If there is a local amateur breeding ground for the professional brewers of tomorrow, it could be the six-year-old South Jersey home-brew club with a catchy name.

Barley Legal Homebrewers can lay claim to producing no fewer than a dozen full-time brewers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, including several who have opened their own breweries.

Think of it as the Silicon Valley of brewing, with malt instead of microchips. Surely other home-brew clubs have their success stories, but I can’t name another that has had such a vital, immediate impact on a region’s beer scene. Consider:

The trio of partners behind Third State Brewing in Burlington City met at Barley Legal. Same goes for Vince Masciandaro and the late Rich Palmay, who opened Village Idiot in Mount Holly.

John Companick and Scott Reading won one of the club’s biggest contests before joining with Mike Oliver to open Spellbound Brewing in Mount Holly.

Together, they’ve helped transform South Jersey’s brewery scene overnight.

And they’re not the only pros. Evan Fritz, who runs the brewhouse at Manayunk Brewing, got his start at Barley Legal. So did Dan Neuner of Neshaminy Creek, Chris Vaughn of Flying Fish and Mark Graves at Cape May Brewing. How is just one club sending so many brewers to the pros?

To get to the answer, you have to go back to one year before the club’s founding in 2010.

At the time, South Jersey didn’t have much of a craft-beer scene. The state’s brewery regs were so onerous, it was nearly impossible for a small brewery to open without going deeply into debt. If you wanted a good, small-batch beer in Camden or Gloucester Counties, you probably drove over one of the bridges to Philly.

That started to change in 2009, when Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant opened its first New Jersey brewpub, in Maple Shade. Its head brewer was Chris LaPierre, who quickly noticed homebrewer flocking to his bar, a veritable oasis in the middle of a craft-beer desert.

He introduced Masciandaro and Fritz and others, hosting them in a back room to talk about brewing. At first, there were just a half-dozen, but attendance grew quickly. “Most of them had stuck to themselves or learned from the internet,” said club president Ryan Cochrane. “Well, it wasn’t long where we had 60 people. When you get that many people together, you’re bound to have some knowledge exchange. “

Frequently, the club’s members pair up and meet at each other’s homes to brew together.

“Imagine how much you can learn when someone comes over and coaches you or teaches new techniques,” said Fritz, a founder. “Before long, everybody was brewing together. On Friday nights, I could have 15, 20 guys showing up at my place. “

The sharing continued, and as the state loosened brewery laws in 2012, several members started talking about opening their own places. Masciandaro and Palmay were the first, and as Fritz said: “People saw Village Idiot and said, ‘Why not me? ‘ “

Just six years later, there is a craft beer scene in South Jersey.

“The thing about most home-brew clubs, I think, is that they’re just a bunch of guys getting together and drinking and socializing,” said Jay Mahoney, of Third State Brewing. “But Barley Legal focuses on brewing skills by sharing ideas and knowledge. “

Barley Legal meets the first Tuesday of the month at Spellbound Brewing, 10 Lippincott Lane, Mount Holly. Membership, $20 a year. Info: barleylegal.homebrewers.com.

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“BREAKING: SIX-PACKS APPROVED FOR SALE AT PENNSYLVANIA GAS STATIONS!” – Headline on Gov. Wolf’s blog.

With that, Pennsylvania, your beer laws have finally entered the 20th century.

And, yes, I do mean last century, for despite the screaming CAPS, the approval is both meaningless and illustrative of the small thinking that accompanies liquor regulation in this state.

For starters, the approval applies only to 9 gas stations statewide, and most are in the boondocks, so… next time you’re in Mahanoy City, fill ‘er up!

And the approval came only after it was forced on the state Liquor Control Board by a lawsuit that has been appealed all the way to the state Supreme Court.

That didn’t stop Gov. Wolf from claiming – complete with a grade-school quality logo – that he had something to do with “freeing the six-pack.” All he did was write a letter to the board – an act that the blog, “Why the PLCB Should Be Abolished,” called “nothing but shameless self-promotion.”

Pennsylvania – a state where you must visit two different stores to buy a case and a sixpack, and neither of them sell wine or whiskey – has a long way to go before it can enter the 21st century. Here’s a few suggestions.

        Truly free the sixpack.

Selling beer at a gas station is a step in the right direction, but look closer and you’ll see little has changed.

Gas stations can sell beer by the sixpack only if they classify themselves as restaurants. That means they must provide food and a seating area for 30 people, presumably to accommodate the many, many folks who enjoy dining at their local Sunoco.

