THEY HAVEN’T made steel in Bethlehem, Pa., for five years. But up the hill, at the Top of the Town Cabaret, they’re rolling out a hardened product of tattooed flesh and burned-out souls.

Yuengling is on tap, and a brunette is on the stage.

“Gimme a break,” the guy one stool over growls, without taking his eyes off her thighs.… Read the rest

EVERY YEAR, millions of people fail to celebrate Oktoberfest because, despite the impeccable precision of the Germans, the Munich beer bash is actually held in September.

Maybe they use a different calendar.

Whatever, even the most addled beer drinker rightly assumes that a festival named after a certain month should, in fact, be held in that very month. In this … Read the rest

NOT THAT IT matters around here, but there are about a thousand different lagers in the world.

There’s pilsner, of course. And bock and porter and Oktoberfest and dunkel and helles and Dortmunder. Budweiser’s a lager, and so are Coors, Miller, Genesee, Stroh’s, Rolling Rock, PBR and Schmidt’s. Same with most popular imports – Heineken, Labatt’s, Beck’s, Harp, Corona, Tecate, … Read the rest

NOW HERE’S a contradiction of terms: a light beer taste-test.

Light beer, of course, is anti-taste. It looks like beer, true. It smells like beer. It refreshes you. It even gets you buzzed.

But taste?

Friends, light beer was invented so girls could hold something while their boyfriends passed out at the bar. That real men now drink the stuff … Read the rest

A small scare rattled some pockets of the city recently when word filtered down to neighborhood taverns that Miller might stop carrying its Schmidt’s label in kegs.

The Philly favorite – which actually hasn’t been made in the city since its Girard Avenue brewery closed in 1987 – would still be packaged in cans and bottles. But gone would be … Read the rest

THE FAMILIAR, old beer barrel – hoisted at fraternity parties, rhapsodized in polkas – is dying a slow, inevitable death.

Every month, dozens of the dented steel glories go to the graveyard, their innards exhausted by gallons of freshly tapped lagers and ales.

In the past 10 years, nearly every brewery in America has abandoned the reliable but bulky barrel, … Read the rest

THE BEST BEER I’ve drunk this summer – maybe the best I’ve had this year – is Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA.

It was down the shore, on the beach house front porch, with a cool breeze and mess o’ shrimp. Adrift in a sea of nothing better than foul-tasting industrial chemicals labeled Corona and Coors Light (this was Jersey, … Read the rest

BASEBALL MAY be unable to crown its All-Star champion, but America’s other favorite pastime – beer-drinking – won’t be making the same competitive mistake this month.

In the region’s goofiest annual beer festival, Nodding Head Brewery tomorrow hosts its 3rd annual Royal Stumble. This hairy-chested, mano-a-mano showdown, featuring brewers in full wrasslin’ gear, reflects the true spirit of Philly’s craft … Read the rest

THE CANS have been counted, and the results are in:

New Jersey, the so-called Garden State, is first in the nation in roadside beer empties!

Actually, it was a three-way tie, with Jersey joining Maryland and Delaware at the trashy top of the pack.

And don’t smirk, Pennsylvania. You’re runner-up.

The can count the work of Dennis Brezina, a Harvard-educated … Read the rest