CHAMPAGNE? More like SHAM-pagne, if you ask me.
Every New Year’s Eve, it’s the same ol’ swill: overpriced bottles of sweet, fizzy bad wine posing as a drinkable beverage worthy of celebration.

An entire year goes by, and none but the most pretentious puckered-palates touch the stuff.

But flip the calendar and, pop, we’re shooting corks and slopping the bubbly like we’re Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in “Top Hat. ”

Gimme a break.

Champagne is rich people booze, priced to pinch your wallet hard enough to make you think you’re buying something special.

Dom Perignon at 160 bucks a bottle? The grapes are no different from regular wine, and it’s no harder to make, so howcum it’s so expensive?

It’s the P.T. Barnum Theory of Sucker Economics at work, separating the dumb from their cash. Smart drinkers see through that scam.

And by the way, if it’s cheap, it’s not real Champagne – just some over-CO-2’d dregs from California. Korbel? Krap!

Champagne’s dirty little secret is that it’s actually fortified wine, just like Thunderbird. The grapes from this region north of Paris aren’t sweet enough to produce a suitable amount of alcohol, so the Frenchies dump buckets of sugar into the casks before fermentation.

Even then, there’s no guarantee the bottle is actually drinkable.

Champagne vintages are like episodes of “Star Trek”: You can never tell if this is a Picard or a Kirk until you actually drink it.

Normally, I don’t waste this much space bashing an alcoholic beverage – you know, choose your own poison. But in this beer-drinker’s world, it’s about time we found a superior malternative to shampagne.

This New Year’s Eve, try one of these instead:

• Gueuze Vigneronne Cantillon – Tart, dry, with a touch of grape from the muscats added during maturation.
• Framboise Boon – A raspberry lambic whose wild yeasts produce a sparkle in the glass. Try Frank Boon’s Mariage Parfait for something even drier.
• Unibroue Blanche de Chambly – A light, almost lemony Belgian-style white ale from Canada.
• Kindl Berliner Weisse – Another wheat beer, from Germany, it’s so tart (almost sour) that the brew is usually cut with fruit syrup. Try it straight on Monday night.
• Victory Golden Monkey – The Downingtown brewery’s version of a Belgian tripel is strong, but not heavy like a stout or barleywine. Split a bottle with a friend.
• Corsendonk Christmas Ale – Everybody tastes something different in this brew: orange, chocolate, lemon. The best thing is you can find it in extra-large bottles that should put those grape-filled jeroboams to shame.
• Miller High Life – It’s the champagne of beers!

And what will we toast this year? Here’s a sixpack of glad tidings:

1.  Coors will finally pay for polluting the unfortunately misnamed Clear Creek in Golden, Colo. You might remember the beer factory polluted its source of water last year – the equivalent of peeing into your own beer – with a spill that killed 50,000 fish. After months of talks, the state Wildlife Division accepted a $500,000 payment.
2. Guinness will take over the former Pabst brewery outside Allentown. OK, it’s not beer they’re brewing; instead, they’ll churn out some loathsome alcoholized fruit drink under the Smirnoff label. But at least it puts out-of-work brewery employees back on the payroll.
3. Yards Brewing is getting close to opening its new facility in Kensington. Located in a former bottling facility for the old Weisbrod & Hess brewery (Rheingold) at Amber and Hagert streets, the move marks the return of one of the neighborhood’s long-lost industries.
4. Worldwide beer consumption is up for the 15th consecutive year. Japan’s Kirin Brewery says it rose by 2.6 percent, to 136.1 kiloliters. I have no idea how much that is, but it sounds like more than a few dozen sixpacks.
5. Beer as bait. In England, a man who hates Christmas cut short a two-week holiday stay in an underground bunker for a pint. In California, marathon organizers are trying to lure runners with a free post-race beer.
6. The city finally got its first beer-related historic marker. It’s at Poplar and American streets, Northern Liberties, near the site where German immigrant John Wagner brewed America’s first lager beer in 1840. Beer historian Rich Wagner (no relation) gets the credit for years of lobbying the state historic commission to commemorate the birthplace of the nation’s most popular beer style.

