Traffic around town is insane today (Friday). If you’re caught in a jam in the vicinity of I-95 at the Schuylkill Expressway, pull over for a cold one at Bell’s Beverage (Front Street, below Oregon, at the I-95 off ramp).
From 4-6 p.m., I’ll be pouring Wolaver’s & Otter Creek, including a couple specials. Like I tell everyone who stops in: It’s beer, it’s free. Do you need another reason?
If you’re cooped up inside, trying to decide which of tonight’s Philly Beer Weekend events you’re going to go to, just think how nice the weather’s going to be on June 4th.
Specifically here. (Shhh… the official announcement comes on Monday.)
I’m tired of writing about all that PLCB red tape. Let’s get back on track here…
As feared, the other shoe has dropped.
Last night, the State Police raided Origlio Beverage, the wholesale distributor that supplied some of the beer that was confiscated at Local 44, Resurrection and Memphis Taproom. My colleague, Bob Warner, and I will be reporting more details in tomorrow’s Daily News, but here’s some of what I know:
The Bureau of Liquor Enforcement agents arrived about 7 p.m. last night and conducted a search of the warehouse, specifically looking for Origlio’s share of brands they’d confiscated from the bars last week. This includes: Duvel, Monk’s Cafe Sour Flemish Ale, Hacker-Pschorr and Russian River Supplication.
They reportedly confiscated only the Supplication because they would’ve needed a tractor trailer for the rest. They ordered Origlio not to distribute any of the other brands.
That’s why, as I reported in a previous blog post, shipments of Duvel in Philadelphia have ceased. I’m already hearing from local bar owners that they’re running out. (Ironic, because it’s assumed the snitch who alerted the PLCB about the unregistered brands is probably a local bar operator who will now have to suffer along with everyone else.)
As I reported on Monday, Duvel is an especially troublesome brand in the midst of all of this because it is clearly registered. It’s just that the brand name on the state’s list of registered brands is “Duvel Beer” and the label actually reads “Duvel Belgian Golden Ale” - a fact that the Daily News stressed in its first report, and which the BLE surely knows.
What we’re witnessing isn’t just bureaucratic incompetence or the result of outdated laws. This is an act of unrepentant arrogance. As one local restaurant operator remarked of the BLE, “They don’t answer to anybody. They’re running amok.”
Meanwhile, other distributors are scared shitless that they’re next in line. They’re lawyering up and desperately re-checking records to make sure every “i” is dotted.
The good news is that this whole episode might be a tipping point in the whole battle over beer regulation in Pennsylvania. It’s provoked a chorus of outrage online, and the grousing at area bars is deafening. Take away our beer? How dare they!Â
If this stuff outrages you, complain to the PLCB and write your state legislator now!
Word arrives this afternoon that some bars are having difficulty getting new shipments of Duvel Belgian Golden Ale - certainly one of the biggest selling Belgian ales in America - because the PLCB registration list refers to it only as “Duvel Beer.” In other words, distributors are suddenly gun-shy because of the State Police beer raid… More to come.
Somebody please set this to music:
Today we salute you, Over-Reacting PLCB Agent.
(Mr. Over-Reacting PLCB Agent)
Any state cop can chase speeders all day on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. But it takes real talent to conduct a raid on a bar over a clerical error.
(This is a bust!)
Packing heat and carrying a briefcase, you meticulously double-check beer labels and enforce all that red tape.
(Pliny the Younger? Book him!)
And even though you wouldn’t know a stout from a pilsner, you tirelessly uphold senseless laws from the 1930s, certain that you’re protecting the public welfare.
(Carry Nation lives!)
So crack open an ice-cold Jack Boot Beer, Over-Reacting PLCB Agent, because that’s the closest you’ll get to being a real policeman.
The blogs were buzzing this weekend about the raid on three local beer bars over unregistered beer. I teamed up with Daily News reporter Bob Warner for a full report here.
There’s one fairly esoteric angle to this story that we didn’t tackle - one that was raised in some very thoughtful emails from Resurrection/Local 44/Memphis Taproom co-owner Leigh Maida. Namely, the increasingly popular practice among tavern owners of cellaring beers for later sale.
Among the beers that the State Police confiscated in the raid were a handful of bottles of Heavyweight Lunacy. South Jersey’s Heavyweight Brewing, of course, has been out of business for several years. Presumably the bottles were purchased years ago, when Heavyweight beers were, in fact, registered for sale in Pennsylvania. But that brand is no longer registered, for obvious reasons,which apparently makes them illegal.
(By the way, I don’t think this is an over-zealous interpretation of the law by the at the numbskulls at the Bureau of Liquor Enforcement. The law says the beer you sell must be registered, period.)
That law puts puts EVERY vintage bottle in EVERY bar at risk. As Leigh notes, her husband, Brendan Hartranft, has a thing for Orval, and he’s been aging bottles of the brand for years. What happens if Orval goes out of business or stops exporting its beers to the U.S.? Under the current rules, it appears it would be illegal to sell those beers - even though they were properly registered when they were purchased.
I know of several bars that are holding beers whose breweries are extinct. There are hundreds of “retired” beers out there. It’s a point of pride - like, this is the only place you’ll ever see this particular beer. In some cases, these treasures are worth thousands of dollars. But unless their names are properly registered, they’re presumably illegal.
The same thing goes if the brand name changes - a not uncommon occurrence as importers edit labels over the years.  No aged bottle of Zotten, either, once Weyerbacher re-issues the brand, as announced, as Verboten.)
And how about all of those one-time-only anniversary beers we love? Not to pick on Weyerbacher, again, but I’d imagine that bottles of Decadence - issued for the brewery’s 10th anniversary in 2005 and, at 13% abv, intended to be aged - would be illegal to sell.
Allow me to finish by pointing out one obvious fact here: The same Pennsylvania law does not apply to wine.
So the wine cellar at Le Bec Fin is a treasure. But the beer cellar at Local 44 is a crime scene.
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