DID YOU hear about that special, new collaborative beer from the brewmasters at Anheuser-Busch, Miller and Coors?

Yeah, never gonna happen.

Which says less about mega-breweries than it does about one of the remarkable traits of America’s small breweries: the enthusiasm for working together.

Or, more accurately, having fun together.

Collaborative beers have become one of the hallmarks of craft brewing – a factor you might be tempted to shrug off as the shared esprit de underdog. Only, there are lots of Davids in a world of Goliaths – banks, ice-cream makers, bookstores and bakeries, for example – and you rarely see those little guys collaborating on a consumer product.

Even more notable is the willingness of one of the small beer industry’s oldest, best-established players to headline an unprecedented collaborative effort that draws in some of its youngest, smallest breweries.

I refer to Sierra Nevada Beer Camp Across America, led by the pioneering Chico, Calif., brewery.

Sierra Nevada’s long-running annual collab series is typically a collection of three or four recipes created by visitors to its outstanding Beer Camp. [Disclosure: Sierra Nevada flew me out to Beer Camp a few years ago to attend Philly Beer Week’s collaborative brew.] I’ve been a big fan of the selections, especially last year’s Sleight of Hand, a unique, Belgian-style black IPA that was my 2013 Sixpack of the Year.

But Beer Camp Across America is a leap into unchartered territory. It brings together 12 other small breweries for a dozen different collabs stuffed into a single 12-pack. And it features a cross-country beer-festival tour that comes to the city’s Penn Treaty Park on Aug. 2.

We’re talking about some of the stalwarts of the craft-beer world – Firestone Walker, Bell’s, Allagash and Victory, plus some of the little guys who haven’t expanded much beyond their backyards: New Glarus, 3 Floyds and Ninkasi.

Can’t say no

Getting that many all-star breweries to play in the same game seems a tougher challenge than coaching the Miami Heat. But as Victory president and brewmaster Bill Covaleski said, “How could we not join? When [Sierra Nevada founder] Ken Grossman calls you and says, ‘Let’s make a beer together,’ it’s hard to say no.”

Indeed, now that Anchor Brewing founder Fritz Maytag is out of the business, Grossman, 59, is looking more and more like the dean of American small brewers.

Having founded his brewery in 1979, the former bike-shop owner is a mechanical whiz known for brewhouse innovations and solid leadership that’s made Sierra Nevada the nation’s seventh-largest brewing company with more than $200 million in sales. Last year he led the opening of a second brewery, in Asheville, N.C., a move that solidified his company’s growth across the nation.

But, as is often the case, the younger generation can teach the gray-hairs a thing or two, Grossman said.

“Everybody came in with concepts about what they wanted to brew, whether it was a Sierra Nevada-inspired brand, or something that reflected what they were doing, or maybe a favorite beer from another country,” Grossman said. “So it was a learning experience.

“And, of course, it was a very fun project. “

Inspired combos

Typically in collaborations, there’s a lot of touchy-feely lip service paid to the melding of styles and philosophies. But some of these combos are truly inspired.

For example, Yonder Bock, produced with Tampa’s Cigar City Brewing.

Now, while Cigar City is hot stuff, it’s still just a 5-year-old toddler. You take a look at its portfolio and you see a lot of flash – hoppy IPAs, strong stouts – and, notably, only one lager (Hotter Than Helles) to speak of.

By contrast, while Sierra Nevada is known mainly for those telltale Cascade hops, it’s also made its mark with some classic lagers, including Summerfest (a Czech-style pils) and the sadly departed Glissade Golden Bock.

You don’t need to know that backstory, though – just take a few slugs of Yonder Bock. There’s sweet, tropical fruitiness that you’d expect from muggy Florida, and it’s carried by a certain smoothness that only an experienced lager brewer could achieve. It contains a nicely numbing 7.7 percent alcohol – a suitable level even in the heat of the summer.

Oh, and did I mention it’s in a can? There are two of them (the other is Oskar Blues CANfusion Rye Bock) in this box along with 10 bottles.

That only makes me wish that BudMillerCoors could get it together for a collaboration. I’m imagining a Blue Moon-a-Rita in a cold-activated plastic vortex bottle.

Sierra Nevada Beer Camp Across America Festival at Penn Treaty Park, noon-5 p.m. Aug. 2. Grossman and the 12 collaboration brewers will be on hand, along with more than 80 regional breweries. $65, beercamp.sierranevada.com.

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WANT TO open a bar in Pennsylvania and avoid the standard six-figure price tag for a liquor license? The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, through its extraordinarily lenient interpretation of the state liquor code, lets you do it for as little as $500.

All it takes is a one-page application with none of the lengthy red tape and criminal background checks applicants normally face.

The discount license is an unforeseen product of a 2012 liquor code amendment crafted by the Legislature to make it easier for licensees to cater one-day private events.

But thanks to the PLCB’s curious reading of it, the amendment can be exploited to open a full-time bar with little regulatory oversight.