Joe Sixpack, by Staff Writer Don Russell, was written this week with a 2-year-old bottle of Victory Old Horizontal.

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MY FIRST BAR was an old peach crate on the floor next to the fridge. It held a stack of cheap liquor, plastic cups and a bottle opener; hoist it onto a table, instant party.

My second bar was made by an old friend out of recycled window shutters and plywood. It weighed about 3,000 pounds and held slightly more bottles than the peach crate.

The old crate is in the attic now, and the shutters fell apart a couple years ago. So, the bottles piled up in kitchen cabinets. The corkscrew was somewhere beneath the spatulas. I had barstools, but no place to lean my elbows.

It was an embarrassment. My drinking pals laughed, and then left with their beer. Neighbors were talking. Joe Sixpack, without a bar?

A bar of my own, I explained to the missus, was not just an idle diversion. My manhood was at stake. And besides, I needed a place to hang my neon Ortlieb’s sign.

Pleeeeeeze . . .

She gave me a Marge Simpson groan, and I headed to the basement. That was two years ago.

I tell myself it’s taken so long because I wanted it to be perfect. A man’s bar, I think we can all agree, is the very essence of his being. It is the place where he feels most comfortable, where he can be moody or happy or just tie one on without excuse.

It is sanctuary, yes, but it’s also an expression of character. Like the beer I drink, my bar would be hand-crafted, bold and rich with flavor. It would be as warm as a mouthful of whiskey tickling the throat. Visitors would be awed by its subtle undertones. When they carry me out, I want the paramedics to say, “Yo, nice bar.”

But even a bar with such lofty metaphysical qualities needs walls. That was first.

And a ceiling – the bare-rafter look wasn’t going to work.

And a floor, naturally. I didn’t want to wake up with dirt on my face.

And a sink. I could live without drinking water, but eventually you have to wash out the glasses.

And some lights. A big-screen TV. A couch. A rug. An air filtration system for the cigar smoke, and what the hell, let’s just wire up a kick-butt home-theater while we’re at it.

I suppose I could’ve hired union labor to do the work. But if this was going to be my bar, I wanted to do it myself. Plumbing, electric, drywall, flooring, furniture – I tackled it all with my own hands, and my trusty Dewalt cordless drill.

When things got tough (like the 15-minute soldering job that turned into a six-hour blasphemy of every known world religion), I headed over to Standard Tap for a Victory Golden Monkey and a pep talk from owner William Reed.

In a previous life, the bar at 2nd and Poplar was a bland, harshly lit joint run by some dudes from Jersey.

Reed, who lives upstairs with his family, and partner Paul Kimport sweated for four years, sawing wood, installing beautifully trimmed cherry cabinets, re-igniting old gas lamps, running tap lines to the 2nd floor.

They transformed it into one of the best-looking bars in Philly, and when they were done, they could proudly say they did it themselves.

Pride is what drives do-it-yourselfers. That, and a certain measure of cheapness.

It’s an epiphany I had one afternoon last week while putting the finishing touches on the bar. It’s got a history, you see.

Fifteen years ago, when I started at the Daily News, I worked a graveyard shift on the copy desk, proof-reading articles by some of my old Philly newspaper heroes. Chuck Stone, Pete Dexter, Jack McKinney, Nels Nelson, Dave Racher, Frank Dougherty – without being too poetic, their words helped shaped my world.

At the end of the shift, the copy desk headed down to the fourth floor, to the composing room, where sharp-tongued guys with razor blades sliced up sheets of copy laid out on big, black drafting tables. Into the early hours, we made the writers’ words fit into the People Paper’s columns.

Stone, Dexter, the rest of ’em – they’re gone now, and so are most of the composers. The whole paper is put together on damn computers. A few months ago, they hauled the old, black tabletops to the Dumpster.

When no one was looking, I grabbed two of them. It took me hours to clean off the layers of wax and grime. Then I ripped them to fit the top of my bar. Probably saved myself 50 bucks.

But the money didn’t matter; I’ll blow that on a couple cases next week. Something else made it worth the effort to take that used countertop and make it into my own bar. It shines like a pair of Tom McAn’s. Not too brightly, but reflective enough so that after a sip or two, you can see 10 thousand tiny razor scratches, the mark of so many words cut and shaped into this newspaper. The other day, I shook off the sawdust and cracked open the first brew at my new bar. I drained the bottle in two gulps and set it down atop the counter.