If the Governor really wants to free the sixpack, he could start by legalizing their sale everywhere, from the Wawa to beer distributors. Get rid of the silly seating rules. Get rid of the 12-pack minimums.

If a business has a liquor license, it should be able to sell beer, wine and spirits, in all shapes and sizes. Then we could end the farce of forcing Pennsylvanians to troop all over town just to properly stock a backyard party.

Allow distributors to sell more than just beer.

Now that grocery stores can sell everything from sixpacks and sushi under one roof, the same privilege should be extended to beer distributors.

Under current law, these mostly mom-and-pop businesses are limited to about 50 specific items. For example, they can sell frozen pizza but not hot, freshly baked pizza. They can sell beef jerky but not roast beef sandwiches. They can sell paper cups but not glass mugs.

They can, however, sell pickled pigs feet and rock salt.

Allowing distributors to sell more products will help small businesses compete against the likes of Acme.

        Allow us to buy mail order beer.

Among the lesser-noticed provisions in the historic wine reform bill signed last month by Gov. Wolf is one that allows Pennsylvanians to purchase directly from out-of-state wineries. For wine aficionados plagued by the State Store’s abysmal selection, this is very good news.

However, the same provision should be extended to beer.

It’s true that Keystone State beer drinkers really don’t have a lot to complain about when it comes to selection. We have world-class local breweries and an incredible wealth of imports and out-of-state brands.

But that’s no excuse. Direct sales would not only allow local beer geeks to track down unique, small-batch bottles that are not widely distributed, it would also pave the way for direct, out-of-state sales for Pennsylvania brewers.

        Legalize beer auctions.

The new law allows certain non-profit organizations to raise funds by auctioning off bottles of wine. Again, there’s no such provision for beer, which has just as many rare brands and vintages as wine.

By the way: I see this as a massive loophole that will further degrade the State Store system. It won’t be long till some sharp operator opens up his own “non-profit” wine store with hourly “auctions.”

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“Joe Sixpack” is written by Don Russell, executive director of the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild. Follow him on Twitter @beer_radar or sign up for his weekly e-mail update at www.joesixpack.net. E-mail: joe@joesixpack.net.

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You remember your father’s beer, don’t you?

Piels, Schmidt’s, Ortlieb’s. When I asked friends on Facebook recently to name their pop’s favorite, they had no problem recalling those days gone by.

“Löwenbräu dark for fancy occasions and Budweiser for every day,” said Rebekah Nault.

“Every Friday afternoon, when I was a kid, a truck would deliver a case of Schmidt’s for my parents, and a case of Frank’s Soda for me and my brothers,” said Joe McDonnell.

“Colt 45. Dad had soul and said it had ‘More Flava!’ ” said Jeff Wells.

On Sunday, Father’s Day, millions of sons and daughters will reconnect with their fathers over a cold one, savoring a sip, affirming their bond, enjoying a moment. It is a simple yet meaningful act of sharing – a gesture that you might be tempted to enhance by offering your father a sixpack of the beer he used to drink when you were growing up.

Don’t do it!

With all due respect to your moment of Rockwellian nostalgia, don’t waste your money on one of those insipid, factory-produced cans of fizzy, yellow water that smells like a belch.

Think about it: Your poor father had to suffer through the worst era of beer in the history of mankind, when American conglomerates shut down regional breweries and dumbed down the sauce till it tasted – in the memorable words of Chicago newspaperman Mike Royko – like it had been run “through a horse. ” If your father is between 70 and 90, his prime drinking years were at a time when every single beer tasted exactly the same. If he’s between 50 and 70, the best he can say is that they watered it down and turned it into light beer.

Buying your father a sixpack of Schlitz or Schaefer or whatever retro beer is gathering dust at the back of your local distributor is the equivalent of fixing him a sandwich with store-brand peanut butter and Wonder Bread.

Here, Dad: You grew up in the Great Depression. Let’s celebrate Father’s Day with a nice, steaming bucket of gruel.

Yes, I know, you think you’re honoring your father by offering him something from his youth. Or, as an Esquire writer blithered a few years ago: “By polishing off a sixer of Bud Light or Miller High Life, we’re tacitly admitting we’re more like our dad than we ever thought we’d be. Perhaps by having a few Genny Creams we’re actually admitting that we’re finally adults, because, to us, dad was always an adult. “

Uh, no, what you’re doing is being ironic. Especially if you’re wearing a trucker hat.

Either that, or you’ve got daddy issues.