That’s what’s happening on South Street near 15th, home of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s popular, fourth annual Pop Up Garden. It will be open up to 10 hours a day, seven days a week, through the summer.

It’s also happening on Eakins Oval on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, where the Fairmount Park Conservancy yesterday opened a summer beer garden for five hours, four days a week.

Clearly, pop-up beer gardens have been good for the city.

PHS’s 2013 Pop Up on South Broad Street, for example, drew an estimated 28,000 visitors in five months and won an international landscape-design award.

But the gardens’ licensing is raising eyebrows among both competing bar owners and the chairman of the Pennsylvania House Liquor Control Committee because it underscores the PLCB’s uneven enforcement of state liquor laws.

And a PLCB attorney acknowledged that there’s “potential for abuse” with the liquor-code amendment.

Piggybacking permits

PHS itself is not licensed to sell alcohol. Instead, the garden – opened on a vacant lot owned by record producer/land developer Kenny Gamble – is licensed through the PLCB’s Off-Premises Catering Permit.

[Disclosure: I’ve used this permit in the past to host private beer tastings.]

Under liquor code amendments in Act 116 of 2012, the state allowed restaurants with liquor licenses to buy a permit for $500 a year to cater up to 50 events annually at nonlicensed locations.

Events can last up to five hours and are intended for “an identifiable group of people, not the general public . . . “

So, how can the PHS Pop Up Garden open for anyone to enjoy beer, wine and tropical cocktails from 2 p.m. to midnight for the remainder of the summer?

A PHS spokesman said the nonprofit had nothing to do with the garden’s licensing. He said that the society hired an event-promotions company, Mole Street, which partnered with three bars (Time and Vintage, in Center City; and Garage, in South Philly) owned by restaurateur Jason Evenchik.

Those bars – all licensed by the PLCB – obtained the catering permits.

Despite creating obvious regulatory headaches (including the tracking of alcohol sales and taxes), the PLCB’s licensing division allowed the bars to piggyback the catering permits: Multiple permits were issued for separate days at the same site.

So far, the bureau has authorized 110 piggybacked catering permits for the beer garden.

Jeff Lawrence, PLCB assistant director of licensing, said that, on some days, the garden will operate under one permit for the first five hours, then a second permit for the next five.

While piggybacking is not forbidden under the law, it’s clearly a lenient interpretation by an agency known for its restrictive decision-making.

A ‘desire to attend’

Even with extended hours, how can the beer garden open to everyone?

That comes courtesy of yet more PLCB leniency. In a remarkably crafted interpretation of Act 116, Stacy Kriedeman, the bureau’s director of external affairs, told me in an email:

“The requirement that a catered function be for an identifiable group of people rather than the general public can be met if the party requesting the function can articulate some criteria to determine who is part of the invited group . . . [such as] an actual guest list, ticket holders, persons specifically invited, members and guests of a specific group or groups and persons who have indicated a desire to attend the event. “

You’ll find this language nowhere in the actual law.

Read it again, because the gold is in the last phrase: The doors are open to anyone who has “indicated a desire to attend the event. “

Kriedeman said event organizers could ensure that by manning entrance points to confirm “that access is being requested. “

Thus, before entering the PHS Pop Up Garden, visitors are handed free membership cards good for admission “during public hours. “

“Public hours” for an event that is not open to the “general public? “

After you’re done laughing, ask yourself this: What’s to prevent anyone from opening an unlicensed bar by deploying multiple Off-Premises Catering Permits?

I’ve done the math, and it appears that you could get a full-time bar up and running for no more than $10,000 in permits. Cheesy membership cards would cost you another $100.

That’s a far cry from the going price of a full liquor license, about $85,000 in the city and up to $200,000 in the suburbs, depending on availability.

The PLCB’s interpretation of Act 116 caught the chairman of the House Liquor Control Committee off guard.

The permit, said state Rep. John Taylor, R-Phila., who helped craft its language, “was never designed to allow you to operate as a business. It was designed to allow restaurants and caterers to operate off-site, not set up a permanent operation. “

Legal absurdities

Even if the bureau’s approval of the garden was the right thing to do, it illustrates the absurdity of the state’s liquor-licensing law.

The inflated price for full liquor licenses is a reflection of their artificial scarcity under a state statute that limits their number in each municipality, presumably for the welfare of the community.

Yet, the PHS Pop Up Garden is an outstanding example of land reuse that should be encouraged by our government. It is a vibrant, youthful Center City attraction, educates the public on inner-city gardening, costs little and brings in new tax dollars.

But while the PLCB’s lenient interpretation may have been good for the city, under the state’s antiquated liquor laws it is plainly unfair to businesses forced to purchase a full liquor license.

“I can’t imagine that, if you’re a licensee in the surrounding area, you’d appreciate a new business opening up next door with an off-premises permit,” said John Longacre, president of the Philadelphia Licensed Beverage Association.

“The LCB makes us purchase liquor licenses and now they’re aiming to devalue them,” he said. “I don’t think it’s very fair, but I don’t think the LCB is concerned with that. “

PLCB executive deputy chief counsel Rod Diaz maintained that the rules would not allow a business to open a new location without a full liquor license.