It left a perfectly round ring. Just perfect.

Joe Sixpack, by Staff Writer Don Russell, was written this week with a bottle of Stoudt’s Holiday Reserve.

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Speaking of English beers, the people at Fuller’s were on the line the other day. The No. 2 specialty beer in the United Kingdom (behind Bass) is pushing a three-pack of Vintage Ale, with a bottle each from ’99, ’00 and ’01.

They’re bottle-conditioned, which means they’re unfiltered with a remainder of yeast. The ale continues to ferment after bottling, producing all kinds of subtle tastes.

I couldn’t wait, so I downed a bottle of the ’01 the other day while chatting with Stamford Galsworthy, the brewery’s export manager. The conversation went something like this:

Me: How do you convince people that warm, flat beer is good?

Him: The American consumer today is infinitely more educated than ever before. When Britain beers were first introduced to America, we had more competition from the micros, which were imitating the British. They taught consumers about beer. But the consumer demands a much better standard of quality, and I think they’ve come to think of Fuller’s as a benchmark of British brewers.

Me: You mean Americans like Brits better than their American knockoffs?

Him: The micros that tailed off, I think, were the ones that were over-hopped. I’ve got a feeling that they were not as balanced as British beer. You’re always going to get consistency from Fuller’s.

Me: Well, America loves its hops.

Him: The thing is, we started sending our beer to America 25 years ago. Our first market was Seattle, with ESB [Extra Special Bitter]. It has won more awards than any other brand in the U.K. It started doing very well, we’d send a container a year. Then, if you move five years on, suddenly you’ve got Red Hook in Seattle, with its ESB. It got such a following that other brewers started brewing ESB. We were too late to trademark the name. But we’re the original ESB, and these breweries copied us.

Me: Brits drink beer for lunch, don’t they?

Him: Absolutely, that’s a surprising chunk of British beer consumed. Fuller’s owns 250 pubs, 90 percent of them in London. You see a big white-collar-guy-at-lunch trade. Our flagship, London Pride, you can have one or two and still work that afternoon.

The Vintage Ale? The ’01 was terrific. Smooth, with a caramel flavor and only a slight bitterness on the afterbite. I’m sticking the older ones in the cellar. Check back with me in a year or two.

Calendar

Today – Homebrewed Beer & Wine Tasting, courtesty of Barry’s Homebrew Outlet, 7 p.m., at 312 Market St. No cover.

Tomorrow – Santafest, craft show and beer fest featuring a half-dozen holiday beers at Sugar Mom’s Church Street Lounge, 225 Church St., 12-6 p.m. No cover. Info: 215-925-8219.

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IWOULDN’T WALK 500 miles for a Molson, like the commercial says, but this week, I drove 150 for an Oakham Jeffrey Hudson Bitter.

And, as is usually the case, it was the people – not the beer – that made the trip worthwhile.

The bitter from England’s Oakham Brewery is this year’s champion beer of the Great British Beer Festival. B. United International, a beer importer in Chappaqua, N.Y., that specializes in rare, medal-winning ales, got its hands on 18 firkins (or small casks), and one of them showed up at Kclinger’s Tavern in Hanover, Pa.

Hanover – home of Utz Potato Chips and Snyder’s Pretzels, but otherwise firmly entrenched in the middle of Nowhere – is a helluva lot closer than London. I grabbed my cigars and headed west for the two-and-a-half hour beer run.

This is not a trip for Bambi-lovers, at least not at this time of the year. It’s deer-hunting season, and the highway is full of heavily armed farmers with bloody carcasses draped across the hoods of their mud-encrusted Ford F150s.

I’m no expert, but it looks like its pretty easy pickin’s this year. I think I saw one guy in an orange hat pull onto the shoulder of the Turnpike, lean out his window with a rifle, and nail a 7-point buck grazing on McDonald’s wrappers. Five minutes later, AAA showed up to give the dude a jump and field-clean his buck.

It’s a part of Pennsylvania we city folk don’t get to see much.