I can’t help but remember ex-Denver quarterback Peyton Manning, after the 2014 AFC championship game, declaring that he wanted nothing more than a Bud Light. He took a lot of heat for shilling for Anheuser-Busch, and then defended his choice by saying: “My father taught me a number of things, one of which being that Bud Light is the preferred beer of the Manning household. “

To which my California beer-writing colleague Jay Brooks replied: “My only question is this: Peyton Manning is 37 years old. He’s also married with two children, and presumably no longer lives at home but has his own household. At what age did you stop doing everything your father told you? “

Wake up: Your father drank crappy beer made with corn and rice and even formaldehyde because he had no other choice. In the 1970s, there were fewer than 100 breweries nationwide, compared to more than 4,000 today. There was no such thing as “craft” beer or microbreweries. There were no growlers-to-go or imperial stout or beer week. No one talked about hops, except to say you couldn’t taste them.

Indeed, your father didn’t drink his favorite because he liked its flavor. He bought it for one of two reasons: It was the cheapest, or it had the best TV ads.

The nicest gesture you could make toward your father this weekend is to bring him a case of your favorite beer.

You’d not only be showing him something new (though I’d guess he’s already onto craft beer), but you’d also be sharing something you love, and that’s a damn nice gift to give your father.

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NOW IS NOT the time to slow your celebration of America’s best beer-drinking city, for the final four days of Philly Beer Week feature some killer drafts and some typically incomprehensible entertainment.

For example, turtle races.

You have not experienced the thrill of sport until you’ve witnessed two-inch hard-shells in a mad dash across a piece of felt. The glory, the sheer athleticism, the …

Oh, what the hell am I talking about? The third annual Turtle Races at Drury Beer Garden (1311 Sansom St., midtown) tonight at 6 are just a silly excuse to drink lots of Terrapin beer in the urban outdoor square.

Which is not a bad thing, right?

But if that’s too much excitement for you, well, here are my picks for the best events of Philly Beer Week’s second half:

Today

Captain Lawrence Simpsons Did It IPA Launch, Barcade (1114 Frankford Ave., Fishtown), all day.

With the beer-centric focus on Philly, it’s no surprise breweries use Beer Week as a platform to launch new brands. New York’s Captain Lawrence will unveil its pineapple-flavored India pale ale. Yes, other breweries already make fruit-flavored IPAs; perhaps that’s why they named this one after the classic South Park episode that comically proved The Simpsons had already done it.

Hangin’ with Hitachino, Tria Taproom (2005 Walnut St., Rittenhouse Square), all day.

Kiuchi Brewery, which started in 1823 as a sake brewery, was the first Japanese craft brewery to export to America. Its Hitachino Nest label is well-known for uniquely flavored styles. Try five of them at Tria’s taproom just off Rittenhouse Square.

Friday

Doorway to Norway, Khyber Pass Pub (56 S. 2nd St., Old City), all day.

Yes, Bjørn drinks beer – but mostly it’s low-alcohol, fizzy, yellow water. That’s because it’s almost impossible to find the really interesting small-batch brews from icy boondocks such as Grimstad, Drammen, and Stavanger.

One of the city’s original craft beer bars is conveniently bringing Norway’s best to Philly? Don’t miss Hesjeøl, a traditional Norwegian farmhouse ale from HaandBryggeriet that’s made with smoked malt and fermented with wild yeast.

Saturday

Deschutes Brewery Street Pub, Headhouse Square (Second above South Street), all day.

Longer than a football field. Louder than a Sunday afternoon at the Linc. Enough bartenders to handle a rowdy Eagles crowd. And it’s pouring 60 taps of Bend, Ore.’s, Deschutes beer.

This is the bar of your dreams.

The traveling 402-foot pop-up bar makes its return to Philly, serving dishes from local restaurants and entertaining the neighborhood with live music. It’s crowded, raucous, and a helluva lot of fun – plus it raises big bucks for the Vetri Community Partnership, to cover costs for preparing healthy meals in Philly public schools.

Barks & Brews, Devil’s Den (1148 S. 11th St., South Philly), noon-5 p.m.

Man’s best friend gets his day with a selection of dog-themed brews, including Lagunitas Dogtown Pale Ale, Thirsty Dog Citra, and, of course, Flying Dog Raging Bitch. The event raises money for Morris Animal Refuge.

Craftsman Row Saloon (112 S. 8th St., Center City) will pour Yuengling and raise bucks for PAWS, while the Whole Foods beer cafes in Devon and Glen Mills will donate a buck to animal-protection groups for every pint they sell.

Florida Jawn, Bru Craft, & Wurst (1318 Chestnut St. Center City), all day.

