Oh Ale No

Is the PLCB creating a culture of beer fear?

by Brian Howard

Something pretty amazing has happened over the last decade here. Philadelphia, once the home of Schmidt's, has morphed into a world-class beer town. And I'm not saying that just because there are now breweries, and bars that serve great beer, and thousands of people who love it. There's no better evidence of Philadelphia's reinvigorated standing as the East Coast beer capital than that each year during Philadelphia's now-sprawling summer Beer Week, breweries from far and wide will send kegs and sixtels and firkins of new and rare beers to Philadelphia. And we will go nuts for it.

It's one of those priceless, unquantifiable economic/cultural developments. Which is why last weekend's Philly Beer Weekend (a warm-up for the big June bash) was troubling. The Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement raids on three Philly beer bars and a distributor earlier this month — during which officials confiscated beer they believed had not been registered with the state — cast a pall over the Founders Brewing Co. night at the South Philly Tap Room where I found myself Friday. There were plans, as often happens at these things, for Michigan-based Founders to send a keg of something super-rare. In this instance, it was to be Kentucky Breakfast Stout, which, as per the brewery's Web site, is "an imperial stout brewed with a massive amount of coffee and chocolates then cave-aged in oak bourbon barrels for an entire year."

That special-occasion keg never made it to tap, because the SPTR was understandably freaked out over a possible crackdown. John Longacre, who owns the SPTR, as well as across-the-street café/would-be bottle shop Brew (and is president of the Philadelphia Bar Owners Association), admits that the SPTR pulled several Founders kegs, as well as offerings from other breweries, over concerns that they might not be registered.

"We had to get rid of it," says Longacre. "We play by the rules and whatever we perceived to be unlicensed, we immediately took off and sent back. We do everything by the book, no matter how irrational the book is."

Longacre's battles with the PLCB are well-known — Brew's liquor license transfer has been swimming in red tape for more than a year^(*). "It's really very simple. The bullshit bureaucracy of the PLCB has created a market where we don't have the ability to offer the best value, the best product overall, to the consumer. It's an absolute disgrace."

Which is bad news for Philly beer lovers. The Founders night was not an isolated incident. Cherry Hill's Flying Fish rescheduled the release of its Exit 16 Wild Rice Double IPA, afraid that the paperwork wasn't filed and its kegs would be seized. And if a culture of fear is what results, where brewery nights and beer festivals devolve into paranoia, then the PLCB will be responsible for robbing Philly of a lot more than a few kegs of beer.

(bhoward@citypaper.net)

Join Lew Bryson's "Abolish the PLCB" Facebook group.