Free Library Blog - Posts by Daniel S.

Celebrate Philly Beer Week at the Free Library

Daniel S. — 2013-05-20T10:59:00-05:00

2013 marks the 6th annual Philly Beer Week. What began as a “what if discussion” between a Daily News reporter and some bar owners has now grown into an annual event with more than 250 participating organizations and more than 1,000 events. To the best of our knowledge, Philly Beer Week was the first city-wide week long celebration of craft beer. In the six years since its founding, more than 100 cities have followed our lead.

This year the Free Library is proud to be able to declare ourselves the Official Library of Beer Week. We’re celebrating by not just offering a great selection of information resources on beer history, beer tasting, and making your own beer--we're also hosting several special events! Check out the following activities:

Brewed in Philly: Come to the second floor of Parkway Central any time between May 31 and June 30 to catch a glimpse into local beer history in this exhibition featuring historic maps, documents, and images from the Free Library’s Collections. Informative and interesting, Brewed in Philly is a great place to stop for a breather between all the PBW events you are planning on attending in Fairmount and Logan Square. Local beer historian Rich Wagner contributed his expertise, and items from his personal collection for this special exhibition. See more images from our collection in the online exhibition.

Meet the Hammer of Glory: May 31, 4:40 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. This year the Free Library is a stop on the Hammer of Glory Relay. The Hammer of Glory, as seen here being wielded by Mayor Michael Nutter, is the official symbol of Beer Week. Every year Beer Week begins with the Hammer (or HOG, for short) taking an epic voyage around Philadelphia that ends at Opening Tap--the official opening event of Beer Week. This year the HOG will make a stop at Parkway Central. Take a picture of yourself and your friends with the Hammer at the Library and tweet it to us @freelibrary or post it to us on our Facebook page. Free Library of Philadelphia librarians will be taking the Hammer from Parkway Central to The Kite and Key by book truck, where you can join in for the Troeg’s Opening Tap Tailgate with limited edition beers and representatives from Troeg's Brewing.

Browse and Brews: June 5, 6:00-8:00 p.m. Join the Raven Society and special guests for a Library fundraiser that pairs beer, food, learning, and history. The event will feature beer generously donated by Manayunk Brewing Company, Philadelphia Brewing Company, Saint Benjamin Brewing, and Yards Brewing Company paired with food from Diverse Catering. There will also be a variety of local beer experts on hand to answer any questions you might have about beer, including George Hummel and Nancy Rigberg from Home Sweet Homebrew and local beer historian Rich Wagner. Tickets are $30, $20 for Ravens Members, and $10 for designated drivers. Purchase here.

It's Teen Tech Week!

Daniel S. — 2013-03-08T09:53:00-05:00

March 10-16 is Teen Tech Week @ The Free Library of Philadelphia and we’re calling on all Philadelphia teens to take a minute to check in at their Library or Hot Spot. We have tons of fun programs this week all around the city from robotics to gaming. But you don’t need to come to an event to participate in Teen Tech Week. You can explore our website, to learn a new language with Mango, find us on Facebook and Twitter, check out a book about building robots, or just use one of our computers to message a friend.

Here’s some fun stuff coming up this week:

Monday at 4:00 p.m. - Gaming at Holmesburg

Tuesday at 3:30 p.m.- Teen Tuesdays goes Tech at Parkway Central

Thursday at 3:30 p.m - Make Thursdays breaks out the iPads at Parkway Central

Friday at 3:00 p.m. - Gaming at Whitman

Friday at 3:30 p.m. - Teens Only in the Blackwell Regional Computer Lab

Whether it's at the library or over the internet, this is a great week to geek out on technology at the Library!

Teen Poetry Slam!

Daniel S. — 2013-03-05T11:58:00-05:00

Every year, teen poets and spoken word artists come together to blow us away with their words and performances-- Teen Poetry Slam returns to the Free Library on Friday, April 5!

If you’re coming out to perform, this is what you have to know:

• Performers must attend a high school within the Philadelphia city limits.

• Performers must be prepared to present twice.

• Poems must be performed, not read.

• Performances are limited to 1 ½ minutes.

• No props or audio

• Keep it clean!

• Registration is open NOW: e-mail teenpoetry@freelibrary.org or call 215-686-5415

• Registration deadline is April 1, 2013, at 5:00 p.m.

