Samuel Adams Chocolate Bock

My brother gave me a few beers for Hanukkah but I've been remiss in actually drinking them and trying to make up for that now. I started with the bottle of Samuel Adams Chocolate Bock.

Light chocolate nose with a hint of fruit. Nice body on it, not too thin. Started with some chocolate, then some slight cherry notes, and finishing with a bit of cocoa. The chocolate flavors grew as I drank more and it was quite enjoyable throughout. I can see some people not liking the way the chocolate presented itself but I liked it.

Philly Beer Geek Semifinals at the Manayunk Brewery

After my triumphant win (okay okay stumbling win) at Time Restaurant in the Philly Beer Geek contest, I was on my way to the Manayunk Brewery for the semifinals on Tuesday May 24th. I was pretty excited since I figured I'd get to meet a lot of cool people, the beer at the brewery is pretty good and I don't get there often enough. As I said yesterday, though, the contest didn't go so well for me but I'll get to that in a bit and the night itself was fun up until the end anyway.

Nodding Head

Jo and I hadn't been to Nodding Heading in a long time so we decided last night was a good night to change that.  Nodding Head is a brewpub in Philadelphia between 15th and16th on Sansom St.  Someone from my home town is actually a brewer there now so I'm trying to convince my friend to visit so she can introduce me.

It's sort of hard to find as it's upstairs from a different restaurant and the door is really nondescript.  (So nondescript they just have a piece of paper with their name on it tacked to the door.)  There's two decent signs, but if you aren't looking for it you'll probably walk by it.

Still, it's one of my favorite places in the city because the bar is pretty large, the food is really good (since it's owned by the same people the menu is similar to Monk's and Belgian Cafe, just a little smaller), and their beer is excellent.  In fact, I thought the beer last night was the best their beer has been since I've been going (8 years at this point, on and off maybe?)