But he acknowledged: “There’s that potential for abuse there, I agree with you. We’re kind of stuck with the statute. “

Taylor countered that the PLCB’s lenient interpretation was intended to embarrass the Legislature for tinkering with the state alcohol code.

“It’s like they’re saying, ‘See what you guys did? ‘ ” Taylor said. “In our view, it’s a complete misinterpretation of the bill. “

He said that the committee will likely take up a review of the amendment when it reconvenes this autumn.

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OK, NEVER MIND.

Last week’s column urging brewers to consider new ideas, from vending machines to malt-centric recipes, led me to a weekend of experimentation with some of the newfangled beer-improvement contraptions that are already on the market.

After several hours in the Sixpack Test Kitchen, I concluded that maybe we’d all be better off just leaving well enough alone.

Because as appealing as the Ultimate Aromatic Experience sounds, as one product promises, it’s really hard to improve on the simple enjoyment of cracking open a bottle and pouring a fresh beer into a clean glass.

Still, as a team of devoted lab rats sacrificed their palates and dignity last weekend for a series of offbeat and somewhat calamitous experiments, I’m obligated to share the test results.

Sonic Foamer, $44.95.

The aforementioned Ultimate Aromatic Experience is the alleged result of “ultrasonic foaming technology” powered by a half-dozen AA batteries.

As foam dissipates, the maker says, beer loses its aroma. To restore its character, just pop a half-empty glass onto the plastic tray, press a button and invisible sound waves produce more bubbles.

It actually worked, sending a tiny stream of bubbles to the head of a pint of Anchor Steam with each pulse. I don’t know that it produced any additional aroma. I do know you could easily achieve the same effect by re-pouring the beer from one (free) glass to another.

Test Subject 1, a/k/a Tony, who described it as “a lava lamp for beer,” suggested bringing the Sonic Foamer to a certain Chestnut Hill bar known for serving under-carbonated ale. “Maybe then they’ll get the message,” he said.

OnTap liquid flavor enhancer, $4.99 (flavors 18 bottles).

“Add our liquid flavor enhancer to a domestic light lager and enjoy a craft brew taste at a fraction of the cost. “

Oh, if it were only that easy.

OnTap comes in two flavors: American Ale and Pale Ale. Don’t ask me the difference. The ingredients are water, propylene glycol, glycerine and natural and artificial flavors.

We tried it on a Budweiser. If you ever wondered whether the flavor of Bud could be improved upon, the answer is unequivocally yes – if by “yes” we mean, as Test Subject 2, a/k/a Laurie, observed: “It’s like someone dumped maple syrup into my glass. “

OnTap is what beer tastes like when it’s been exposed to sunlight. Or gerbils.

“The Sonic Foamer is harmless,” Tony said. “This one is harmful. “

Nitrobrew, $500.

“There are glasses of beer, and there are works of art. . . . When you taste these works of art, it changes you. “

This is true only if you consider – as I do – the cascading bubbles of a perfectly poured Guinness to be a work of art. Those bubbles are mainly nitrogen, which are smaller and smoother than carbon dioxide.

The Nitrobrew contraption, consisting of a bar-top charging station and a pressurized kettle, turns an ordinary pale ale into a smooth-as-silk, nitrogenated draft beer. You also can add flavors, including coffee, lemon and patchouli, with separately purchased flavored oils.

I didn’t have a spare tank of nitrogen, so I used plain air (which is 78 percent nitrogen). It took some practice and a bit of spilled beer, but eventually those cascading bubbles appeared in glasses of Bell’s Kalamazoo Stout and even Great Lakes Eliot Ness Vienna lager.

The added flavors, though, were a disaster. Infusing a pint of Hoegaarden with lavender was a big mistake.

At $500 plus nitrogen, this ingenious device is intended mainly for commercial establishments. Its highly pressurized kettle is not something I’d trust in the hands of intoxicated lab rats.

Pat’s Backcountry Brew Concentrate, $9.99 per four-pack.

“A delicate blend of aromatic malts and Cascade hops delivers a complex, yet well-balanced, craft brew wherever your adventures take you. “

Just squeeze a packet into carbonated water and, bingo, you’ve got a pint of beer with 5.2 percent alcohol by volume.

It’s a game-changer for hikers, bikers and the one who always grumbles when she has to carry the variety case of Yards in from the car.

Needless to say, concentrated beer appealed greatly to Test Subject No. 3, a/k/a Mrs. Sixpack.

Except that when we added the Black IPA mix to a bottle of ShopRite seltzer water, she held her nose and said, “It smells like chalk. “

“Well, it’s better than some homebrews I’ve had,” Tony said.

Now, a home carbonation system, like a Sodastream, might’ve made a better brew.

In a pinch, I tested it on a can of Coors Light. Like magic, it converted that bland, fizzy, yellow water into a full-bodied amber brew.