Prizes: 1st Prize: $150, 2nd Prize: $100, 3rd Prize: $75.

If you’re coming out to listen, here’s what you need to know: Philadelphia teens can bring it! If you have never attended Teen Poetry Slam before, make this the year you come out. Having attended three years in a row I never cease to be amazed at the level of talent and passion that appears on that stage. Mark your calendar -- April 5, 3:30 p.m. You will not be disappointed.

Spend Valentine's Day with Someone who Appreciates You for Your Bookshelves

Daniel S. — 2013-01-18T09:11:00-05:00

If you’re reading this blog, you probably know that the Library is a great place to go when you’re looking for something. It’s also a great place to go if you’re looking for someone.

Last February, the Free Library did a series of Literary Speed Dating events that over 100 people participated in and resulted in 81 matches. Everyone had so much fun that we’re doing it again this year.

Speed Dating at the Free Library is for people who love adventure, love love, and love books. So bring a book with you that you loved or hated or just finished as an ice breaker.

It’s free; all you have to do is register via e-mail:

Wednesday, February 6, 2013, 5:30 p.m.: Speed Dating for people in their 20s and 30s, Walnut Street West Library. To register, e-mail Dan at ryand@freelibrary.org
Wednesday, February 6, 2013, 6:00 p.m.: Speed Dating for people in their 20s and 30s, Parkway Central Library, Room 108. To register, e-mail Aurora at deshauteursa@freelibrary.org.
Monday, February 11, 2013, 6:00 p.m.: Speed Dating for people in their 40s and 50s, Parkway Central Library, Room 108. To register, e-mail Aurora at deshauteursa@freelibrary.org.

If Speed Dating seems a little fast for you, check out Online Dating 101 at Lucien Blackwell West Philadelphia Regional on Wednesday, February 6 at 6:00 p.m. Anthropologist and online dating expert Kat Richter will help you get your profile out there to start meeting new people online.

This February we hope to see you at the Free Library L’amour!

In Memoriam: Michael McGonigle

Daniel S. — 2012-11-19T15:25:00-05:00

The Free Library was saddened to hear about the passing of Michael McGonigle, film lecturer at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Michael was very generous with his time and talents and donated his time to lecture about film at the Free Library often. Some memorable lectures he has given at the Free Library include “The Titanic in Film,” “Native Americans in Film,” and “Immigrants and the American Dream in Cinema.” Michael was a featured lecturer during our annual One Book, One Philadelphia events and he was eagerly looking forward to dealing with the themes of this year's book, The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Otsuka.

Michael’s formal schooling ended after one year at Temple University, but he always had a love of knowledge and research. His passion for self-education made him a strong supporter of institutions like the Free Library of Philadelphia. His lectures always inspired further research, which he encouraged by handing out bibliographies further reading. Sometimes he went even further. For his lecture on the Titanic he included a recipe so that after learning about Titanic, participants could go home and prepare the last meal that was served on the Titanic.

We will miss him and extend our condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.

For more information on Michael, see his obituary in this Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer.

October 26 is Philly Photo Day!

Daniel S. — 2012-10-22T15:49:00-05:00

On Friday, October 26, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center will host their third annual Philly Photo Day.

On Philly Photo Day, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center asks everyone in Philadelphia to take a photograph somewhere within the city limits and submit it to them over the internet. Philadelphia Photo Arts Center will print and hang every single picture submitted to create a unique exhibition capturing a day in the life of Philadelphia.

Philly Photo Day has three rules:

1. The photograph must be taken on October 26.

2. The photograph must be taken in Philadelphia.

3. One photograph submission per person.

The Free Library of Philadelphia is proud to be one of the many new community partners for this year’s Philly Photo Day. Are you worried you don’t know enough about photography to take a great picture? Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, with generous support from the Knight Foundation, will be taking Philly Photo Day to the next level this year by sending photographers to locations in the community, with cameras, to teach you the basics of photography like composition and lighting, take you out to shoot photographs and then help you upload them to the Philly Photo Day website. The Free Library will be hosting Photo Day events at the following locations and times:

Parkway Central Library – 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Queen Memorial Library – 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Whitman Branch – 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Frankford Branch – 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Fishtown Branch – 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Northwest Regional – 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Fox Chase Branch - 1:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Bustleton Branch – 1:00 p.m. -4:00 p.m.
Cecil B Moore Branch - 1:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Select photographs will appear on SEPTA trains and busses and on billboards in the city- one might be yours!