Two pit stops, a wrong turn and a couple phone calls for directions later, and I was leaning on the long, warm bar at Kclinger’s, with a pint of Oakham in my hand.

But first, the tavern’s name: It’s coined from the partners, Bill Klinger and John Clinger, a coupla ex-printing plant workers who own the place with Bill’s girlfriend, Cindy Braid. Together, they’ve turned a vacant Italian restaurant into one of the best beer bars in America.

The joint has 39 spigots and more than 600 different bottles in the fridge.

Very little of the space is wasted on industrial swill. Instead, you’ll find 30 different German weizen beers, 25 lambics, 20 barleywines and a dozen bocks. All of the Belgian trappists are there (even two flavors from impossible-to-find Westvleteren), and so are some brews I’ve never seen in Philly: Astral Polar Beer (Chile), Trompe la Morte Double Bock (Germany), Midnight Sun Kodiak Brown Ale (Alaska).

Like I said, it’s not just the beer. This place is as comfortable as your living room . . . if your spouse worked for tips. Good food, big TVs, a foosball table and blues on Wednesday nights.

“We built it as a place for us to hang out,” Bill said, “and we do, quite often. ”

“We didn’t know much about the business when we started,” he continued. “But we all liked good beer. Somewhere around here, there’s a photo of me from 1972, drinking a real Lowenbrau. So, we started with six taps – you know, Heineken, Guinness – and we built it up from there. ”

The negative types had a field day with the partners. They’d tell them, “You’ll never make it selling expensive beer. ” This is shot-and-a-beer territory, where old men milk an 8-ounce Bud all afternoon and mill workers get hammered at night.

“But we figured, if we like the stuff, someone else is bound to like it. The worst thing that can happen is you get a little egg on your face,” he said, pausing two counts for the set-up, “and I like omelets. ”

Naturally, there was a bit of a learning curve.

“We’ve educated people,” Bill said. “When I see a table with people drinking Miller Lite or Coors, I try to talk to them, try to introduce them to something different.

“But forget the Bud drinkers. You can’t get them to switch. Auggie Busch must put something in his beer to keep them hooked on it. ”

Like other beer bars, Kclinger’s has a tasters club. Drink 120 different labels, and you get your name on a plaque. The club has 4,500 members – not bad, considering the entire population of Hanover is something like 14,000.

When you hit 1,000 beers, the tavern finds a brewery to make a few kegs in your honor. This month, it’s V-Twin ESB, made in Maryland, and named in honor of a Harley rider named Scott Alwine.

“We had one guy in here, he’d sit at the bar and just drink Miller Lite after Miller Lite after Miller Lite. One time, a woman sits next to him and she’s drinking a Guinness Stout. He tasted it, and never looked back. ”

Mike Bixler, 56, of Hanover, was much the same way. Before Kclinger’s opened seven years ago, he said, “I’d drink something like Killian’s Red, at best. ”

Then he got a taste of Newcastle Brown Ale. After that, it was the drafts from local micros. And after that, it was onto 1,000. Rogue brewed him a stout for his millennial beer.

“I’m lucky because I live only four miles away,” Bixler said. “That’s the biggest complaint you hear from other customers – they live so far away from it. ”

In this part of the state, you’ve got a brewpub in Gettysburg, a couple bars and a brewery in Harrisburg, and not much else. More than half of Kclinger’s mailing list lives better than 15 miles away.

People will go a long way for a good beer. My Oakham was smooth, with a nice bitter tang. At under 4 percent alcohol, it’s the kind of brew you can handle till dawn.

But as I found, Kclinger’s customers don’t make the trip just for the beer.

“The people in there are so pleasant,” Bixler said. “It’s like the old ‘Cheers’ thing, everyone feels at home, they know you by name. And you never see fights in there.”

Joe Sixpack, by Staff Writer Don Russell, was written this week with glass of Rogue 5000.

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Osama bin Laden could be the celebrity endorsement from hell.

Last month, when reports emerged that the millionaire terror boss was tooling around Afghanistan in a Toyota pickup truck, the Japanese SUV-maker spun its wheels trying to distance itself from bin Laden.

Now it’s Heineken.