The taste wasn’t half bad. More importantly, with its alcohol now fortified to about 10 percent by volume, I’d finally discovered a newfangled idea that actually improves a beer.

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FOR ALL their innovation, American craft brewers are starting to grow stale.

Over-hopped beers? Yeah, they were novel . . . about 15 years ago. Now everyone brews a double IPA.

Wacky flavors? Used to be we couldn’t wait for pumpkin beer each autumn. Now, because there are so many of them competing for shelf space, the pumpkin season starts in two weeks and you’ll be sick of them by Labor Day.

Barrel-aged beer? Because it takes months and years to properly age and blend beer, barrel-aged beer was once a rarity. Today, it’s so commonplace that even Anheuser-Busch sells something called Shock Top Honey Bourbon Cask Wheat.

Small brewers push the envelope. It’s part of their DNA. Hybrid hops. Canned micros. Wild ale. Collaboration brews. All great ideas that help create the essential aura of craft beer as something special.

But as they say: Been there, done that.

Craft brewing needs some fresh ideas. Here are five:

1. Get malty

Hops are fashionable, I know. They’re a relatively cheap ingredient and – thanks to the development of new varieties – an easy way to add distinctive flavor and aroma.

But what about malt? When was the last time you read a label that extolled a beer’s grain bill? Or tasted a beer made with a brand new type of barley?

Part of the problem is that, other than imperial stout, malty beers get very little notice from beer freaks. Breweries have largely abandoned other malt-centric styles, namely porter, traditional bock and dark lager, because people stopped drinking them in favor of hop bombs.

But a draft list with nothing but hops is boring. A brewery that focuses on malt – perhaps one that makes its own, like they did in the old days – will have a guaranteed spot on a tap lineup.

2. Returnable bottles

These days, every other brewery boasts about its efforts toward sustainability. Alternative energy sources. Reduced water use. Organic farming. Waste treatment. All good ideas.

Here’s another one: refillable bottles.

Young readers will not remember this, but there was a time when it was standard operating procedure to return your bottles to the place where you purchased them. Just after World War II, nearly nine out of 10 beer bottles in America were refilled. Today, that portion is about 3 percent.

Refillable bottles reduce the need for raw materials, reduce waste and reduce energy use. It actually takes less water to wash a bottle than to make a new one.

A smart brewery could turn the chore of returning bottles into a promotional gimmick that draws repeat customers – one of the biggest challenges for small business.

3. Lower prices

For years we’ve been told that craft beer is pricier than mainstream beer because it uses more costly ingredients, is higher in alcohol and is painstakingly handcrafted in small batches.

Fair enough.

So how come session IPAs cost $40 a case? They’re brewed with less malt, they’re lower in alcohol and they’re often made in computer-operated breweries that run as efficiently as mainstream plants that sell beer at half the price.

There’s a profitable niche awaiting the first brewery that rethinks its pricing and targets workaday wallets.

4. Vending machines

You can buy practically anything in a vending machine, so why not beer?

Oh, right: It might be against the law.

Well, so was home brewing at one time, and when that was finally legalized under federal law in 1978, it revolutionized the beer industry.

Someone get to work on this now, please.

5. Advertise

Craft breweries are counterculture, so (other than Samuel Adams) they’ve historically rejected mainstream advertising. Outside of industry publications and websites, small breweries connect with their audience largely through person-to-person, grass-roots marketing and social media.

Since craft breweries are operated almost exclusively by white males, this marketing approach helps explain why the vast majority of craft beer’s audience is white and male.

If craft beer is to reach its stated goal of 20-percent market share, it needs to connect with women and minorities. It needs to cast a wider net, and the most efficient way to do that is paid, mass-media advertising.

Naturally, I’d suggest the Daily News.

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SUMMER HAS returned and so, I’m surprised to report, have Bavarian-style wheat beers.

Surprised because, for a while there, it was looking like American brewers couldn’t make a warm-weather refresher that wasn’t hopped out the wazoo. Lately, even when the Americans have dabbled in wheat, it was only as a means to unleash yet another hop monster, the so-called white IPA.

But as Philly gears up for another run of the three H’s – hazy, hot and humid – it can cool down with the fourth H, hefeweizen.

A batch of new, locally brewed hefes showed up in bottles this summer. And, unlike many American-made hefeweizens of the past, the newbies are all quite respectable knock-offs of the distinctly aromatic originals from Bavaria.

The most notable of the new breed is Yuengling Summer Wheat, which hit the shelves in April and was greeted with instant acclaim. It’s the first wheat beer from America’s oldest brewery, and it completely breaks the Pottsville flavor mold.

Gone is the familiar sweet corn of Lager, the hint of caramel in Porter. Instead, we’re treated to the spicy aroma of banana and clove, and creamy, full-bodied refreshment with a bite of lemon in the finish. It is so different from anything else made by Yuengling, you’d swear it was brewed somewhere else – perhaps Baden-Wurttemberg, the family’s southwest Germany ancestral home.