If that isn’t enough to get you excited to take a photo, check out this great video, narrated by WHYY’s Marty Moss-Coane:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7BKkeDiTN8&feature=youtu.be

The Free Library's Living Library: Creativity and the Common Good

Daniel S. — 2012-06-18T08:56:00-05:00

The Free Library’s Living Library event is coming up this Wednesday, June 20 at 7:00 p.m. in Room 108 of the Parkway Central Library. At this event, human “books” will be available to be “borrowed” for 15-minute conversations.

This year marks Ed Tettemer's 38th year in the advertising and communications business. Ed was a founding partner of the ad firm Red Tettemer and is the Creative Director of TrackPackPA.com, but that only tells part of the story: He's a writer by trade, a strategic planner by design, and he also has a passion for volunteerism, cooking for the Strathmere Volunteer Fire Company. In his spare time, he’s been known to pick a guitar and even churn out a documentary film.

For a few years in the early 2000s, Kristin Cowperthwaite was sometimes seen in a corset playing a cello for the goth-rock trio Rasputina. Nowadays she’s more likely to be in scrubs. As an Emergency Medicine Physician at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, Kristin sees patients from every possible background and all walks of life. When she’s not saving lives, she’s likely to be found at her community garden or taking areal acrobatics classes at the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts.

Interested in learning more about Ed and/or Kristin? Stop by the Living Library on June 20! Also, check out our card catalog of all “living book” volunteers on Flikr, and read more sneak previews at freelibrary.org/livinglibrary. This free event is open to all and is first come, first served--so come early!

Get Ready for Beer Week

Daniel S. — 2012-05-30T09:00:00-05:00

Philly Beer Week begins this Friday, June 1^st and continues through Sunday, June 10th. To many in our area, especially Philly Beer Geeks, it’s the most exciting ten days of the year. To help get your suds into a lather about Philly Beer Week, here are a few facts you may not already know:

According to its founders, and to The Oxford Companion to Beer, Philly Beer Week was first festival of its kind when it debuted in March 2008. Now more than 50 other cities have followed in our footsteps.
Last year's Beer Week featured more than 1,000 events attended by more than 60,000 people.
Philly Beer Week is operated by Philly Beer Week, Inc., a registered 501(c)(6) non-profit organization, co-chaired by Tom Peters (Monk’s Café) and William Reed (Standard Tap) and executive directed by Joe Sixpack himself, Don Russell.

And how will Philly Beer Week help you turn into a real Beer Geek? There are three steps to becoming a true Beer Geek, and PBW offers opportunities to do them all:

Drink Adventurously. When a Beer Geek sees a list of 20 beers, he or she always tries the beer they’ve never had before.
Know More. A Beer Geek doesn’t stop with tasting beer, she or he follows blogs, reads books and periodicals, and asks questions. A Beer Geek takes the time to read the label on the beer they’re drinking. Want to get started reading more? Pick up free copies of Mid Atlantic Brewing News and Philly Beer Scene wherever great beer is sold (or made). Not enough? Check out some great beer titles from the Library on a variety of subjects, from food pairing suggestions like The Brewmaster’s Table by Brooklyn Brewery’s Garrett Oliver, to Brewing up a Business ,a book full of small business advice from Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione, to A Pint of Plain, Bill Barich’s history of the Irish Pub.
Get Engaged. The true mark of a Beer Geek is taking their love of beer to the next level. They take brewery tours (check out Lew Bryson’s Pennsylvania Breweries for day trip ideas), meet master brewers, and even make their own beer (get started with The Complete Homebrew Beer Book by George Hummel, How to Brew by John Palmer or The Complete Joy of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazian).

Why does the Free Library love Beer Week? Because the Library loves the fact that beer gets even better when you read about it. With that in mind, we’re proud to announce our first ever Beer Week Author Event: George Hummel, author of The Complete Homebrew Beer Book and Rich Wagner, author of Philadelphia Beer: A Heady History of Brewing in the Cradle of Liberty will be at Parkway Central on Wednesday, June 6 at 7:30 p.m. talking about the history of beer making in Philadelphia from Ben Franklin to Tom Kehoe and how to get started making your own beer. This event is made possible with sponsorship by Home Sweet Homebrew.