If you’re a Phillies spring training trekker, you already know Florida’s craft beer scene, especially in the vicinity of Tampa, is in full throttle. If not, well, this tap lineup will introduce you to the likes of Coppertail, Saint Somewhere, Due South, Saltwater, and the always inventive Funky Buddha.

Sunday

Russian River Sunday, Local 44 (4333 Spruce St., West Philly), all day.

Cult fave Pliny the Younger – available just once a year in early spring – gets all the ink, but beer lovers know northern California’s Russian River Brewing is far more than just an intensely hopped triple IPA. Here’s a chance to enjoy the complexity of Supplication, a sour beer aged on cherries; and Damnation, a strong, spicy Belgian-style golden ale. The Younger won’t be there, but his father, Pliny the Elder, a superb double IPA, will be pouring, along with some of this West Philadelphia bar’s favorites from Tired Hands, Pizza Boy, and more.

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Pucker-faced sour beer lovers can’t get enough gose, Berliner Weisse, fruit lambic, and other distinctive varieties. But if all you’re doing is drinking the stuff, well, you’re missing one of the great joys of these special ales.

Because cooking with sour beer adds a whole other flavor dimension to your favorite recipes.

That’s something I came to learn after cracking open the first beer book I ever bought: Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion, the British beer writer’s outstanding 1993 guide to beer styles around the world. Tucked in the back is a handful of recipes for dishes he encountered in his travels, and one plate caught my eye: carbonnade flamande.

It’s basically a beef stew of the sort my mother made for family dinners on Tuesday nights. Occasionally, she’d splash in a cup of beer, which she said helped tenderize those cubes of chuck roast she’d picked up at the A&P.

But Jackson’s recipe – well, it’s not even his; he credits it to the romantic-sounding Madame Rose Blancquaert of the café De Mouterij in Oudenaarde, Belgium – showed how sour beer could transform even the most simple dish.

Instead of a mere bottle of lager, Jackson advised using Liefmans Goudenband, a Flemish brown ale that comes wrapped in tissue paper because it is, in fact, that special.

Its painstaking fermentation includes a year of aging in cellar casks to produce a tart, lactic flavor before it is blended with younger, sweeter beer. The finished product is spectacularly complex, with the light, sweet caramel flavor of dark malt mingling with a palate-cleansing, cherrylike sourness from lactobacillus, a bacterium that is the signature of this old-world style.

Added to carbonnade flamande, Goudenband gives a simple peasant dish the special sweet-and-sour quality so typical of Flemish fare.

In the years after experimenting with that recipe, I encountered the flavors time after time in travels to Belgium:

At Restaurant In’t Spinnekopke, an old, subterranean spot in Brussels, they serve a plate of rabbit cooked in lambic, the spontaneously fermented ale brewed mostly just southwest of the city in the Zenne Valley. The rustic brew complemented its meaty, savory flavor with a sharp, vinegary bite.

At Den Dyver, a stylish restaurant along one of Bruges’ scenic canals, they once noisily whipped up a dessert of sabayon au gueuze. Similar to the classic Italian frothy dessert made with egg yolks, sugar, and marsala wine, this one had the added barnyard aroma of gueuze, a blend of old and young lambics.

At 3 Fonteinen in Beersel, heart of the lambic region, delicate lamb chops and local vegetables were served with a sauce made with kriek, the cherry-flavored lambic.

And at almost every restaurant in Flanders, mussels were steamed in locally blended sour ales.

Meanwhile, in America, cooking with sour beer is still in its infancy. Though sours – especially gose and Berliner weisse – are suddenly trendy, I haven’t encountered many restaurants or cookbooks incorporating these brews into their recipes.

For example, author Stephen Beaumont offers just one sour beer recipe in his latest release, The Beer & Food Companion (Jacqui Small). Not surprisingly, it’s for carbonnade flamande, made with a Flemish red ale instead of a brown.

And author John Holl offers just one in his newly released The American Craft Beer Cookbook (Storey), for a superb vinaigrette made with kriek.

Mostly, he and other cookbook authors echo what I see in craft beer circles these days: Sour beers are better as an accompaniment to favorite meals, not as a critical ingredient. Thus Holl, for example, suggests pairing a fresh watermelon-and-tomato salad served over endive leaves with a sour. I tried it with Free Will Kriek Lambic, brewed in Perkasie, Bucks County, and his advice was accurate enough: The sour contrasted nicely with the melon’s sweetness.

But I took it one step further at dessert, with my own Philly specialty: Kriek à la Breyers. My old friend Michael Jackson would’ve loved it.