Last week, Daily News beer scribe Joe Sixpack passed on word that a new bio suggests bin Laden favored the famous green bottle during his party animal days in Lebanon.

“Most students were not sophisticated enough to try spirits or cocktails,” says author Adam Robinson in “Bin Laden: Behind the Mask of Terror. ” “So it seems likely that he began with a bottled beer, probably the Dutch-brewed Heineken that was favored by students because of its cheapness. ”

Response from Heineken arrived too late for that dispatch last week, but here’s the company line, from a spokesman, who replied in an e-mail on Friday:

“When you read the quote you sent us, you can see for yourself that it is based on speculation, as it is stated ‘probably the Dutch-brewed Heineken. ‘

“Furthermore, Heineken, being a premium beer, is most unlikely to be favoured because of its cheapness.

“Beside the fact that this quote is based on speculation, and all we can conclude is that Heineken was the first name that popped up in the head of the author of the book when thinking about beer, Heineken regrets the association made between its brand and bin Laden, and let it be clear that Heineken as a company dissociates itself, as [does] the rest of the Western world, from terrorism.

“Kind regards, Manel Vrijenhoek, manager media relations.”

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First came reports that two of the hijackers in the Sept. 11 terror attack used to hang out at a bar in Paterson, N.J., and drink watered-down Heineken.
Now we get word that millionaire terror boss Osama bin Laden enjoyed those skunky green bottles, too.

According to author Adam Robinson in “Bin Laden: Behind the Mask of Terror,” the world’s most wanted man probably started downing them as a teen-ager:

“At 16, bin Laden tasted alcohol for the first time. Most students were not sophisticated enough to try spirits or cocktails, so it seems likely that he began with a bottled beer, probably the Dutch-brewed Heineken that was favored by students because of its cheapness. He seems to have enjoyed the experience because during his first year in Lebanon bin Laden and his friends became fixtures in the Broumanna student drinking scene. ”

Bin Laden eventually gave up the boozing and declared a jihad against America. He should’ve switched to Amstel Light instead.

Memo of the month

Posted originally at FuckedCompany.Com, here’s a dot.com company memo that’s been floating around the Internet.

From: Helene Sanford (vice president, human resources).

Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2001 2:10 p.m.

To: Watertown.

Subject: Beer in the fridges.

“Two weeks ago when we had Beer Wednesday there was a case and a half left over which was placed in the large lunchroom refrigerators for future beer Wednesdays and now only 3 beers remain. This is not beer for consumption outside of Beer Wednesday or to take home. Please do not consume the food and drinks in the refrigerator if it does not belong to you. Per our drug-free workplace policy, ‘Consumption of alcohol on company premises is permitted only at company-sponsored functions. ‘

“Please let me know if you have any questions about this. ”

Uh, just one:

Beer Wednesdays? Finally, a work-free drug policy!

Ch-ch-ch-chill out

It’s time to stow the light lagers and reach for the heavy-duty stuff – holiday ales and winter brews. Here’s a six-pack of some cold-weather favorites, available now:

1.  Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. Like Christmas decorations, the red-and-green box shows up earlier every year.
2. Victory Storm King. A six-pack of this stout and a log in the fireplace, and you’re cookin’.
3. Flying Fish Grand Cru Winter Reserve. Sour mash and bottle-conditioned, it’s like Flying Fish’s Farmhouse Summer Ale with longjohns.
4.  Heavyweight Old Salty Barleywine. If you were smart, you saved a bottle of this 11-percenter from last year’s batch.
5.  Dogfish Head Worldwide Stout. The world’s strongest beer that actually tastes like a beer. Wallet warning: A case tops $100, so divvy up the bottles with friends.
6.  La Trappe Quadrupel. Had a bottle of this Dutch Trappist the other night at McMenamin’s (7170 Germantown Ave., Mount Airy), then walked six miles home in the 30-degree wind-chill and didn’t feel a thing.

Calendar

Tomorrow, Sunday – 10th annual Great Brews of America, one of the region’s top beer festivals features flavors from more than 50 breweries. The two-day fest is at Split Rock Resort, Lake Harmony in the Poconos. Tix: $18 advance, $22 at the door. Info: 800-255-7625.

