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Yuengling’s sturdy American image isn’t cultivated through marketing or hype. It’s the real deal: an old American company getting by with perseverance and hard work, and relatively conservative expansions into new territories.

KEY BEER

A cult beer in the Northeast, Yuengling Premium Lager is an affable amber sipper of 4.4% ABV with a touch of light caramel sweetness and faint citrus from hops on the tail end. Ideally, this beer is consumed while cleaning crab, fishing, or shooting pool.

BEST of the REST: PENNSYLVANIA

TRIA CAFÉ

123 S. 18th St. • Philadelphia, PA 19103 • (215) 972-TRIA (8742) • triacafe.com

This is a sleek Center City café opened in 2004 that earns praise for small food and cheese plates complementing a beer list divided by categories: “Invigorating,” “Friendly,” “Profound,” and “Extreme.” With one-of-a-kind beers like Victory Braumeister Pils Tettnang on draft and an owner who leads beer appreciation classes (held in another Tria location), beer is very much on the table.

EARTH BREAD & BREWERY

7136 Germantown Ave. • Philadelphia, PA 19119 • (215) 242-6666 • earthbreadbrewery.com • Established: 2008

Tom Baker became a craft beer hero when he unleashed a beer called Perkuno’s Hammer Imperial Porter out of his Heavyweight Brewing Co. in New Jersey around the millenium. It was among the first really, really big beers available in the region and the Baltic Porter style was rare, not to mention Imperial versions thereof. Despite critical hosannas his little brewery could not stay open in the brutal 2000s. Since 2008 Baker and his wife have been operating this eco-minded flatbread bakery in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philly, with bars and dining areas on two levels. Baker started with session beers but has ably returned to bigger beer styles more recently.

CAPONE’S

224 W. Germantown Pike • Norristown, PA 19401 • (610) 279-4748 • caponesdraftlist.blogspot.com

It looks a lot like a drab family-style restaurant, but with thirty draft lines crowded with obscure one-offs and at least five hundred bottles available for retail (not to mention growler sales) this unassuming beer haven about twenty-five miles north of Philadelphia has one of Pennsylvania’s biggest and best-kept beer selections.

STOUDT’S BREWING CO. & THE BLACK ANGUS RESTAURANT & BREWPUB

Rte. 272 • 2800 N. Reading Rd. • Adamstown, PA 19501 • (717) 484-4386 • stoudtsbeer.com

Just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Adamstown, the makers of many well-made beers including the 4.7% ABV Stoudt’s Pils—an aromatic and flavorful standby session beer in the Northeast for years now—offer free tours (by co-founder Ed Stoudt) and nourishment in their attached gasthaus-style restaurant.

TRÖEGS

800 Paxton St. • Harrisburg, PA 17104 • (717) 232-1297 • troegs.com

Founded in 1996 by brothers Chris and John Trogner, Tröegs has emerged as one of Pennsylvania’s most iconic brewing companies on the strength of beers like Nugget Nectar, HopBack Amber Ale, and Mad Elf. The sleek tasting room offers some eleven more, and there are free guided tours every Saturday afternoon (reservations all but required). The brothers broke ground on a new 90,000 square foot brewery and tasting room location in Hershey in 2011.

THE FARMHOUSE

1449 Chestnut St. • Emmaus, PA 18049 • (610) 967-6225 • thefarmhouse.com

Located outside of Allentown in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, this nineteenth-century stone-farmhouse-turned-destination-restaurant boasts two draws for beer lovers. One, it has an English-style pub on a lower level, laid in with distinctive American craft beers on tap (Smuttynose, Terrapin, Southern Tier) and more than 160 bottled selections, including dozens of vintage ales and oversize bottles. There are beer-and-food pairing dinners on the third Thursday of every month; Javan Small, the chef, has worked in Europe and favors a farm-to-table approach with European techniques. There’s also an even older stone barn structure adjacent to the building where beer dinners featuring top tier brewmasters are held from time to time as well.

New Jersey