Senseless Life, or A Year With No Sense of Smell or Taste.

Daniel S. — 2011-09-15T09:31:00-05:00

Written by Helen Azar

May, 2010.

"You should have it back in a few days", I am told by my primary care physician whose office I am sitting in a few days after recovering (sort of) from a particularly bad bout with flu. It has been a couple of weeks since I completely lost my sense of smell. The sensation is not completely new to me - in the past I had quite a few colds which resulted in a very stuffy nose and inability to smell anything for a few days. But my sense of smell always returned fairly soon. This time it feels different, but I am not exactly sure how or why. I have not been able to smell anything at all for almost 2 weeks, and it does not feel "normal". But presumably the doctor knows better, so I wait. And wait.

Another week passes, and … nothing. The doctor tells me that if my sense of smell does not come back in a few more days, I should make an appointment with a specialist. It takes another week to get the appointment. So here I am, at the ENT office in Philadelphia's Jefferson Hospital 4 weeks after I completely lost all sense of smell. And I am now being told that I should have come sooner since I may have missed the "window of opportunity", when a course of prednisone may have worked more effectively.

The ENT seems unfazed by my distress about the fact that I can't smell anything at all. He is nice enough, but tells me that he sees so many people with this condition every year (“a couple of hundred patients per season” as he puts it, and makes it sound like it’s not really such a big deal). Could some nasal sprays I used for stuffy nose and allergies have caused this? “Impossible”, he says. Do you think acupuncture could help me? (I just read an article about the use of acupuncture for anosmia). ”Nonsense”. What can I do to get my sense of smell back? “Hard to say, everyone is different. Based on statistics you have perhaps a 30-40% chance of recovering”. 30 percent? That sounds really bad. He tells me that the virus tried to attack my brain (he actually used the term "insult") and that this was my body’s way of protecting the brain from the virus. A defense mechanism. Somehow this doesn’t make me feel that much better, although I do realize that things could have been much worse. I have been diagnosed with ANOSMIA.

I am told that I need to have a brain MRI to rule out a tumor, or anything else in my brain. It all sounds very sinister and scary. I ask him what can be done in the meantime. "Nothing much… You just have to hope that your olfactory receptors can start regenerating spontaneously. Slowly. Maybe they will and maybe they won't. Keep your fingers crossed. I will prescribe a course of prednisone and some beta-carotene.” Great. I feel discouraged and depressed when I walk out of the clinic. And make an appointment with another ENT for a second opinion. In the meantime, I take the prednisone and beta-carotine. Nothing happens. I also decide to give acupuncture a shot, no matter what the ENT said. Nothing to lose… except a few hundred dollars. And, after 5 acupuncture visits - at $50 a pop - (which I can hardly afford)… nothing.

Meanwhile, “the second opinion specialist” gives me a blind smell test. I can't smell a damned thing, but one of the samples causes my face to flush intensely and I feel a very strange strong tingling sensation ... My guess is that it's lemon. "Ammonia", the doctor tells me. Right under my nose and I smelled NOTHING. I am not encouraged. Food tastes like nothing. Chinatown, where I live, which always had a very specific smell, smells neutral and sterile. Everything smells neutral and sterile, including my cat’s litter box. I feel like I live in a virtual world. I am a foodie and love to cook, which makes this so much worse... I also realize that I can't tell when food is spoiled or when gas is leaking from my stove. I keep burning the food I am cooking, so I have to start setting a kitchen timer every time I turn on the stove. And hundreds of other little things we never think about. Unless we can't smell...

The second specialist puts me on a much stronger dosage of prednisone for a much longer period of time (about a month). My blood sugar goes haywire, I can’t stop eating, I gain 15 pounds, I feel dizzy, but I persevere. I start getting some phantom smells (which according to doc is a “good sign”), and an occasional strange tingling sensation in the back of my skull. Not sure if the latter means anything, but there is definitely a prednisone connection.

