell, was written this week with a pint of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. 

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A brief, confusing history of Dock Street beer:

First, there was Dock Street Amber in a bottle, the city’s first micro-brewed beer. Only, it was actually made in Utica, N.Y.

Then, there was Dock Street Brewing Co. Brewery & Restaurant on Logan Circle, the city’s first all-grain brewpub. Only, you couldn’t drink bottles of its amber at its own bar.

Then, Dock Street sold its bottled beer to Henry Ortlieb Brewing and began producing another line, called Savage Ale.

Then, Dock Street took over the Red Bell brewpub at Reading Terminal, and – for a few weeks – couldn’t serve any beer, period.

Now, the original joint is called Dock Street Brasserie, its Dock Street Terminal is finding its legs, and so is Savage Ale – but that familiar bottled Dock Street Amber is apparently dead.

I’ve given up trying to sort things out at Dock Street. Instead, as the ever-changing restaurant celebrated its 10th anniversary last week, I’ve rediscovered one true thing about Dock Street: Its beer is as good as ever.

Try a glass of its cask-conditioned porter. A pint of this dark, chocolaty ale is a filling treat on an autumn afternoon. It’s like a rich, crisp caramel-coated apple in a glass. . . only the apple is about 5 percent alcohol.

Earlier this week, I grabbed a pint and headed for the stool next to head brewer Eric Savage. After seven years behind the kettles, this guy qualifies as a Philly brewing vet.

Joe Sixpack: How much impact do you think you’ve had on Dock Street?

Eric Savage: Not that much. What I’ve done is try to push the envelope as far as possible, with our beer styles and beer quality. I really like to try to stay in front of the curve.

JS: How many styles do you produce?

ES: We’ve done 70 different styles in Dock Street history. Right now we do about 35 styles a year.

JS: What’s the best-selling style?

ES: Anything Irish. Irish Red, especially, but we could call something Irish Dunkel, Irish Helles, and it would sell. Irish stout sells like hotcakes. But call it a porter, and moves much, much slower.

JS: Do you think the restaurant’s patrons realize how good the beer is?

ES: Probably not. But I think that’s because our biggest recurring challenge has been in defining ourselves, who we are. First we were a brewpub with good food, then we were a fine dining restaurant that happened to have freshly made beer. We didn’t fit the typical restaurant experience.

JS: What kind of impact did the emphasis on fine dining have on your beer?

ES: A big impact on beer sales. In 1997, we got our [full] liquor license. We didn’t just have to serve our own beer anymore. We expanded our wine list, offered cordials. And suddenly people weren’t drinking as much beer.

JS: Did the emphasis on fine dining have any impact on the type of beer you’ve brewed?

ES: Never. I’ve never once been told what to brew. If I want to do something crazy, I go for it. The only thing anyone ever asked me to do was produce Savage Blonde, a light beer for our Coors drinkers.

JS: So where is Dock Street headed now?

ES: Our focus for the future is to move away from that snooty restaurant feel. Hopefully we can maintain a balance between high-brow dining and a totally casual experience.

JS: How do you do that?

ES: Establish a rapport with the people who visit. Have fun with them, entertain them, make them feel at home, like this is their place.

JS: You mean, like a bar.

ES: Like a bar. But enough talk about the business end. Let’s talk about beer.

JS: Well tell me, what are your personal favorites?

ES: I like making what I like drinking. Something with a lot of malt and a lot of hops. In general, I’m a hophead, so I like a more bitter beer. When I brew a smooth, malty beer, I don’t get as excited.

JS: Doesn’t that make it difficult to judge your own beer?

ES: Well, you’ve got to listen to what people say they like. If they tell you a beer is too sweet or too bitter, you tweak your recipe. You brew what people like. I guess it’s like being a musician, and you perform music that people enjoy. Then, people say that when you become successful, you’re a sellout, because you’ve changed what you do based on what other people like. But I don’t agree.

Fads change, and brewers react. When I started full time in ’95, everybody was making an effort to increase the body in their beer. More alcohol, more bitterness. Everybody turned up the volume. Now, people are scaling back, trying to focus on what it is that makes a truly good beer.

The trend is much more conservative.

JS: So what beers fit the bill, a “truly good beer”?

ES: HopDevil [from Victory] and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, definitely. And there are times when I think the beer I make is outstanding.

JS: You sound a little negative, as if you think there’s a shortage of good beer these days.

ES: I’m not negative at all. Just think, seven or eight years ago, the only – the only – good beer you could get was Sierra Nevada and Stoudt’s, if you were lucky and got a good bottle. Now I can walk into John Harvard’s Brewhouse, in Springfield of all places, and get an excellent IPA.

JS: The interesting trend, though, is how much good beer can be found in brewpubs. You couldn’t say that five years ago.

ES: There’s an easy answer: fresh beer for a brewpub is something that sells in three to five weeks, vs. beer that sits on a shelf for three to five months. It goes to show why fresh beer is the best beer.

JS: That’s one of the reasons I encourage people to get out and drink. Go taste these beers on tap, in a bar.

ES: I agree. But I have to admit, I work so much I don’t get out so often. Plus, there’s a lifestyle problem when you’re a brewer. You really have to be careful about how much you drink. I play soccer three or four times a week, just to keep me from spending too much time in bars. But I have to admit, if Standard Tap [Northern Liberties’ draft-only pub at 2nd and Poplar streets] was in walking distance of my house, I’d be there three times a week instead.

JS: Now that Dock Street has opened its Terminal brewpub, you have two separate breweries to run. How’s that affected your work?

ES: You become more of an administrator. The worst thing is not getting your hands in the malt enough.

That’s what I like about brewing. It’s real. I’m not pushing paper. I’m producing something. You feel like you are a real human on the planet.

Joe Sixpack, by Staff Writer Don Russell, was written this week with a glass of Dock Street IPA.

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