The reason is basic chemistry: Yuengling fermented this beer with a different yeast (the “hefe” in hefeweizen) than its usual house variety. Unlike its typical lager yeast, this strain produces high levels of compounds called esters and phenols that smell and taste either fruity or spicy.

Introducing a new yeast type into the brewery was a big step for a conservative operation like Yuengling. Its reluctance to use different strains partly explains the brewery’s slow development of new seasonal brands.

Yet this beer’s reception should embolden the company. Online rating sites already have it ranked as Yuengling’s No. 1 brand, and the stacks at local distributors are close to bottoming out. While I’d guess that’s at least partly due to its value price ($6.99 a sixpack, around $25 for a case), this is nonetheless a fine hefeweizen.

See how Summer Wheat stands up against one of the area’s other formidable hefeweizens – Stoudt Heifer-in-Wheat, Sly Fox Royal Weisse (available in convenient cans) and, especially, Neshaminy Creek Highwater Hefeweizen.

Now in its second year in 22-ounce bottles, the wheat from Croydon, Bucks County, is as polished as they come. Neshaminy Creek’s brewmaster, Jeremy Myers, credits its complexity to a decision to ferment the beer at a relatively cool temperature.

“We get more of the banana esters at a low temperature, but not too much of that phenolic clove flavor,” he said.

Cloudy, full-bodied, flavorful and refreshing – it’s exactly what you want in a hefe.

But, as I said, there are other wheat debutantes on the racks this summer:

• Victory Mad King’s Weiss. This one’s actually been around for years, but only on draft. This season, it makes its debut in a 22-ounce bomber, so you can enjoy it on your roof deck. This hefe seems to have been brewed with the American palate in mind. It’s a bit stronger (6.2 percent alcohol by volume) and hoppier than typical for the style, and those telltale banana and clove flavors are fairly blunt.
• Susquehanna So Wheat. The unique German-made brewhouse in Pittston was put to good use with this unfiltered beer. While its flavor is not as bold at either Yuengling or Victory, I wouldn’t call it subtle, either. Pour it into a tall glass for an attractively foamy head, or just guzzle it from the bottle. This one’s a keeper.
• Evil Genius I Love Lamp. You might miss the brand name’s goofball reference to Steve Carell’s brain-damaged character in “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” but there’s no mistaking that flavor: It’s pineapple.

The West Grove brewery figured the tropical fruit would mesh well with this hefeweizen’s banana flavor. Instead, I find it tamps it down lightly with an acidic tang. Still, it’s comfortably refreshing. I like it because it’s not sweet or overbearing.

Also, it’s not a hop bomb, which makes this – and all hefeweizens – a welcome change of pace in the summer of ’14.

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WHEN word spread earlier this spring about the upcoming Bare Beach Beer Bash at a Poconos nudist resort – where attendees must get nekkid for a microbrew sampling-the reaction was predictable.

There were the eww-yucks: Victor Fiorillo at Philadelphia magazine said he’d never met anyone at a beer festival he’d want to see naked.

There were dumb jokes: How do you toast a naked beer drinker? Bottoms up!

There were puns: Would you go? Depends on the tap list.

And there was a lot of nervous laughter, as if mixing exposed flesh and booze was completely unknown. Have you people not heard of Dionysus, the god of drink and ecstasy? Have you never been to a topless bar?

Ah, but that’s America for ya.

We gawk at TV and billboards populated with buff, barely clothed, beer-swilling babes. We click on titillating beer videos, like the naughty one on YouTube featuring Guinness and a rockin’ foursome. We pay admission fees at precious art museums to view Renaissance masterpieces of drunken letches and fair-skinned virgins in flagrante delicto.

But pull off your pants and join the fun? Not me!

When I reached out to Rob DeMaria, of Prism Brewing, about the festival, he agreed that it’s “sophomorically funny. ” He attended last year and poured Naked Blonde and Summer of ’69.

But he added: “The people there are no different than anyone else and deserve a bit of respect. “

Indeed, he and others involved in the event told me that the naked fest is one of their favorites.

“I found the people to be some of the nicest beer-fest attendees, and sharing the beer with them was a fun time,” DeMaria said. “When everyone is naked, there is no cultural bias on who or what they are; everyone accepts everyone else for just being human.

“And there’s nothing better than having beer without cliques. “

Now in its third year, the festival is the brainchild of Halsie Shoemaker, general manager of Sunny Rest Resort, in Palmerton, Pa.

Her family bought the 190-acre facility in 1978, five years before she was born. It now includes a hotel, campground, volleyball court, heated pools, a restaurant, a bar called Streakers, a nightclub called Flashers and, naturally, a hot tub.

It’s one of about 200 nudist resorts across America, she said.

“It’s a growing industry,” Shoemaker said. “They did a survey among the general public awhile ago and found that more people are willing to try nudism than golf. “

Last year, the fest attracted 300, and she considered it a success.

This year, as word of the event went viral, every room is already booked and they expect 500 to drop trow and throw down.

“It’s a great festival,” said Anthony Serafino, who lives at Sunny Rest year-round and happens to be brewmaster at nearby Red Castle Brewery, in Carbon County.