I decide to start a Facebook page to air out my frustrations. I call it “Senseless Life: Living with Anosmia” (“anosmia” has become the word of the year). Making posts on my page helps, psychologically. It’s one thing to be told that this is a fairly common condition, but it’s another thing to communicate with people who are experiencing the same thing you are, and hear their own stories. Many visitors come to the page and comment, and I meet other anosmics who understand exactly what I am going through. Some are handling it better than I am, most seem to handle it worse than me. I even find out that a couple of my “real life” and FB friends have either had anosmia in the past or currently have it, and I had no idea until I started talking about it online.

I learn so many things about the condition, things I was completely ignorant of : like the existence of congenital anosmia - people born with no olfactory nerves hence no sense of smell; as well as “head banger" anosmics – those with head injuries which caused them to lose their sense of smell permanently. And then there are those with sinus problems. And so on and so on. My head spins. But I try to keep my sense of humor about the whole thing. It's the only way to deal with it.

The latest ENT is very thorough and wants to test me for every disorder known to man that may possibly be contributing to my anosmia, since my condition seems so severe. I get an MRI, and a catscan, both are negative. I get blood tests and they take so much blood that it keeps coagulating as they move from tube to tube. I pass out and the phlebotomist tells me she had never seen a prescription form where everything was checked off until she saw mine. I even get tested for congenital syphilis, which I now know I don’t have.

I am referred to a consult with an immunologist because they see something in the hundreds of test results that may be an issue. Or not. This is becoming a medical nightmare. But I persevere. I want my sense of smell back!

I am getting a little more desperate every day. I contact Monell Center, where sense of smell is researched, and ask them if they are running any clinical studies. I want to be their guinea pig. But apparently their funding was lost just this year and I would have to pay a grand and half to be seen.

The researcher who responds, Dr. Beverly Cowart, is very nice and gives me some tips. There is no specific treatment for this, she says, but what seems to work for some people is neurofeedback. Train your brain to "learn" to smell again, even if you can’t smell what you are sniffing. Assemble a kit of non-irritating scents that are different from each other and sniff them every single day in order to stimulate the regeneration of my lost olfactory receptors. Sounds good to me. I use 5 scents: vanilla extract, lemon extract, cumin, Earl Grey tea, and coffee, and do it religiously for about 6 months… every single day… just before going to bed. I even take my "smell kit" with me when I go away. I can smell nothing, but I keep sniffing away.

And suddenly, one day I think I can smell coffee in my smell kit! But it doesn’t smell like coffee. It smells like nothing I can really describe, nothing I ever smelled before. At first I am not even sure if it's real, but I keep sniffing it and smelling it. A little later I start getting whiffs of the same scent here and there, occasionally, outside. No coffee in site. Strange. Then I figure it out: cigarettes! This is what cigarettes smell like to me now, whenever I pass by a smoker in the street. Like coffee, which does not smell like coffee should smell. I feel like I am really making progress now, and am very encouraged by this.

Little by little, I start catching fast whiffs of other things, but they all have the same scent, everything that I can smell, smells the same to me, and not at all what it 's supposed to smell like. But the Monell scientist predicted this, so it’s all good.

One of the first things I was able to “taste” was … Rice Krispies cereal! Which prior to my anosmia didn’t taste much like anything. Suddenly the cereal has a relatively strong taste, but again nothing that I can describe or compare to. Rice Krispies becomes my preferred meal. Gradually, and very slowly (too frustratingly slowly), my sense of smell is returning. At first, everything smells the same and not at all like it should smell. Then, very slowly and subtly some differences appear. For a long time scents are completely distorted. And again, this was predicted by Dr Cowart of Monell.

September, 2011.

It has now been a year and four months since that horrendous virus took away my sense of smell, and although it is hard for me to say with absolute certainty, I think that I am about 90% recovered. It's hard to say because the recovery is so subtle and so gradual. Some things still smell distorted but most are not., and I can smell everything that has a scent, even a subtle one. I can’t tell exactly what helped me recover most, if anything, and neither can the doctors. It may have been the prednisone (which is supposed to give your olfactory receptors a regenerating jolt, and then let them do their work), it may have been the neurofeedback... but I think it was the combination of those two, or perhaps the synergistic effect of it all when I threw everything and the kitchen sink at my disorder - out of complete desperation.