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IN THIS WEEK’S column, we ponder the greatest mystery in beer:Why do so many brewers wear beards? (I mean male brewers, naturally, not female, which perhaps is a column for another day. )

I’ve been noticing this for the last couple years, but it came into full light at the Craft Brewers Conference in Philadelphia this month. You couldn’t walk three steps without encountering a fur-face.

Now, just so we’re all on the same page, I’m not talking about perfectly groomed Bradley Cooper starlet-magnet stubble. I mean the Full Grizzly. Chin carpet. Whiskers out the wazoo. Gnarly hair hedges that bring to mind Will Forte in the TV show Last Man on Earth before Jason Sudeikis sheared half his face and scalp.

This question has been pondered from time to time. All About Beer magazine tackled it in November and suggested brewers are creative types, and, well, think about all those painters and sculptors with beards.

With all due respect to the many artistes sloshing mop buckets around brewhouse floors, that sounded like a reach. Clearly, this question requires deeper insight, of the sort one can find only on . . . Facebook.

I put it to my so-called friends, who jokingly suggested everything from “a surfeit of chins” to “it’s stipulated in the Reinheitsgebot,” the German beer purity law.

Several said “hipster cred. ” That might apply to some, but not graybeards on the other side of 50. Lancaster Brewing’s Bill Moore was grooming his before the term “hipster” was even coined.

Matt Gundrum of Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant offered one plausible answer: “I hate razor burn, which I always get when I shave,” he said, wondering aloud whether working around mash tun steam makes his skin more sensitive.

And Eric Boice, who brews at Stewart’s in Bear, Del., said his beard protected his face from a violent surge of boiling wort. “I thought to myself, ‘Well, that’s as good a reason as any for a brewer to have a beard,’ ” he said.

Maybe it’s just that the craft-beer world isn’t as button-down as other workplaces.

“It’s one of the only industries that accepts it completely,” said Free Will’s John Stemler. “Now when I shave, I’m asked to leave the brewery because nobody recognizes me. “

Not surprisingly, several among the social-media commentariat called me out for stereotyping the industry and pointed to the many well-known brewers without facial hair.

“I could rattle off a long list,” said Steve Mashington, formerly of Rogue Ales and now a general manager at River City Cannery. He cited the likes of Tom Kehoe of Yards, Brian O’Reilly of Sly Fox, Brett Kintzer of Stoudt’s, and Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewing, all of whom have faces as bare as a baby’s bottom.

To which I answer: Bill “Red Beard” Covaleski of Victory and co-founder Ron “Van Dyke” Barchet, Bob “Rasputin” Barrar of 2SP, Evan “Galifianakis” Fritz of Manayunk Brewing, and Greg “Castaway” Koch of Stone.

Heck, the beard on John Maier, Mashington’s former boss at Rogue, is so fertile he actually harvested yeast from the undergrowth and – I kid you not – famously brewed an ale with it.

But that’s anecdotal evidence. What about statistics?

Josh Weikert, a university lecturer and local homebrewer, noted one study that said 17 percent of American men wear beards. When he looked at a random image of a brewers’ conference seminar, it appeared only about a quarter of the attendees had beards – not much over the average.

“I think this is a confirmation bias situation rather than a real phenomenon,” he said, which is another way of saying I had my head up my glass.

Of course, I couldn’t let that accusation stand. So on a rainy Saturday afternoon, I spent two hours examining 150 photographs posted at the conference website. I counted every single freaking male whose face was visible – 402 of ’em, 231 with beards.

That’s 57 percent, a rate more than three times higher than in the general population.

Of course, the stats still don’t answer the question why? I’ll take another stab at it in an upcoming Bar Talk Podcast with co-host Glen Macnow. He and I will stroke our own mange and try to come up with something profound. Listen in at my website, below.

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NOW THAT BEER gardens are officially a thing in Philly and – shockingly – the suburbs, it’s time for these outdoor drinking spots to get a few things right.

Because a beer garden is more than just a bar without a roof.

A beer garden is a shared place, in the sun, without solid walls and the typical constraints of a licensed saloon. It is about atmosphere and community and fun.

The Germans, who have perfected the biergarten, call that spirit gemütlichkeit. It means warmth and friendship and good cheer. And it takes more than just a couple of picnic tables and a Jenga set to get it right.

Consider this a best-practices document for improving your gemütlichkeit.

1. Serve your beer in actual glasses, not plastic cups.

Yes, plastic is easy. And, yes, glass breaks. But plastic is chintzy and demeaning, and it devalues the experience of a beer garden.