“We had about 10 breweries last year, but we’ve already got 16 or 18 signed on for this year,” he continued. “Even Naked Brewing [from Huntingdon Valley] will be there. “

No, he underscored, the brewers “don’t have to be naked. A lot of them do, though. After a while, they start taking off their shorts. “

And how about Joe Sixpack?

I can’t make it to the festival this year, but I’ve got a confession to make:

I like to get naked and drink beer, too.

Of course, this usually happens in the shower.

Alone.

Bare Beach Beer Bash, June 28, Sunny Rest Resort, 425 Sunny Rest Drive, Palmerton. $16 ($18 at the door), 610-377-2911.

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ELGOOD’S Coolship #1 is in town this week, and, no, that’s not the name of the official tour bus for ParliamentFunkadelic.

It’s a sour ale that has been drawing lots of interest since its release earlier this year as the first spontaneously fermented commercial beer made in England in perhaps 100 years or more.

I’ll be pouring it at happy hour tomorrow at Victoria Freehouse (10 S. Front St., Old City) as Philly Beer Week heads into its final stretch. The beer’s backstory is one of those wondrous sets of circumstances that crop up with surprising regularity in the beer world, so I’ll share it here.

Elgood & Sons Brewery traces its history along the banks of the River Nene in the Cambridgeshire market town of Wisbech to 1795. The Georgian-style structure is old, but certainly not ancient by European standards.

Today it’s run by Nigel Elgood, his wife, Anne, and their three daughters.

Like much of England’s East Anglia region around them, the brewery has been hit by hard economic times. Some of its tied-house (brewery-owned) pubs have closed. Sales of cask beer are down. Regional conglomerates and newfangled micros are stiff competition, and production at the old place is down to less than a third of its full capacity.

So when Bob Leggett went nosing around the place about two years ago, it was with the sense that the town’s brewing heritage was fading in front of his eyes. “You could just see their business was struggling,” he said.

Leggett is president of Artisanal Imports, a specialty importer based in Austin, Texas, well-known for its portfolio of niche Belgians and Brits. And, like many in the beer business, he has a fondness for traipsing around old breweries.

Elgood’s brewmaster gladly showed Leggett the works, leading him up and down stairs, showing off the equipment.

When they got to the top floor, a large room with louvered walls, Leggett caught sight of two large, shallow copper pans. He said it was a completely unexpected find and – at least in a traditional English brewery – entirely out of place.

But there was no mistaking the contraption. It was a coolship.

It’s a simple device typically filled with steaming wort, the freshly brewed malt-and-hops liquid that must be cooled before adding yeast to begin fermentation. The louvered walls bring in the evening chill, the large surface area speeds cooling.

With refrigeration, coolships have become relics of the past. Until some American craft brewers – notably Maine’s Allagash Brewing – installed their own coolships, you’d see them only in a traditional lambic brewery in Belgium, where brewers allow the wort to sit overnight to be inoculated with natural wild yeast and bacteria.

But in England? Never.

“They’d stopped using it years ago for obvious reasons,” Leggett said. Exposed to ambient yeast strains of uncertain origin, beer can take on funky, often sour flavors. Uncontrolled, spontaneous fermentation is the enemy of good English ale.

After his tour, Leggett sat down with the three sisters and suggested that it might be time to refloat their coolship. American beer drinkers were beginning to embrace sour beer, he told them, and a spontaneously fermented ale “would be completely unique to British brewing. “

“They were immediately interested,” said Leggett, so he put them in touch with a Belgian brewing consultant who would teach them the ropes.

“We weren’t interested in duplicating what the Belgians already do,” he continued. “Instead, we started with a traditional British ale, to see what the coolship would do.

“I’d call it a nice, soft, sour beer with a moderate level of acidity. It’s not as astringent as a traditional gueuze. “

Only about 200 small kegs of Elgood’s Coolship #1 were brewed and most have been sent to America. But a few were left behind, and when word of the unusual brew spread in England, some bars in London started calling.

They wanted this new beer from the 220-year-old brewery.

A film crew from the BBC caught wind and is producing a documentary about the brewery.

A second coolship batch – this one a traditional English stout – is already aging in barrels.

Like I said, it’s a nice, feel-good backstory: An American visitor reintroduces an English brewery to a nearly lost style of beer-making.

“I’m very hesitant to take credit for the whole thing,” Leggett told me. The brewery, he said, “was relatively desperate to find a way to make themselves economically viable, so they deserve all the credit for taking the chance. “

We’ll tap the keg at 6 p.m. tomorrow at Victoria Freehouse. If sour beer isn’t your thing, no worries. There will be plenty of other, traditional British ales, including a cask of Robinson’s Trooper, the extra special bitter that takes its name from the Iron Maiden song inspired by the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Admission is free; pay as you go.

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YES, YOU heard it right: New Belgium Brewing is coming to town for Philly Beer Week. And, yes, that means Fat Tire, the smooth-drinking amber ale with the simple red cruiser bicycle label, will be pouring from local spigots for the first time.