Although I would love to figure it out, right now I am just happy that I have recovered enough to taste food again. And that I no longer have to live in a virtual sterile world. In fact, my sense of smell seems a lot more sensitive than it ever was, but I am not sure if it’s just relative to not having any at all for a year. Often these days I feel like a bloodhound, when semi-consciously I start sniffing out every little scent in the street, which my brain perceives as separate waves of smells... but it’s all good.

One thing I do know for sure is that I will never take my sense of smell for granted again, and that I have come out of this experience with a lot more awareness and knowledge about the strange condition called “anosmia” than I had a year and a half ago. And that I would like to share this awareness with others - after all, so many people have never even heard of anosmia, or realize that it can happen to ANYONE. And how much it can change the quality of one’s daily life.

I met Molly Birnbaum in NYC at a book conference, exactly a year after I lost my sense of smell: in May of 2011. Molly was a young aspiring chef when she was hit by a car while jogging, and among other things, completely lost her sense of smell. Since she could no longer taste food, she was forced to give up her dream of becoming a professional chef. And she published a book about it. I read the book in one day, and these are not even the types of books I normally read. I could not put it down. Even my mother read it--all of it--and she usually only reads romances. So I decided to invite Molly to speak at the Free Library of Philadelphia about her experiences and her book, and she accepted. Hers is the upcoming Free Library author event, on September 21, 2011.

Although I am now well on my way to complete recovery, having experienced anosmia first hand I would love for this book event to be a step towards greater public awareness about this condition, awareness so badly needed because anosmia is so rarely talked about, yet so commonly experienced.

"Senseless Life: Living With Anosmia" Facebook page: www.facebook.com/pages/Senseless-Life-Living-with-Anosmia-no-sense-of-smelltaste/133551783336495

Monell Chemical Senses Center: http://www.monell.org/

Anosmia Foundation: www.anosmiafoundation.com/

"The Ubearable Absense of Smelling" by Mick O'Hare: http://personal.ecu.edu/wuenschk/MickArticle.pdf

Cracking the Barley Code: How the Free Library Helped Me Become a Homebrewer

Daniel S. — 2011-08-29T09:51:54-05:00

When I turned 21, I knew a few things about beer: it was generally the color of straw, it was carbonated, served cold, contained a mild amount of alcohol and I thought it tasted ok. Then something happened.

It started with Guinness: It was imported from Ireland. It was black. It wasn’t all that carbonated. It didn’t remind me much of what I had been calling beer. And I liked it.

Soon, I would walk into a deli or a bar and see all sorts of new terminology: hefewiezen (German style wheat beer), lambic (Belgian style fruit beer), India Pale Ale (a British beer brewed with extra high doses of hops). It seemed that beer came in flavors. And I wanted to try them all.

Soon I was a bit of a beer aficionado. I knew I liked all sorts of beers. I knew they could be drastically different from one another. I knew that the “flavors” were “styles” and usually came from a long brewing tradition in a particular region. I figured out that an ESB was an Extra Special Bitter, which is an English style of ale. What I still wanted to know was what made it “extra special.”

The reason I started homebrewing was that I wanted to know how beer works: where the flavors and the textures and the smells come from. I figured the best way to find out was to make some. I bought a kit from a homebrew store with the necessary ingredients and equipment to make beer. With the equipment came a single page of instructions: ten easy steps to making your own beer.

Well, it wasn’t that easy. But I did get beer. And it wasn’t too bad. I was pretty sure there was information I was missing. So I bought a book with lots of detailed instructions. And my beer got better. I got better at the brewing process, I bought better equipment, I asked lots of questions at the homebrew store and I read more books.

Since then the library has been a major part of my brewing process. I’ve read many books cover to cover and used countless more to research recipes. I’ve now brewed over 100 gallons of beer at home. I can’t say that they’ve all been what I thought they’d be, but every time I brewed I got beer and had a good time doing it.

If you are interested in how barley, hops, water and yeast end up as beer, check out some of our great books on the subject like The Complete Joy of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazian, Extreme Brewing by Sam Calagione,or Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher. You can also come to Parkway Central on August 31 at 7:30pm for a workshop with George Hummel. George is the owner of Home Sweet Homebrew, a homebrew supply store in Philadelphia, a journalist and the author of The Complete Homebrew Beer Book. We will raffle a copy of the book at the event!