In July I will be visiting Philadelphia for my first time. I wanted to get some early suggestions for great beer bars, breweries, and places to buy beers even though I believe there are weird purchasing laws. Thanks. On a side note when I get closer to my trip I will post for an IP trade. I have things like rr beatification, cascade sang noir and sang royal.
Not a local but have done quite a few bars in Philly. Was there 2 weeks ago and popped to the recently opened Boilermakers (from the folks behind the Farmers Cabinet). Really enjoyed this bar - 28 taps from around the US (and some from Europe I think?) downstairs, 12 taps from PA upstairs. Happy hour (4 till 6) was good, cheap food and the PA beers all at $3 from memory during HH. I tagged this on to a mini pub crawl of Jose Pistolas, Vargas then the Boilermakers, all 2 or 3 blocks apart.
http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/visiting-philly.21147/ http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/philly-this-weekend.20367/ Your question really does come up pretty frequently, and the recommendations don't generally vary all that much. As you can see from these threads, there are a lot of great beer bars in Philly. Also, RR beers are distributed in SEPA/Philly, so I'm not sure how much interest there will be for IP trades for RR sour beers. Cascade is also distributed in SEPA/Philly, but the selection is pretty limited, and in the past none of the BA aged sours have been available. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if you find some folks insterested in trading for the sang royal and sang noir. Have fun!
