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SLY FOX & WILLIAM REED SET THE STANDARD FOR PHILLY BEER WEEK Sly Fox Brewing's participation in the 10-day Philly Beer Week extravaganza which begins on Friday March 7 will be highlighted by the introduction of Standard Ale, a special cask-conditioned new beer created by brewmaster Brian O'Reilly and Standard Tap co-founder William Reed to mark the multi-event celebration, which lists more than 150 different activities as of this writing (that's William working while Brian watches in the photo at left). Reed was the head brewer at the old Samuel Adams Brew house in downtown Philadelphia in the late '90s and founded Standard Tap with partner Paul Kimport when the pub closed. Standard Tap is considered by many experts to be a driving force in the gastropub movement in this country and was recently listed as #11 on Philadelphia Magazine's list of the city's top 50 restaurants. The partners also created and own Johnny Brenda's, one of the city's hippest neighborhood bars and music venues. Sly Fox beers are always part of the, um, standard rotation at both. Standard Ale will be on the hand pumps at both the Tap and Brenda's throughout Philly Beer Week. The beer will make its suburban debut at Sly Fox Phoenixville on Friday, March 21, as the featured beer for Third Friday Firkin Fest. For our calendar listing and contact information, visit the website.
MASSEY WINS PRELIMINARY "BEER GEEK" ROUND AT SLY FOX PHOENIXVILLE, WILL COMPETE IN CHAMPIONSHIP FINALS AT JOHNNY BRENDA'S ON MARCH 13 Massey, who is a Sly Fox regular and the defacto head of the infamous Monday Tasting Group, is also an award-winning homebrewer, taking second place at the 2008 War of the Worts for his Belgian Quad spiced with star anise. He will be pouring his Flemish Red ale at Jose Pistolas on Monday March 10 for the Extreme Beer/Hombrew Philly Beer Week event with Dogfish Head. Runners-up in the Phoenixville round were Jim Derr and Mike Baldasano. The 2008 Philly Beer Geek will be selected in a championship round to be held at Johnny Brenda's on Thursday, March 13. The winner, "the individual who exhibits the greatest universal knowledge and passion for Philadelphia Beer," will receive a Grand Prize of more than $1,000 in gift certificates, cash and prizes, and will be chosen by a celebrity panel of judges consisting of Carol Stoudt of Stoudt's Brewing, Tom Dalldorf of Celebrator Beer News, Suzanne Woods of Philly's In Pursuit of Ale Women's Beer Club, Larry Horwitz of Iron Hill Brewery - North Wales, Dave Alexander of the Brickskeller in Washington DC, Tom Kehoe of Yards Brewing and local beer writer Jack Curtin. Hosts for the event will be Jason Harris of Keystone Homebrew and Carolyn Smagalski, the "Beer Fox" of BellaOnline.
SLY FOX RECORDS IMPRESSIVE GROWTH IN 2007 SALES AND PRODUCTION, PLUS AWARDS As reported on our website News Page, Sly Fox Brewing Company recorded a 29.3% overall increase in production in 2007 and moved to just shy of $1 million in total beer sales. Total barrelage was 4,643, up from 3,600 in 2006. Specifically, 4,290 barrels of the total were brewed in Royersford, a 32% increase, and 353 barrels were brewed in the Phoenixville brew pub, a slight increase over 2006. In terms of dollars, sales broke down to 52% draught, 22% bottles, 26% cans in the company's second full year of packaging in addition to draught. "A big key to our performance was the change in wholesalers to Origlio here in the Philadelphia market and Manhattan in the New York City market, two of the largest and best wholesalers in the East," says managing partner John Giannopoulos. "To have that type of higher profile distribution allowed us to penetrate the market a little bit deeper and faster. We're going to concentrate our efforts on growing the existing Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey markets even further in the immediate future. We have no plans to enter any new markets in 2008, except maybe to fill in some areas in Pennsylvania where we're not represented, perhaps make some changes in the western part of the state. We will eventually expand, of course, but we want to do it right and not overreach our capabilities to meet demand. Our long term goal is to be at 10,000 barrels by 2010, which means maintaining about the same rate of growth we had this year..." Read the complete story here. Other news stories recently posted on the page include: United States Beer Tasting Championship honors for two Sly Fox beers and Arrival of the First Geemacher kegs in the U.S. (Geemacher is a partnership created by managing partner John Giannopoulos to help smaller craft brewers purchase kegs in a timely and affordable fashion).
