Sean Arsenault is pouring a pint of Old Stoop Rye Ale. His wife, Erica, is making change at the counter. His twin brother, Andy, is sanitizing metal fittings from one of the fermenters. The tasting room is packed with couples draining pints and diving into plates from a food truck parked out front.

This is the weekend routine at Brewery ARS, the new micro that opened earlier this year on West Passyunk Avenue in South Philly.

Small and hyperlocal, it’s open for business just a handful of hours on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, serving fresh, very well-made beer brewed in batches that can be measured in gallons, not barrels.

“We’re not looking to take over the world,” says Andy, showing off a tidy line of stainless steel tanks. “We just want to make good beer.”

Ah, the optimistic mantra of startups: If only I make a high-quality product, customers will beat a path to my door. Lately, skeptics have clucked that that’s not enough – that the explosive growth in small breweries across America has made it impossible for start-ups to get a foothold. How can a small company find room on the beer shelf in an industry controlled by a cutthroat distribution network?

It’s even harder when those shelves are lined with the likes of Goose Island IPA, Devil’s Backbone Vienna Lager, Elysian Zephyrus Pilsner and Breckenridge Vanilla Porter – all made by Anheuser-Busch.

Yet, on this cold, sunny afternoon, I can see a future for small brewing here at Brewery ARS.

That’s largely because of its scale.

Though the brothers are ambitious, this is not a huge operation with a high overhead. It’s a storefront carved out of a former mechanic’s garage and tucked in among small shops and rowhouses. The neighborhood is changing from its traditional South Philly ethnic base as it attracts young couples priced out of Center City, yet it bears little resemblance to far trendier East Passyunk Avenue on the other side of Broad.

With a scarce supply of nearby on-street parking, the room is filled with mainly locals who walked here: young guys in ironic fedoras and women in ski caps, some with their kids in strollers.

The tap list is a row of cartoonish sketches drawn by Sean: World’s Apart American Pale Ale, Antique’n Simcoe Ale, Ashland Robust Porter, Wayne’s Pale Ale. “That’s named for our father,” he says. “A portion of the profits go to Parkinson’s research, which he has.”

The vibe is easy and low-key. “Chloroform” by the French rock band Phoenix is playing on the Bluetooth speaker.

People are eating and drinking and talking, but this does not feel like a bar.

The beer was brewed on the premises, but this does not feel like a brewpub.

It is soft-spoken and unpretentious, and most of all it feels like a part of the neighborhood. On a day when Trump is roiling America with another series of caustic Tweets, the tasting room feels like an oasis.

Nursing my Old Stoop, a bitter, aromatic ale with the kind of balance and clean finish that shows off the brewery’s focus on quality, I can’t help but think that Philly could use more places like this.

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‘You know those urinal troughs on the floor at the base of bars in old-time taprooms?

Well, zip it up guys. Despite the common myth, the fact is those troughs are not, were not and never were intended to be used as urinals. In fact, the troughs are spittoons, a handy place to puh-tooey a wad of slobbery tobacco juice.

Common sense alone should tell you they weren’t designed for barstool urination. Never mind the whole socially unacceptable aspect of whipping out one’s wand in a public place. Consider that there’s no backsplash, and the gutters typically measure only about eight inches in width. As anyone who’s ever had to scrub a toilet will tell you, men – especially after a few belts – are hardly expert marksmen.

Nonetheless, the myth persists.

At Kelliann’s Bar & Grill, 16th and Spring Garden streets, the manager told me the trough was “for urinating, so you didn’t lose your seat at the bar when you had to go.”

The 25-foot-long trough running along the bar at the 112-year-old Cherry Street Tavern (129 N. 22nd St) is cited by both Wikipedia and the city’s tourism agency as a urinal. Even Philadelphia Weekly repeated the fiction, reporting a decade ago that, “In the good old days men drank, ate and whizzed at the same time.”

Seriously?

I ran the myth past Lou Capozzoli, the owner of Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar in South Philadelphia, where a tiled trough runs along the base of an oak bar. He scoffed when I asked if it was used as a urinal:

“I never seen anyone pee in it. My father had the trough installed after buying the place in 1938. If anybody had peed in there, my father would have killed ‘em.”

Capozzoli continued: “You have to realize that bars were a lot different back then. They were dirty. Men would toss their stogies on the floor, people would spit tobacco. My father installed the trough with running water – it still works, by the way – and you’d sweep everything into it, then wash it out three, four times a day.”

The historical record confirms Capozzoli’s memory.

The drawing in an 1897 patent for a barroom trough looks identical to the type still found around town, and its description indicates it was intended as a spittoon. Earlier, open sawdust boxes and widemouth earthenware jugs were used for barroom slobber.

Early 20th-century saloons weren’t particularly sanitary. A hygiene manual published by Harvard University in 1911 noted, “When a man steps up to a bar in a public saloon, he is apt to rub elbows with the scum of the earth,” where the patrons are infested with cankers and “a large percentage of bartenders are syphilitic.”

But when they had to relieve themselves, men didn’t just casually let loose a stream. They took it to the outhouse or water closet. The trough on the floor, the manual said, was “for use as a cuspidor and a receptacle for the froth that some men insist upon blowing off their mug of beer…”

Now, I’ll concede there might’ve been occasions when a barroom patron used one to take an ill-considered leak. This is Philadelphia, after all – a town where Eagles fans once commonly peed in the bathroom sinks of old Veterans Stadium.

But let’s put this myth to rest. Those are spittoons, not urinals.

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Beer me up, Scotty.

And not just any beer will do. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the landmark sci-fi TV adventure, Star Trek has its own series of brews produced by a small group of fans based in, of all places, Vulcan, Alberta.

