BUSY BEE CAFE

Posted Tuesday June 22nd, 2010. 

Obsessed.  Consumed.  Call us whatever you want.  We’re ok with it.  We LOVE beer.  That’s why it was perfectly normal for Chris to ask Woody if he wanted to drive to Philadelphia and back in 24 hours to attend a lambic “summit” during Philly beer week.  It was also perfectly normal for Woody to say yes.

We were thirsty for ideas for Raleigh Beer Week.  So Woody, who had to work that night, bought the lambic tickets, booked a room, and packed the car.  We grabbed Penny (Woody’s girlfriend) and Drew, the manager who creates all your favorite drinks at Foundation, and took off at 1am.  Once in Philly, the great beer began flowing with an Ommegang event at Ladder 15.  The feature was Oxtail cheesesteaks with cheese that had been soaked in Ommegang Abbey for a week!  We also ran into Phil Leinhart, the Ommegang brewmaster we met last year at the brewery.  Next we headed to Grace’s Tavern for an event featuring Tomme Arthur and Lost Abbey.  Lost Abbey is a small California brewery producing world class beers that are not available in NC.  Tomme and his brewer were taking it easy as they had about 14 hours worth of events lined up that day.  They were nice enough to talk with us over a beer while we also realized that we had about 12 more hours of events ourselves.

More after the jump. 

We headed for a quick bite to eat and also in search of our “old” friend Sam from Dogfish.  Upon arriving at Nodding Head brewery we were disappointed to find out that Sam’s event was private.  Several disappointed fans walked away sadly.  We walked right in.  It was a great event with Sam and Tomme Arthur featuring vintage beers from their respective breweries.  We stayed for a few minutes before catching a cab to the University of Pennsylvania for the lambic summit.  The Penn Museum’s amazing Egyptian room was quickly filled by about 100 eager fans.  The panel included Armand Debelder from Drie Fonteinen, Frank Boon of Brouwerij Boon, and Jean Van Roy of Brasserie Cantillon.  Basically, the 3 most important people in the lambic world all in the same room to teach us about what they do.  We sampled 11 of the world’s greatest lambics, including an Oude Geuze from 1999.  The panel was lively and sometimes heated, but all in all amazingly informative.

Our next stop was Monk’s Café, a world renowned beer institution.  We settled in to a table to share 5 Lost Abbey beers on draft:  brandy barrel Angel’s Share, bourbon barrel Angel’s Share, 2009 Carnevale, Duck Duck Gooze, and vintage Duck Duck Gooze.  We met with the very friendly Tom Peters, owner of Monk’s before heading to another of his establishments, Eulogy.  The draft list was amazing:  Russian River Pliny the Elder and Consecration, Rodenbach Grand Cru, Tournay Black, De Dochter Van de Korenaar Finesse, etc, etc.

There was time for one more stop and we decided to let Unkie Drew pick the place.  He chose Franklin Mortgage and Investment, a fantastic cocktail lounge.  We had one last drink before heading to Geno’s for a cheesesteak to nourish Unkie Drew so he wouldn’t be so fussy.

Of course, we couldn’t head home without purchasing some bottles for our personal stash so we hit up the local stores, including Woody’s favorite store on the east coast, State Line Liquors in Elkton, MD.

All in all, a very inspiring trip.  Even Unkie Drew is excited for Raleigh Beer Week.  Stay tuned for lots of great news on Raleigh Beer Week events!