You Sly Fox, You

Happy belated Memorial Day! I think this was the first year that we didn’t have any BBQ’s or parties or firm plans in place for the entire weekend!

We decided to play it by ear and just relax. I read in Grid that the town of Phoenixville (out in the ‘burbs) has a cute farmer’s market on Saturdays, so we decided to hike out there and check it out. (If you don’t read Grid, you must. It is basically the coolest publication to come out of Philly in awhile ever.)

We had to return the rest of our wedding booze to the wine store first, so we ended up getting to the farmer’s market about 15 minutes before it ended. This turned out to be awesome because not only was the live music still jamming, but all of the vendors gave us great deals since they were about to close up shop. I forgot to take pictures, but we picked up the most delicious (sesame semolina) bread I’ve ever tasted. It was doughy and perfect and totally worth the 45 minute trip back for more. We also picked up some mixed greens, a nice mild and nutty cheese, some plants and flowers and a pound of oyster mushrooms.

If that had been our only reason for heading out there, it may have been a bit of a wasted trip (except for the bread!) but while we were out there in honor of the start of Philly Beer Week, we decided to stop at Sly Fox for lunch. Sly Fox is one of my absolute favorite local breweries so I was really excited to check it out. Upon first impression, I was pretty disappointed. Mostly because it was in a strip mall! (who knew?)

We settled on a table outside and gave the beer list a look-see.

Andrew was going to give the maibock a try, since he just brewed his own version and wanted to compare, but they were out. (Sly Fox names it's maibock for the winner of it's annual goat races. This year its the Dax maibock. He won last year, too. He's the only repeat winner ever.) I decided on a flight of the Helles, Royal Weiss, Pils, IPA and the Saison. Here’s the thing, kids. Sly Fox has the second best Saison I have EVER had (top honors go to Saison Dupont. If you haven’t had this, go get yo’self some stat. Thank me later.) The Sly Fox Saison VOS is smooth and lemony with hints of clove and a nice hoppy finish. Totally drinkable all year long.

I can’t remember what was in Andrew’s flight and that’s because when he went inside to use the bathroom, they had a whole bunch of available beers on a chalkboard inside that were not on the other beer list! Super big fail, Sly Fox. So he ordered a bunch of beers off of that list and then couldn’t remember what they were. But here’s what they looked like:

My flight is on the left, his on the right.

I like to drink beer. Andrew likes to “experience” it.

I didn’t take pictures of our food (taco salad for me and a cuban sandwich for him), but it was okay. The beer was definitely the highlight.

We took home some 750’s and then went to watch the Flyers lose in game 1. Whatever.

Next up: Philly Beer Week! I’m not sure how much of this we will actually celebrate this year , since the cost of events has SKYROCKETED in the past two years. We are going to the International Great Beer Festival on Saturday (we got half price tickets. There is no way I would pay $50 to spend 4 hours waiting in line for sips of beer with a bunch of sweaty drunk people. But for $25, I will.)

What can I say? I’m cheap!

10 Days until we leave for our honeymoon to GREECE!!!