Glassware is still the purest way to taste beer; hoisting a heavy, liter-sized mass is as much a part of the beer-garden experience as live music and soft pretzels.

Seriously: A foamy hefeweizen belongs in a tall, clean glass, not a limp, petroleum-based containment unit.

2. If you’re going to use plastic cups, make them clear.

Appearance is a huge part of the enjoyment of beer. No red Solo cups.

3. Hire a waitstaff.

Don’t squeeze me into cattle chutes to buy a beer. A beer garden is a civilized experience, not an Eagles game.

I want to sit my keister on a bench in the shade, and I want you to bring the beer to me.

4. Get rid of those stupid hammocks.

No one sleeps in a beer garden, and snot-nose brats only use them as swings. Besides, once I plunk down in one, I can never get out.

5. Let me bring my own food.

I know, you want to charge me 10 bucks for your soggy fish tacos, but allowing guests to bring their own food enhances the spirit of community; it underscores the concept of “shared” space that you’re supposed to be promoting.

Besides, everyone knows you make more money off liquor than food. Let me bring my own picnic, and I’ll spend more on the beer.

6. Stop calling it a beer garden if it isn’t.

A beer garden is not a backyard patio, deck, porch, or crowded city sidewalk in front of a bar. It’s also not a rooftop.

If you’re going to call it a garden, plant something green.

7. Get rid of the security guards.

Those yellow-shirted rent-a-cops are a buzz-kill. You’re worried about underage drinking and public drunkenness? That’s another reason you should hire a trained waitstaff.

8. Bocce good; giant chessboards bad.

Bocce is the outdoor version of darts. Anyone can play it without putting down his or her beer.

Meanwhile, nobody has ever played a life-size game of chess to completion. It’s a giant waste of space invented by a designer who got all her ideas out of Martha Stewart Living in 1997.

9. No padded couches.

Drunken couples use them for outdoor sex. Really. Also, no Astroturf.

10. Pour something other than IPA.

I like hops as much as the next person, but I like variety even more, and summertime has plenty to offer. Here’s a six-pack of suggested styles with examples.

1. Hefeweizen. Except in rare cases, only the Germans get this style’s spicy, effervescent flavor right. Try Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier.
2. Pale lager. You’ll want something in the range of 5 percent alcohol, so you can drink lots and lots. Try Stoudt’s Gold.
3. Pilsner. Philly-area versions are bitter enough to satisfy any hop head. Try Troegs Sunshine Pils.
4. Saison. This cloudy, earthy style was the traditional go-to for Old World farm workers. Try Saint Benjamin Liaison Saison or Sly Fox Grisette.
5. Berliner weissbier or gose. Trendy sour beer is never better than on one of those hazy, hot, and humid Philly afternoons. Try Nodding Head Ich Bin Ein Berliner Weiss or Sierra Nevada Otra Vez.
6. India pale ale. OK, I give in; you can’t run a beer garden without one. Lately, I’ve been grooving to Firestone Walker Luponic Distortion.

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DONALD TRUMP for president? Forget about it, say the nation’s brewers. But don’t expect them to line up behind Hillary Clinton, either.

That’s the outlook from a straw poll I conducted among beer makers at last week’s Craft Brewers Conference in Philadelphia.

Among the 96 brewers and other beer industry members I polled while strolling around the conference exhibition hall, only 15 said they’d vote for Trump in November.

Clinton was backed by exactly half of the brewers – but that support looks shaky because many of her supporters indicated they might not bother to vote in the fall.

Meanwhile, fully one-third said they’d vote for neither.

It’s true, of course, that 100 percent of the brewers would rather have been drinking beer than answering an election survey. Several of those I questioned stalked off when I asked: Trump or Clinton?

But I had reasons for talking politics.

For one, the craft-beer demographic – which is mainly white and male – is a troublesome sector for Democrats in presidential elections. In 2012, President Obama lost to Mitt Romney among white males by 20 percentage points.

You might remember that Obama tried to trim that gap by targeting craft-beer drinkers. The White House famously released recipes for the president’s homebrewed beers during his campaign, and then the Democratic National Convention featured speeches from the founders of two small breweries in support of Obama.

We can expect to see Clinton, who also lags in support among white males, to exploit the same craft-beer-savvy tactics – and not just because Trump is a teetotaler. As it happens, many of the swing states – notably Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Virginia, and Colorado – rank above the median in breweries per capita. Don’t be surprised if you see her tipping back an IPA in Wilkes-Barre or Fort Collins, Colo.

Meanwhile, despite their reluctance to talk politics at a beer convention, craft brewers are hardly silent on the issues.