I mention this development for two reasons.

First, based on the number of questions I’ve fielded about this brand over the years, I’d expect long lines when the Colorado brewery’s suds foam here for the first time tomorrow evening at West Philly’s City Tap House. Even if you’ve been there, done that, New Belgium has more than two dozen other drafts lined up for the tap takeover. Among them: Mouth-puckering La Folie, super-strong Cascara Quad, brand-new Snapshot Sour Wheat and Heavenly Feijoa, a Belgian-style tripel it bottled with Montreal’s Dieu du Ciel brewery.

Second, the brand’s arrival – a temporary, limited engagement while the Colorado brewery tests a local wholesaler – underscores one of the attractions of what is surely the nation’s signature beer-week celebration: the Debut.

Beer Week is a showcase for both out-of-towners making their first foray into America’s best beer-drinking city and locals drumming up excitement with new products. I turned up no fewer than 80 brands that will make their Philly debut over the next 10 days. See how many you can track down as the seventh installment of Philly Beer Week kicks off tomorrow and runs through June 8.

Here are some of the new flavors in town:

* Surly Furious, Iron Abbey (Horsham, Montgomery County), Tuesday, 7 p.m. As with New Belgium, this Minnesota brewery is testing the local waters, so grab this top-rated IPA while you can.

* Hardywood Park Only Live Twice Porter, Bru (Center City), Wednesday, 10 p.m. This trending up-and-comer, new to the city from Richmond, Va., is bringing more than a dozen varieties.

* Yards Heavy Hands, Good Dog Bar (Center City), tomorrow, 8 p.m. An IPA designed by a dozen former Yards brewers.

* Yuengling Summer Wheat, 12 Steps Down (South Philly), Friday, 11 p.m. A thoroughly authentic German-style wheat beer from America’s oldest brewery.

* Neshaminy Creek Beast Infection, Varga Bar (Washington Square), Tuesday, 7 p.m. The Croydon brewery taps its first sour beer, a Belgian-style tripel aged in a port wine barrel.

* Philly Tripel, Dock Street Brewery (West Philly), Tuesday, 10 a.m. Meet the makers of Philly Beer Week’s annual Belgian collaboration, Anne Catherine Dilewyns, of Vicaris, and Dock Street’s Justin Low.

* Chimay Premiere, Moriarty’s (Center City), Monday, 5 p.m. The Trappist brewery’s famous dubbel (a/k/a Red) goes on draft for the first time.

* Carton Rickey, Perch Pub (Center City), June 6, 7 p.m. A wild ale made with cherry, lime and juniper, from North Jersey.

* Voodoo/Lavery DulaVibes, Doobies Bar (Center City), Sunday, 5 p.m. A strong (10.3 percent alcohol) IPA collab from two western Pennsylvania breweries.

* Free Will Will.I.Am, Fergie’s Pub (Center City), Monday, 6 p.m. A dry Irish stout brewed with pub owner Fergus Carey and local filmmaker Michael Lawrence.

* Doubleheader, Nodding Head (Center City), June 7. The local brewpub will tap several from Ohio’s Fat Heads Brewery, including this collaborative IPA.

* Stoudt’s Multiple Personality Disorder, Hop Angel Brauhaus (Fox Chase), June 5, 8 p.m. A traditional, pale German-style lager that brewer Brett Kintzer says “thinks it’s an IPA.”

* Leipziger Gose, Fiume (West Philly), Friday, 6 p.m. A one-off of the traditional German salt- and coriander-flavored wheat beer spiked with orange peel.

* Gose Gone Wild, The Cambridge (Center City), Sunday, 11 a.m. This gose is a collaboration by Maryland’s Stillwater Artisan Ales and Westbrook, of South Carolina.

* Frankford Hall Weissbier, Frankford Hall (Fishtown), Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. The German beer hall gets a new house beer by Fegley’s Brew Works.

* Andorfer Claudiator, Brahaus Schmitz (South Street), June 5, 5 p.m. A new weizen doppelbock from Germany.

* Cigar City French Toast Brown Ale, Hulmeville Inn (Bucks County), June 5, 6 p.m. A one-off from the Florida Gulf Coast cult fave.

* Funky Buddha Red Velvet Cake, Local 44 (West Philly), June 5, 7 p.m. The other Florida cult fave returns with a big-time tap takeover.

* Pappy Van Winkle Stout, The Twisted Tail (South Street), June 5, 6 p.m. This stout from New Orleans’ Abita Brewery, aged in Pappy Van Winkle barrels, may be the closest you get to the rare, super-expensive bourbon.

Also, remember to track down anything from the area’s two newest breweries, Saint Benjamin’s (that’s brewers, Tim Patton and Christine Burris, above), in North Philly, and Conshohocken Brewing, in Montco, which opened this spring.

