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Book Review: ‘Joe Sixpack’s Philly Beer Guide’ & Why American Beer Is So Lousy

01asixpack.jpgIn the interests of full disclosure, I have been drinking beer since I was 14 and Don Russell, the author of Joe Sixpack’s Philly Beer Guide, is a former colleague and old friend. Oh, and I’m a terrible beer snob.

My first taste of beer was not a secretive swig from a quart bottle of Miller High Life behind my junior high school but a Heinecken from a German uncle’s amply stocked beer refrigerator with his full approval. And so from the outset of my 40-plus year love affair with beer I was hooked on fuller bodied European brews and never developed a taste for watered down American brands.

Don Russell is a consummate journalist with whom I labored for many years at the Philadelphia Daily News, a street-smart tabloid that dispatched him to Phillies game in a toilet known as Veterans Stadium on a cold April day in 1998 with a notebook and measuring cup to check out a rumor that concession stand workers were short pouring beers.

The front-page headline the next day said it all:

SQUEEZE PLAY ON TAP:

Suds Fans Cheated 2 oz. Per Cup At Vet

Adding Up To Big Bucks

Wrote Russell with appropriate indignation:

“In a town where beer is a fundamental part of baseball lore . . . failing to give an honest pour is worse than striking out with the bases loaded.

“It’s un-American.”

And so was launched the career of Joe Sixpack, who has gone on to become an award-winning beer columnist (it’s a tough job but somebody has to do it) and now the man behind Philly Beer Guide, a delightfully written and highly informative book on all things Philadelphia and beer.

Please click here to read more at Kiko’s House.



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5 Responses to “Book Review: ‘Joe Sixpack’s Philly Beer Guide’ & Why American Beer Is So Lousy”

  1. DLS says:

    It's safe for you to enter the site now, Shaun.

    http://www.yuengling.com/

  2. Andy says:

    Well Shaun, you've just made it hard to criticize you at any point in the future. I'm a beer snob too.

  3. Rudi says:

    The Lite crowd would hurl if they tried a weissbier with it's floating yeast particles. Give the US consumer a bland piss colored beer sold by a couple of bimbos.
    http://www.germanbeerguide.co.uk/dunkel.html

    The term “dunkel” is also applied to dark top-fermented wheat beers (weissbiers) such as Franziskaner Dunkel Hefe-Weissbier and Erdinger Weissbier Dunkel. Schneider Weisse is half way between an ordinary Weiss and a Dunkel. These include a yeast sediment that should be swirled in the last part of the bottle and poured into the glass. The tastes often include toffee, nuts, spicy hops, chocolate and perhaps a little coffee.

  4. yetanothermoderatevoice says:

    I moved to this area (actually New Castle Country, DE) from Joe's stomping grounds where I favored San Marcos based Stone Brewery's IPA. Currently I am favoring Dogfish Head's 90 Minute IPA.

    Based your obviously in-depth knowledge, is there a better local brew available in bottles?

  5. DLS says:

    You want (real) beer, be sure to visit the Pacific Northwest sometime.

    http://oregonbeer.org/

    http://www.washingtonbeer.com/

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