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SAMUEL ADAMS Brewhouse – R.I.P. 1999.

Poor Henry’s Brewery & Restaurant – R.I.P. 2000.

Dock Street Brasserie – R.I.P. 2001.

If the fresh, handmade ale from local brewpubs is the best defense against tasteless industrial lager, Philadelphia is losing the war. They’re dropping off faster than Taliban soldiers.

Today, there are just four, if you count the Red Bell facility at the First Union Center. And one of them (Independence, at Reading Terminal) was last seen serving . . . Miller Lite!

It would be easy to say the brewpub trend has maxed out, but that ignores the statistical evidence that brewpubs are still thriving nationwide. A new one opens every four days in America (though one closes every week). There’s a new one opening next week in Wilkes-Barre, for crying out loud.

No, this goes deeper than a so-called dying trend.

Sam Adams croaked when the owner got tired of the beer business and pulled out after a decent 10-year run. The location quickly reopened as Nodding Head.

Poor Henry’s suffered from its bad location on a dark Northern Liberties street and from some dumb cash-spending decisions that left the brewery with too much capacity and not enough customers.

Dock Street, which had a decent 11-year run, always had difficulty defining itself. It went from yuppie hangout to high-end restaurant to French brasserie to, in its dying days, a dance club. Throw in an internecine corporate flow chart that spun off a separate bottling company and a second brewpub with the same name, and Dock Street was restaurant roadkill.

But there’s more behind the dearth of brewpubs in the city than shaky management.

For one thing, there’s our city’s well-documented inferiority complex, aka skyscraper envy.

Under NYC’s shadow, we’re so dinky we don’t even make it onto the weather map. All our lives, we hear nothing but Manhattan – its mayor, its theaters, Central Park, the freakin’ Yankees, Al Roker. It’s a little hard to taste pride in your hometown when you’ve got the Big Apple shoved down your throat.

“It’s like, ‘Well, it’s from Philly, it can’t be as good as the beer from England or California,’ ” says Curt Decker, a veteran bar operator and co-owner of Nodding Head (1516 Sansom St., Center City).

Even if New York City produces few (Brooklyn Brewing) beers of note, our inferiority has us reaching for other slick, out-of-town labels that we’re certain must be better than the miserable stuff bottled by the slow-talking yokels in our own back yard. The mere existence of the thoroughly odious trio of Heineken, Beck’s and Corona in this town is evidence of our own butt-kissing obeisance to these supposed superiors.

I can name you 25 beers made within 50 miles of here that are 100 times better and just as cheap – but most drinkers could care less.

Blame it on Madison Avenue. Those brainwashers have us convinced there’s nothing better than a smooth-talking import.

The worst part is the complete lack of support for local businesses.

“Go to either one of the Portlands,” says Decker, “and every corner tap room has local craft beer on tap. Here, it just seems that people would much rather pour something from far away – and import or something from the West Coast. That’s just something we have to break through. ”

Yo, I’m as guilty as the next beer freak of reaching for a Sierra Nevada or Anderson Valley from California, when I could be draining a Stoudt’s or Victory from Pennsylvania.

Maybe it’s Ugly Cousin Syndrome.

You know, a few years ago, she looked r-e-a-l purdy – all those fancy flavors brewed in the shiny tanks just behind the bar. But familiarity breeds contempt, and, man, check out that new babe with the huge Cascade hops. Now our favorite hometown brewpub is just one ug-a-lee relative.

The thing is, every time I go to Nodding Head or Manayunk Brewing Co. (4120 Main St., Manayunk), I taste something that’s as good as those West Coast seducers. This week it was Nodding Head’s perfectly named Monkey Knife Fight Lager, delicately flavored with ginger and lemon grass and served at a Vietnamese beer dinner at Fork (306 Market St., Old City). Brewer Brandon Greenwood joked that it’s named after Decker’s imaginary garage band, but between you and me it sounds more like something out of Homer Simpson’s imagination.

Whatever, it was fresh and balanced and original – just the thing a beer-lover thirsts for. Makes me wonder why we don’t stick with the locals.

