Staying Alive

Local bar owners provide advice on surviving Beer Week.

by Drew Lazor

Philly Beer Week (PBW) 2010 starts this Friday, June 4. You might think you're ready, but you're not. Trust us. That's why we've touched base with the folks who know Beer Week best — local bar owners — to develop this handy guide to making it out alive.

PLAN. With this year's grand total of events edging close to 1,000, much of the PBW challenge lies in merely selecting where and when to challenge the rules of good decorum. "It's almost like Disneyland for adults," says 12 Steps Down's Danielle Renzulli, participating in her second Philly Beer Week. "You're not going to do it all." But you are going to do quite a bit, so start at phillybeerweek.org to construct your hit list — the website features a tool called "My Philly Beer Week" that allows you to clearly and concisely organize the debauchery. An iPhone app, available in the iTunes store, will accomplish the same thing on the go; London Grill owner Terry Berch McNally plans on using it to design her own site-specific itinerary.

Backup plans are key, as well. "Have a venue B if venue A is too packed," suggests Chris Fetfatzes of Hawthornes Café.

One more word on planning — don't get too eager and end up with a top-heavy schedule. "There are hundreds of great events, and a lot of good ones at the end of the week," says Brauhaus Schmitz co-owner Doug Hager. "Save a little for the second weekend."

PACE. "Pace yourself, fucking pace yourself," advises Adam Ritter of Beer Week venues Sidecar and Kraftwork. "It's not a race to stupid. It's OK to embrace the buzz. You don't have to race to the red zone." Ritter learned the hard way — last year, he hit Beer Week so hard (both working and reveling) that the mononucleosis he caught and beat as a kid reared its head again and knocked him out of commission for a week.

Fetfatzes concurs. "It's definitely a marathon, not a sprint."

Tom Peters, owner of Monk's and Belgian Café, has seen drinker's enthusiasm result in an early-round K.O. "Don't order a pint of an 11 percent ABV beer when you walk in and rush through it so you can get to your next beer," he says.

HYDRATE. This is a no-brainer — drink tons of water if you're slamming massive amounts of beer — but we're including it here because so many people dismiss this vital detail and wake up with no girlfriends and weird rug patterns on their cheeks. Proper hydration doesn't mean taking a shot glass full of H20 every fifth beer, or slamming a bottle of FIJI before passing out in your shoes. It means drinking an equal amount of water to beer — and spreading it throughout an evening. "It's like rain," says Peters. "A light, steady rain gets absorbed into the ground, while a quick, heavy downpour runs off to the storm drains."

Hager turns to pickle juice as his hydrator of choice (it's said to alleviate cramps), and South Philly Tap Room's John Longacre has his own remedy. "Drink lots of water," he says. "If you don't have any, Miller Lite will work just fine."

BEHAVE. We've all seen our friends do dumb shit under the influence of alcohol, craft-quality or not. Just because Beer Week is a celebration of the stuff doesn't mean you've got carte blanche to act like a moron. "Don't get voted off the island by behaving boorishly," says Peters. "Bar owners are very tolerant and patient people by nature, but there is a limit on what behavior is acceptable."

"Drunk people are stupid people," observes Ritter, who feels that inebriated wahoos sometimes solidify their own inebriated wahoo status unknowingly. "A lot of these people don't realize that these are not session beers," says the bar owner of the ammunition many participants stock. "We've got some 15 to 18 percent beers coming."

Switch up your approach to avoid falling into this high-gravity trap. "Alternate between stronger beer events and session beer [events]," says Hager. "You will not make it out alive if you only focus on crazy-strong beers."

ETC. Some parting, unorganized-but-still-sage advice from our bar-owner experts:

"Don't be a douchebag. Enjoy what beer is all about." —Fetfatzes

"Don't bring credit cards to events. Pay in cash, as if you are gambling." —Longacre

"No shots. Leave that one buddy who insists on a shot of Jameson with every beer at home. You will thank yourself midweek that you laid off the firewater." —Hager

"Go to events in teams. Be sure that each of you orders a different beer and share those amongst your group. That way, you will have an opportunity to taste a wider range of beers at each bar and still be able to visit another venue." —Peters

"When they say last call, listen to them and leave." —McNally

(drew.lazor@citypaper.net)