In recent months, the group — which calls itself the Federation of Beer — has worked with several breweries to produce sudsy tributes to Star Trek characters. Among their portfolio: The Trouble With Tribbles, a blond ale named for one of the program’s best-remembered episodes; and Red Shirt Ale, brewed in honor of the brave and predictably doomed men and women who donned red uniforms on ill-fated landing expeditions. The latest is Klingon Imperial Porter, a strong, dark ale made by New York-based Shmaltz Brewing that just arrived in the Philadelphia market.

Licensed brands are nothing new in the beer world. Over the years, beer makers have turned out bottles of J.R.’s Private Stock, 4077th M*A*S*H Beer and Three Stooges Curly Light. Mostly, these beers were intended for collectors and eBay re-sellers; the liquid inside was an unremarkable afterthought.

Not any more. Beers made in honor of Game of Thrones, Star Wars and the Hobbit, for example, were all well-received by even the most particular palates.

Same goes for Star Trek beers. Just like the show itself, creative quality was our first goal,” said Vern Raincock, one of the founders of the Federation of Beer.

“If you look at the big picture, Star Trek has been around for 50 years,” he continued. “You’ve got some fans who are in the 70s, and others in their 20s who just saw their first Star Trek movie. That’s a huge audience, with a lot of differences. So it was important to produce a variety of beer styles that broaden your horizon. That’s no different than some of the concepts that Star Trek touched on.”

Though Raincock has a background in beer distribution, he and the other members of the Federation came together primarily as Star Trek enthusiasts. Their first brew was a small batch made for Vul-Con, the annual Star Trek convention held in the small Canadian town of Vulcan.

Over the years, their enterprise grew with formal licensing agreements with CBS-TV, which holds the Star Trek rights, and manufacturing and distribution deals with several breweries. The beers are made in limited batches of 1,000 to 1,500 cases, with two or three new brands hitting the market each year.

Of course, alcohol and Star Trek go together like Capt. Kirk and an alien hottie. How many times did we see Scotty lay into a bottle of single malt, or Quark, the Ferengi bartender, mix up a Cardassian Sunrise?

As for beer, well, there’s always Romulan Ale, the highly potent — and illegal — blue-colored ale. Raincock said he would love to brew a batch, but so far he hasn’t found a proper blue food coloring that will meet U.S. regs.

“They did make a Romulan Ale one time in Central America,” he said. “By all accounts, it was horrible and in the morning when you peed, your urine was emerald green.”

I don’t think that’s what they mean by “to boldly go…”

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An Irishman and a Palestinian open a bar in Philadelphia…

No, this is not the start of a joke.

It’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship, one that grew over the next two decades and would come to define the spirit of one of the city’s most successful bars. Beyond the foamy pints and mixed drinks, the laughter and the music, the friendship flourished and endured as a testament to the goodwill of men brought together in the City of Brotherly Love.

Wajih Abed, the handsome, forever-smiling gentleman from Ramallah on the West Bank of Israel, and his business partner, Fergus Carey, the rogue from Dublin. Wajih and Fergie – everyone knows them by their first names.

The flowers and condolences began arriving at Fergie’s Pub on Sansom Street in Center City almost immediately after a sign went up on the front door on Feb. 4, announcing that Wajih had succumbed to cancer of the larynx at the age of 71.

“He’s leaving a huge hole,” said Fergie. “He’s leaving a lot of friends.”

In the stack of snapshots that Fergie showed me in the pub’s second-floor office, there are scores of family members and barroom acquaintances hugging Wajh, a broad smile beneath his trimmed mustache. Fergie might be wearing a tattered t-shirt and shorts; Wajih, looking like Omar Sharif, impeccably dressed.

“He was the ultimate host,” Fergie said. “He brought old-school class to this place.”

Wajih had come to America as a teenager, already married with a wife and child he’d left behind until he got settled. He started selling carpets on the street in the early ‘60s while his older brother managed the old Middle East Restaurant on Chestnut Street.

“I remember when he came to Bookbinder’s [the former seafood restaurant on 15th Street] looking for a job, any job,” said Constance Bookbinder, the owner’s wife. “My husband, Sam, offered him a job as a bar boy. Eventually he let him make drinks.”

He was only 18.

“I was working at Wanamaker’s at the time,” Bookbinder said. “I’d come to the restaurant after work, all dressed up, and sit at the bar and talk with Wajih all night until Sam could have dinner. Then we’d get a table and Wajih would send over a drink – orange juice and gin, mostly gin.”

There were other jobs. He bought a couple of pizzerias in Jersey. His wife joined him, they had more kids (“He sent all of them to college on a bartender’s salary,” Bookbinder said.), and then she passed away.

Fergie — already a well-known bartender at McGlinchey’s, just down the street from Bookbinder’s — first met Wajih in 1994, and the two decided to go into business together, renting a space on Sansom.

“It wasn’t until we were walking back from Michael Singer’s [the rental agent] that we decided what to call the place,” said Fergie. “I suggested the name, and then we put an American flag and an Irish flag out front. He joked that we should put up a Palestinian flag, too, but we never got around to that…

“We opened on a shoestring, but the place was an immediate success,” Fergie continued. “My parents were so happy he was my friend and my partner. He was 49 and I was 31. Me and my friends, we thought he was ancient. He was such the father figure to everybody.”

The years passed, the Guinness and Jameson poured freely, the bar’s rep as one of the city’s best Irish pubs soared. Wajih’s influence could be seen in small oddities around the bar: the Italian wedding soup on the menu of an Irish bar, Celine Dion on the jukebox.

But more importantly there was his smile from behind the bar, greeting first-timers and reg’lars alike.

It was the smile of a man who came to America, earned an honest living, raised a family and built an enduring, beautiful friendship.

“He loved,” said Fergie, “and he was loved.”

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