Decker thinks “Philadelphia has almost become too beer savvy for its own good. ”

“I don’t want to say it like I’m demeaning our beer drinkers,” he says. “But we’ve got such a good beer scene here, and we’ve been treated to so many good beers, that some of the beer-drinking public is outsmarting itself. ”

D’oh!

About that new joint in Wilkes-Barre . . .

It’s called Black Rock Brewing Co., and it’s opening in a former insurance office at 380 Coal St.

Owner Patrick O’Connor learned his chops at Chicago’s beer university, the Siebel Institute, and apprenticed at the Gen. Lafayette Brewery & Restaurant in 1999.

When I asked O’Connor if he had any misgivings about entering the business, he came back at me with a wad of stats. Among other things, he said, Wilkes-Barre is the largest town in Pennsylvania without a brewpub. “I felt it could easily support one, two or three of them. ”

More importantly, he added, “we have a rich brewing tradition up here, and it’s a rich beer-drinking area. It was a huge anthracite region, we had more bars per square mile than any other place in the United States at one time. It’s a really hearty beer-drinking area. ”

What’s his take on Philly’s diving brewpubs?

“Brewpubs are either run by people who know beer really well, or people who know restaurants really well,” said O’Connor. “But that’s not good enough for brewpubs. You need to know it all. You’ve got to put as good a product on the plate as in the glass. The novelty’s gone. You better have a good product or people aren’t coming back.”

Joe Sixpack, by Staff Writer Don Russell, was written this week with a bottle of Appalachian Brewing Purist Pale Ale.

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This time it’s Dock Street Brasserie (18th and Cherry streets, Logan Circle), where the doors are locked and the phone rings and rings and rings. Josh Ervine, formerly its head brewer, is now sweating at Yards Brewing.

No word on Dock Street’s future, or its brewing equipment.

Speaking of kettles and fermenters, word is that Dogfish Head Brewing of Lewes, Del., has purchased the long-stagnant equipment at Poor Henry’s Brewery in Northern Liberties.

That’s bad news for the city neighborhood, but it’ll likely mean Dogfish’s Sam Calagione will be producing even more of his quirky brews.

Brian O’Reilly, currently working at Victory Brewing in Downingtown, is putting together a brewpub project in West Chester. It’s tentatively called Turk’s Head.

O’Reilly, former head brewer at New Road in Collegeville, expects to open sometime next year.

Calendar

Tonight – The Magic of Belgian Beer, tutored tasting by Beer Philadelphia’s Jim Anderson at The Restaurant School in Philadelphia. Tix: $55. Info: 215-222-4200.

Nov. 6 – Beer for Wine Lovers, more Anderson tutoring, at La Campagne Restaurant, Cherry Hill, N.J. Tix: $40. Info: 856-429-7647.

Nov. 13 – Beer dinner, featuring brews from Long Island’s Southampton Publik House, at Monk’s Cafe, 16th and Spruce streets. Tix: $55. Info: call 215-545-7005.

Fake beer headache for German breweries

From the (London) Daily Telegraph.

German lager’s reputation for purity and taste is threatened by a scandal over stolen barrels and fake brews, which suggests that much of what is being served up may be little better than dishwater.

Erich Dederichs, the manager of the German brewers’ association, said yesterday that leading brewers such as Schultheiss and Kindl were falling victim to a scam of worrying proportions.

A new breed of “beer bandits” had been stealing barrels from reputable breweries, then filling them up with low grade “no name” brews. They sold these on at cut prices to bar and restaurant owners who thought they were getting the real thing.

“We have a problem, particularly in Brandenburg and Berlin,” he said. “Those who get served up with this dishwater think it is Kindl and never touch the stuff again. ”

Bild, Germany’s most popular newspaper, estimated that one in five glasses of beer pulled in the Berlin area was fake.

“Berlin’s beer drinkers will be foaming with rage,” it said. “Or they will be wondering why after their last night on the lager their heads hurt so much. ”

The problem first came to the brewers’ attention after the reputable Schultheiss brewery caught people trying to sell 300 stolen barrels full of fake beer to restaurants. Since then, many other cases have been detected.

The disclosures are further bad news for a German beer industry that is already suffering from a fall in consumption.

Last year, an average German drank 221 pints of beer, 15 pints fewer than in 1995.