After North Carolina enacted its controversial anti-LGBT law last month, for example, dozens of the state’s small breweries protested by making a “Golden Rule Saison” called Don’t Be Mean to People. Proceeds will benefit gay, lesbian, and transgender advocacy groups.

Last year, an Illinois brewery – objecting to Trump’s anti-Mexican remarks – pulled its beer from his Chicago hotel, then renamed it Chinga tu Pelo, Spanish for F– Your Hair.

That doesn’t mean Clinton can expect craft beer to automatically line up behind her.

“She’s corrupt,” said Paul Allard, 49, a hops supplier from Maine. “I’m not a huge Trump fan. He’s a bit of a blowhard. But I feel I have to vote for him as the lesser of two evils. “

Patrick Doheny, 47, a brewer from Clearwater, Fla., said that although he’s registered as a Republican, “I just don’t think Trump has the ability. He’s a good businessman, but that does not equate to being a good president. It might have to be Clinton. “

Daniel Lanigan, a brewer in Boston, still held out hope for Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. “Clinton is like the Anheuser-Busch InBev of candidates,” he said. “Bernie is craft brewing. “

Leigh Maberry, 24, who works in the laboratory at a Texas brewery, said, “They’re both scary. It’s become discouraging. “

That sentiment cropped up repeatedly:

“I can’t find anyone I want to vote for. “

“They’re both slimeballs. “

“Maybe I’ll move to Canada. “

None of the nearly 100 brewers I interviewed expressed any passionate support for Clinton. Many, however, blanched at the idea of Trump occupying the White House:

“He’s very extreme, short-sighted, and inflammatory. “

“He’s a poor businessman. “

“He’s just an entertaining idiot. “

“Neither – but definitely not Trump. “

The anti-Trump sentiment was most pronounced among women brewers (a distinct minority among those at the convention). Not one woman I interviewed backed Trump; instead, they were evenly divided between Clinton and “neither. “

Admittedly, I’m no Nate Silver when it comes to crunching data. In fact, I was drinking a fair amount of fresh craft beer throughout the survey, so it’s entirely possible my data are a bit blurred. Nonetheless, here are the results:

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There are no saloons in Pitman. No bottle shops or restaurants with liquor licenses, either. This is a dry town, a vestige of its founding as a Methodist retreat.

Yet on Saturday afternoon, with a ceremonial tapping of the first keg, a brewery will open on Broadway, the Gloucester County town’s main drag. A brewery with a tasting room and eight taps and plenty of suds.

And that’s not all, for by the end of summer, a second brewery is expected to open a mere two doors down the street – a veritable brewery row in a borough where, for 100 years, the closest thing to a stiff drink was a bottle of hair tonic at the barbershop.

No, the Methodists did not suddenly fold up their pews in Pitman. But demon alcohol is moving in, nonetheless.

“We couldn’t be more excited,” Pitman Mayor Russell Johnson said of this weekend’s planned opening of Kelly Green Brewery. “It’s going to be a big shot in the arm for this town. “

The arrival of a brewery in an otherwise dry town is both a quirk of state liquor laws and a sign of the remarkable evolution of beer in America.

Though liquor licenses still are banned in Pitman, Kelly Green is opening under a new state law that allows so-called limited breweries to produce beer and sell it by the glass in a tasting room. Meanwhile, several wineries have broken the dry spell by exploiting another recent provision that allows them to lease space in restaurants to sell wine to diners.

“Technically, we’re not dry,” Johnson said. “We’re damp. “

Increasingly, small town mayors like Johnson are seizing on the new law to lure new breweries to their downtowns. Rather than the community scourge, a small brewery is often viewed as a proud civic asset – one that generates jobs and taxes and, most important, attracts young visitors.

Indeed, Pitman isn’t the only historically dry town in New Jersey to welcome a brewery. In the next month, Devil’s Creek Brewery is expected to open in Collingswood, where liquor had been banned since the 1800s.

Local BYO restaurants, fearing that beer would draw away their patrons, initially balked at the plan, then backed down when the borough enacted new zoning rules prohibiting the brewery from serving food.

In Pitman, the change of attitude surprised even Justin Fleming, the 35-year-old former nuclear plant worker opening Kelly Green with his wife, Jeannette, and home-brewing pal, Dave Domanski.

“My wife and I grew up in Pitman, so we’re very familiar with the history of this town,” Fleming said. “This town is deeply rooted in religion,” he said. “For a while, the feeling was that if you open it to alcohol, there’d be drunk people laying on the sidewalk. “

Indeed, just behind the brewery stands Pitman Grove, now a national historic place that was founded in the 1870s as a camp for Methodist revival meetings. Small cottages still line the grove’s 12 original “avenues” representing Christ’s disciples.