Participants earn lottery tickets at each session and must be present at one of the pubs when the drawing is held. Tickets are dumped into large bins at the pubs and are drawn alternately until a winner is found. Additional prizes are also drawn for throughout the evening and those who have attended ten or more Boot Camp sessions are given free limited edition Boot Camp t-shirts. Complete details can be found here.
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SLY FOX AT PHILLY BEER WEEK, MARCH 7-16 Debut of Standard Ale @ Standard Tap, Friday, Fourth Annual Brewers Plate @ the Independence Visitor Center, Sunday, March 9 Ultimate Beer Trivia at Triumph Brewpub, Monday, March 10 Meet & Greet w/ Brian O'Reilly @ Johnny Brenda's, Tuesday, Self-Guided Center City Pub Crawl, Wednesday, March 12 Pilsner Gala with Lew Bryson @ Triumph Brewpub, Thursday, March 12 Sly Fox & Southampton Cask "n" Cans Night @ Good Dog, Friday,March 14 Chili Cook-Off @ The Khyber, Saturday,March 15 Southampton and Friends night @ Grey Lodge Pub, Saturday, March 15 Real Ale Festival @ Triumph Brewpub, Sunday, March 16 TUD (Totally Unnecessary Drink) @ Fergie's Pub, Sunday, March 16 ANNUAL BOCK FESTIVAL & GOAT RACE @ PHOENIXVILLE, MAY 4 |
It's still not too late to sign up for the annual St. Patrick's Day Boot Camp, held Wednesdays and Thursdays at Sly Fox Phoenixville and Sly Fox Royersford respectively and earn a chance to win a free trip to Ireland in a drawing to be held at both locations on Monday, March 17, St. Patrick's Day.
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Creating Standard Ale
I first met William when I came to this area to help create the doomed New Road brewpub. When I thought about trying to sell some of our beer off premises, William and Scoats of the Grey Lodge Pub were the first people I approached (which is why they are both on our "whatever you want, if it's possible, you get" list to this day). I knew that, because Standard Tap served only local draught beers, I had a good shot there and took him some samples. When he called back a few days later to say "Hey, these are good," we were on our way. Because of his entirely local focus, William usually has two or more of our beers on tap and that made it all work. When I was fired at New Road, William showed up the next day and bought all the beer he could from them and was the last guy in town with New Road William was the first person I called when I came to Sly Fox and wanted to sell beers off-premise as well. He made it all work for us by being a regular customer. Otherwise, we might never have tried it and who knows what might have happened. Knowing he was once the brewer at the old Sam Adams Brew house, I've been bugging him to brew a beer with me almost from the start. Philly Beer Week was finally the event that got him to agree.
The beer will come in at about 5.6% abv. The whole batch was created for the hand pump. None of it was filtered, it was fined in the tank and then we racked it and conditioned it. It's pretty much the way we will do our own cask beers when we get that program running, the way it should be done. I really think people are going to like it.
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You know, when I think about it, William Reed of Standard Tap and Johnny Brenda's may actually be the person most responsible for the growth of Sly Fox from a small, very popular brewpub to a multi-site packing brewery which has enjoyed great growth and acceptance over the last few years.
I want to make it clear that this is William's beer and I just helped him create what he envisioned. He described the beer and told me he wanted this flavor from our ESB, for example, but wanted the alcohol to be a bit different, that sort of thing. He wanted some American hops in the mix. You'll see we're calling it an American ESB in some places, but that's not really what it is, just an easy shorthand.