With purity of their lager now in question there are fears that consumption could plunge still further.

The production of German beer is governed by a Purity Edict of 1516. This states that beer is only beer when made with malt, hops, yeast and water.

German brewers believe that the fake beer breaks the ancient law.

They are telling drinkers to be on the look out for anything that is sweeter or sourer than normal, or that leaves them with a particularly sore head the morning after.

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THERE’S NOT much good news amid the ashes of the Sept. 11 terror attack, but here’s a sign that America – in spite of the tragedy – might actually become a better place:

Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has asked that championship teams forgo the champagne celebrations this year.

It’s about time, I say.

For too long, our sacred national pastime has been infected by this insurgent foreign alcohol. All that Frenchy bubbly, poured in the frenzy of winning, has spoiled our All-American idols. The purity of Babe and Mickey’s game has been stained for too long by the fermented grapes of Pierre and Jean-Claude.

Dumping champagne at our hour of gloom is the best thing baseball could do for the game . . . and our nation.

The cynics gripe that it’s an obvious public relations ploy. Rather than acting out of some patriotic urge to uphold traditional American values, they whine, Selig is more concerned with the televised image of high-fiving, booze-drenched ballplayers giddily splashing $500 bottles around the locker room while much of the nation is in tears.

But it should be clear that Selig has a nobler agenda. When a guy named Bud from Milwaukee starts talking about booze, it can mean only one thing:

Beer.

Beer, truly, is the only appropriate adult beverage for baseball. Whether sloshed out of plastic cups by bleacher vendors, or advertised on the giant scoreboard in right field, beer courses through baseball like the very corpuscles in our red-blooded American veins.

You go to a ball game, you don’t see pinky-fingered snoots sipping Chablis in the 700 Level. Softball teams play for kegs, not magnums. And, dammit, that was Miller Lite, not Gallo Rotgut, that Marvelous Marv Throneberry and Bob Uecker used to shill for.

It’s only fitting that we toast our baseball heroes with nice, cold, 100 percent American beer.

To me, booting high-priced imported wine is a sign that baseball – long out of touch with its common fans – is finally seeing the error of its money-grubbing ways. A return to beer means a return to baseball’s populist roots: natural grass, cheap seats, 25-cent scorecards, day games.

Yes, I know, some will defend champagne celebrations as part of the grand tradition of crowning a champion. And it’s true, the fine pffft from a freshly opened can of Coors just can’t match the gushing fountain from a bottle of Korbel. But, frankly, foam is over-rated, and, if nothing else, it reveals a shocking weakness among our steroid-pumped jocks. Namely, the ritual post-game draping of those Mommy-like plastic slip-covers over open lockers, to protect their precious Levis. Yo, I’m not going to call Derek Jeter a sissy (I did that once, and learned my lesson), but if you can’t spill a little booze on your pants without busting out the fabric softener, what good is it being a guy?

So, how did champagne worm its way into baseball?

I dunno for sure, but I think we can reasonably assume that the New York Yankees had something to do with it.

For one thing, New York City has never been a beer town. It’s the kind of place where tuxedo-wearing dandies suck down exotic cocktails and sip champagne from ladies’ slippers.

On second thought, maybe I only saw that in a Fred Astaire movie.

Whatever, the Bronx Bombers love nothing better than winning the World Series, just so they can pop the cork in America’s face.

It was no surprise, then, that the Yankees were the only team to balk at Selig’s champagne decree. After they dispatched the Seattle Mariners last week, manager Joe Torre and his pampered pin-stripers pulled out chilled bottles of Lafitte de Hoity-Toity and toasted their 48th consecutive American League pennant as if it were their birthright.

I even heard one of the Yankees say that denying themselves a few gulps of champagne would be like letting the terrorists win.

Cut me a break.

If protecting the American Way means letting a bunch of millionaire cry-babies soak their egos in an expensive champagne bath, I say maybe it’s time to re-examine our values.

Baseball fans and beer drinkers everywhere can agree:

The hell with Osama. Beat the Yankees!

Joe Sixpack, by Staff Writer Don Russell, was written this week with a bottle of Heavyweight Lunacy Golden Ale.

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