But if the local Methodist church has any issues with a brewery in its town, it hasn’t made any noise. Phone calls and emails to the pastor went unanswered.

“Without a doubt, I assumed some old-school mentality would come our way,” Fleming said. “But it didn’t. I was extremely surprised. “

Equally surprising are the plans to open a second brewery just two doors down from Kelly Green. There, in the former Bus Stop Music Cafe, brewing partners Megan Myers and Emily Barnes plan to open Human Village Brewing Co. as early as next month.

“We really love Pitman,” Myers said, when I asked her how they chose their brewery’s home. “A lot of things are going on in this town . . . a brick-oven pizza restaurant, a burger cafe, and the Broadway Theatre, which is just beautifully refurbished from the vaudeville era.

“It’s a beautiful, walkable town. The population is shifting; we’re staring to see a new generation of people coming in.

“I think a small brewery – two small breweries – is really good for the town. “

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In 2005, the last time the Brewers Association held its annual conference here, a few local brewers thought it would be a swell idea to expose the conventioneers to a unique slice of Philly’s growing craft-beer scene.

So they trooped the visitors down to a seamy stretch of Delaware Avenue and held what was surely the city’s first-ever cask-ale event at a topless bar.

As dancers shimmied over the tap handles for dollar bills, visitors drained glasses from a freshly tapped firkin.

The association’s Craft Brewers Conference returns to town for a considerably more upscale event Tuesday to next Friday that includes more than 100 events around town, with live music at the Electric Factory and World Cafe Live, a gala dinner at the Convention Center, and a huge awards show. The last conference could comfortably fit all 1,500 attendees into the Marriott, but this one is having a tough time squeezing the more than 13,000 attendees from the small-beer industry into the Convention Center’s facilities.

“We’ve gotten to the point where there are only 17 cities in the country that can accommodate us,” said Paul Gatza, the association’s longtime director. Even Seattle, one of the nation’s top beer cities, he said, doesn’t have convention space for the conference.

The increased attendance, of course, is a reflection of the phenomenal growth in American craft brewing over the last decade.

In 2005, there were fewer than 1,400 craft breweries nationwide; that number will likely reach 5,000 by the end of the year.

As a result, the Brewers Association, based in Colorado, has grown from a cozy club dominated by the pioneers of craft brewing into a large-scale organization focusing on professional education and governmental lobbying. (Full disclosure: The Garden State Craft Brewers Guild, where I am executive director, is a member of the Brewers Association. )

The conference itself is closed to the public, with seminars on a range of topics, from label designs to glycol cooling systems. A massive trade show dominating much of the convention space will show off newfangled six-pack carriers, unusual hop varieties, brewhouse valves, and more.

Yes, it’s inside baseball. But here’s the thing: You can’t hold a brewers’ convention without beer.

And, as this is Philadelphia, local bars and restaurants are rolling out the amber carpet. The streets will be flowing with suds of all kinds.

A handful of the events are for conference attendees only – like the Wednesday-night show by alt-rock band Cracker at World Cafe Live, presented by Dogfish Head. But those are the exceptions, and I’ve compiled a list of more than 100 events open to the public.

Some are simple tap takeovers, with the likes of New Belgium, Firestone Walker, and Ballast Point. Expect to rub elbows with brewers including Phil Markowski, the farmhouse beer guru at Connecticut’s Two Roads Brewing, and Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewing.

And there will be a flood of out-of-town brews and brewers making their first appearance in the city for the show. Among them: Wicked Weed of Asheville, N.C.; Surly of Minneapolis; SaltWater of Delray Beach, Fla.; Odell of Fort Collins, Colo.; and Wiseacre of Memphis, Tenn. Most events have free admission – just pay as you go.

We’ll even see the opening of the much-anticipated St. Benjamin’s Brewery tasting room in North Philadelphia.

If that sounds a little like a preview of Philly Beer Week, coming in June, well, you get the idea.

The whole week gets started Sunday with Yards’ ninth annual Philadelphia Real Ale Invitational (Tickets $55, yardsbrewingcom.ticketleap.com). Officially, it ends with the World Beer Cup awards ceremony May 6, but there will be plenty of after parties around town that night.

And don’t worry – Philly hasn’t completely lost touch with its roots. SweetWater Brewing will make an appearance Tuesday at Cheerleaders, the South Philadelphia strip joint.

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