Champagne and salty, buttered popcorn. A deep, rich California cab and a medium-rare grilled steak. A plate of fish tacos and a margarita (or three). Some things are just meant to go together. While I’m a bit of a beer snob and can give you food pairings for just about any type of beer, I think beer may be best paired with baseball.

While sitting outside on a perfect summer night at a ballpark, a cold beer in my hand is the perfect accompaniment to the three hour drama that is a baseball game. While my Philadelphia trip was mostly about baseball, its secondary theme was definitely beer. Trying new beers at the games, sampling beers at interesting craft beer bars and breweries, and beers for the hotel. I picked up these beauties shortly after landing and cracked open the definitely non-craft Yuengling first. For me, Yuengling tastes like Philadelphia and brings back all kinds of memories of being in the city in the late 90s and early 2000s.

If I wasn’t sleeping, at a baseball game or on a self-guided public art tour, I was in a craft beer bar doing some sampling. Roy Pitz Barrel House was the first brewery I visited in the city. They specialize in sour beers, and I liked their gose (far left) for its saltiness. My favourite here was their Pintail Pale Ale, a Belgian style pale. It was bracing and hoppy and right up my alley style wise.

Just around the corner from Roy Pitz, I popped into Love City Brewing and quite honestly, fell in love. The tap room was beautiful and welcoming. The staff were the perfect mix of friendly/caustic/sarcastic that Philadelphia has down to a science, and their beers were across the board solid and on-point style-wise. The winner was the one hanging off to the left, a ginger saison that was spicy and fresh.

But what really had me in love with Love City…. their bathrooms encouraged bathroom art with chalkboard walls and there were so many 41-33 scribbles celebrating the Eagles Superbowl victory. I love Philly!

While I’ve said beer pairs best with baseball, I found the options at Citizens Bank Park lacking. There were some larger brewery “craft like” beers that were ok, but I would have liked to see much, much more representation from the outstanding local breweries, many of which are a mere subway stop or two from the stadium.

And speaking of close to the stadium, my supreme favourite brewery visit of the trip was to the taproom at Second District Brewing. Old school rustic environment, small and cozy, and across the board outstanding beers. I’d put three of these four into the truly outstanding category – their Bancroft Beer (a pale ale, far left), their IPA (second from the right), and the best beer of the trip even if it doesn’t pair well with 35C heat – a Vietnamese Coffee stout.

With all the time I’ve spent in Philadelphia, it took me until this trip to venture into the Northern Liberties neighbourhood in search of Urban Village Brewing Company. Another smoking hot day had me almost exclusively looking at lower alcohol, thirst quenching beers. This was a case of the location surpassing the beers. The tap room was gorgeous, food was solid, but most of the beers were only “ok” in my view (but let’s be honest, even an ok beer is a fairly decent life experience). The exception to that was their “CPA” a hoppy pale ale with tastes of pine and grapefruit – it was up there with the best beers of this trip.