Philly beer scene compared to NYC beer scene

Would you consider international offerings as a criteria or just local?

 

Disclaimer - I've never been to Philly (although may got this weekend)

NYC has a great scene, but not as good as you'd perhaps imagine for such a large city, and for well.... NYC.

But things keep getting better and better.

 

Philadelphia has enough "fringe/edgy" neighborhoods close to center city to keep costs down and allow casual beer/dining concepts to flourish. Manhattan has gotten so expensive that beer-centric casual places are priced out, or at the current time, pushed to far corners of Brooklyn.

 

OP, being that you are from NJ, smack dab between the two, I`m sure you have some idea.

But....as rollom pointed out, NYC is certainly getting better and better. It is especially gained steamed in the past few years. The new watering holes have been adding to what Blind Tiger, D.B.A and a couple others laid the groundwork for years ago. In general, it is easier to find at least a few nice taps at most bars these days.

Meanwhile, Philly has a stronger craft beer scene that has been established longer and spreads out further into the suburbs. For quite some time, one would very easily be able to walk into most bars in Philly and at the very least find something from Victory on tap. Or one could also come across choosing between Russian River, Yards, Bells, Voodoo, De Molen, etc in the bars w/ a focus on craft beer. And these `burbs have some of the top options in the northeast, i.e. Capone`s, Teresa`s Next Door, Blue Dog, amongst quite a few more.

 

Our distro is getting much better, but I think Philly still gets more than us.

I also love their "beer store" scene where you can purchase single bottles/cans at store prices and drink them there, which is 3-4x times cheaper than a bar. Like at The Corner Foodery.

 

As a resident of suburban Philly, I don't get into Center City (downtown) and it's adjacent neighborhoods as much as I'd like, but I have to say there are some fantastic and affordable taverns in those areas serving great brews.

 

Philly draft prices are much cheaper and bars are much easier to get to compared to NYC.

A walking pub crawl in Philly is much easier to do than in NYC.

 

Just like I have no knowledge of NYC. I know I do take local, stateside and international as whole to consider/ Now for me personally, I love how Philly is shining with the Italian craft and I only thus far know of one place in NYC that does that. I am planning a Japanese beer tasting and look to travel to NYC to explore some more obscure Japanese craft there.

 

Excellent analysis. I spend time in both cities and suburbs of both cities as well. I am glad that NYC is catching up as for quite some time outside of Brooklyn and below 14th street, it was a wasteland other than a few key bars. In Philly, I spend time in the western and northern suburbs and, in addition to the spots mltobin pointed out, Capones and Forest & Main on the north side and Tired Hands on the west side are incredible spots. In the NY suburbs, there are some decent spots in NJ where you can get Kane and Carton beers and on the north side of the city, where Captain Lawrence and some of the Putnam County breweries are based. Other than that, I have not found much. The Connecticut suburbs are particularly lacking, sad to say, though there are just a few spots that keep it from being a desert.

 

Both of their scenes' prices make my head hurt coming from New Jersey.

 

Philly's Italian craft scene is about to grow: http://www.phillymag.com/restaurant/brigantessa/

That being said, I really don't think you can compare NYC to any other U.S. city. It's an anomoly.

 

Take all of the good beer bars in NYC, and cram them into a ~16 square mile area. Then add another 10 or so, and add several more accessible from your crammed-in area by bus or car. THEN, sprinkle a bunch of great bars and brewpubs in the suburbs around the city, also easily accessible by bus, car, or train, and you have Philly.

The scene here is also more mature. We've been doing craft beer here since way before craft beer was cool. When Monk's Cafe first opened, there was no bar like it anywhere in the country, and they were really the first people to try selling stuff like Tripels and Gueuze to American beer drinkers. In the late 80s and 90s, people here actually knew who the other Michael Jackson was, and would turn out in droves to meet him and hear him speak.

My impression of NYC from the mid-Aughts is that it was something of a craft backwater. They have come a long way and NYC is now home to several world-class beer bars, but it's still nothing compared to the Philly scene. Here, you can literally walk to a dozen or more craft beer bars and not go more than a couple miles. I don't know if there is anywhere quite like it in the world in that regard; I mean sure, in any popular square in Brussels or Antwerp, you walk 50 feet and you've just walked by 10 different places that will serve you world-class Belgian ales, but the idea of bars that specifically cater to drinking craft beer from all over the world is not that common.

 

I'm as pro-Philly as you get, but that's a bit of a stretch. Monk's opened in 1997.

 

Until Tired Hands for some ungodly reason decides to move to NYC , we will always have the better scene.

 

Actually here's a Brooklyn bar crawl I came up with:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/weekend-trip-to-nyc.151163/#post-2140480

 

I'm aware of when Monk's opened. Tom started importing Belgian beer here in the 80's, but there was no place in the U.S. devoted to Belgian beer until Monk's opened in 1997. I'm sure the beer was available somewhere, but Monk's popularized the idea of Belgian beer as an alternative to mass-produced American lagers. It's what really started selling Belgian ales to American beer drinkers. Monk's and Tom Peters and others on the Philly beer scene are also credited for saving the traditional Belgian gueuze industry, for trying (successfully, obviously) to sell these beers in the U.S.