And here’s a few other newcomers that will be popping up around town: Evil Genius I Love Lamp, a pineapple hefeweizen; Weyerbacher Rhumpshaka rum barrel-aged strong ale; barrels of Fegley’s Hop’Solutely fermented with funky Brettanomyces yeast; Baladin Super Floreale from Italy; Cooperstown Ale, a new blond ale from Brewery Ommegang; and Joey, a saison from Lancaster County’s Spring House Brewing.

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EVAN FRITZ, the head brewer at Manayunk Brewing Co., was smiling but looking kind of shell-shocked one afternoon this week. Around him lay twisted pipe, a disassembled boiler, stacks of muddy beer cans, a pile of electronic point-of-sale equipment (above).

All ruined.

“I keep joking that this storm didn’t even have a name,” he said. “What are we going to put on the plaque?”

That would be the marker to show how high the waters from the May 1 flood rose. Irene in 2011 and Floyd in 1999 – the high-water marks from those devastating hurricanes are remembered with small signs behind the bar.

This one, the storm with no name, came with no real warning. It dumped 5 inches of rain in one afternoon.

Co-owner Mike Rose said he was certain the seawall he’d built after Irene – the one that stands a good 13 feet above the Schuylkill canal – would hold. They closed the sturdy floodgates but didn’t pull up the carpet or move the cash registers to the second floor.

He said the water crested at just over 16 feet, higher than either Irene or Superstorm Sandy.

The brewpub, whose mainstay is a raspberry ale called Schuylkill Punch, got pounded with an uppercut.

“I never saw anything like it,” Rose said.

The mud, the cleanup, the broken equipment, the lost wages for more than 120 workers while the restaurant hustles to reopen – this is what brewing beer looks like in the age of climate change.

As President Obama said earlier this month, we’re not talking about “some distant problem of the future. . . . Whether it means increased flooding, greater vulnerability to drought, more severe wildfires – all these things are having an impact on Americans as we speak.”

Indeed, as Manayunk gurgled in the east, Stone Brewing Co. just outside of San Diego gasped for air.

The makers of Arrogant Bastard were forced from their facility last week as the so-called Cocos Fire blazed a path to their doorstep. A stop-action video of the approaching flames, shot from the brewery’s rooftop, went viral. The brewery, and at least two others nearby that were evacuated, luckily escaped damage.

The episode prompted California Gov. Jerry Brown to declare that his state is on the “front lines” of climate change.

Flooding and fires – these are sudden, catastrophic signs of our changing climate. Other, more systemic climate challenges now threaten brewers. For example:

¶In Northern California, the drought is endangering water supplies at several breweries, including Lagunitas. County water authorities have told the brewery it may have to switch from fresh river water to mineral-laden groundwater.

Lagunitas head brewer Jeremy Marshall told NPR, “It would be like brewing with Alka-Seltzer.”

¶In England, where warmer weather has been threatening the healthy growth of hops, farmers and scientists have been forced to develop new, hardier and more costly breeds. In Germany, severe weather patterns that spark freak hailstorms have destroyed entire hop harvests.

¶In New Zealand and Australia, agriculture authorities worry that warmer weather has reduced barley output. Meanwhile, barley prices have skyrocketed worldwide as many farmers switch to other, more profitable biofuel crops – an indirect impact of climate change.

At Manayunk Brewing, it took almost three weeks to restore full electrical power to the facility. When Fritz finally got the pumps online, he said, “you could just hear the motors were not happy.”

The boiler, which supplies hot water, was washed out and must be rebuilt.

The bright tanks, where finished beer is conditioned and stored before kegging, lifted from their mooring and fell into a twisted heap.

Rubber gaskets ripped in the surging waters. Pipes fell and twisted beyond repair. Electronic valves were fried.

The bar floated away.

“Everywhere I turn,” Fritz said, “there’s mud and dirt.”

Rose brought in plumbers and other contractors to make repairs, plus several restaurant workers to help clean up.

He hopes to get the place open in time for Philly Beer Week and the Philly Cycling Classic next week.

Still, you can’t help but wonder in the age of climate change: How many floods can this brewpub endure? Down by the river, it’s only a matter of time till Manayunk gets slugged with another Schuylkill Punch.

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Brewers aren’t just sitting around waiting for the next catastrophe.

With water, hops, barley – the main ingredients of beer – all threatened by climate change, small breweries have jumped on the sustainability bandwagon big time.

Yards Brewing, for example, is among the growing number who have opted for alternative energy sources. Its Northern Liberties facility is powered by electricity from wind turbines.

Sierra Nevada in California uses solar power and fuel cells to operate its plant and biodiesel, made from recycled kitchen grease, for its trucks.

Prompted by predictions that its water supply would soon run dry, Bear Republic Brewing in Northern California installed a recycling system that uses electrically charged microbes in its wastewater to help power its plant. The system, designed for military installations, will supply about 10 percent of Bear Republic’s water and reduce its electricity use by half.

Water consumption (it takes on average 8 gallons to brew 1 gallon of beer) has become such a huge issue for the industry, the Brewers Association has developed a toolkit to help its members analyze and reduce its use.

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