Beer Camp Across America Is Headed For Philly

Billed as the biggest celebration of craft beer in history, Sierra Nevada’s Beer Camp Across America is bringing its sudsy traveling circus to Penn Treaty Park on Saturday from noon to 5pm. To celebrate the opening of his first east coast brewery, Sierra founder Ken Grossman has invited all 2,700 U.S. craft breweries to participate in a cross-country beer festival that makes one of just seven stops in Philly.

Eighty-four breweries from across the Mid-Atlantic will pour their beer here. They’ll be joined by Grossman, members of his team, and some of the rock star brewers (think Bell’s, Russian River, Cigar City, Firestone Walker, Allagash, etc…) who collaborated with Sierra on the 12 beers being released in stores as part of a Beer Camp Across America 12-pack. The crew skips over all of the haughty cities to our north and south to stop in Philly as they host successive eastbound festivals from Sierra’s headquarters in Chico, CA, to its new facility in Asheville.

So why’s Grossman doing it? To generate excitement for his North Carolina project, to be sure. But also to inspire and thank the brewers who’ve pushed the industry forward since Grossman himself became the country’s third professional craft brewer, in 1980.

“What was once a handful of scrappy brewers making outlandish craft beer in cobbled together brew kettles has become a vibrant and growing industry of more than 2,700 brewers making some of the best and most diverse beer the world has ever known. At its core, craft brewing has remained a group of passionate fanatics who work together rather than in competition with each other,” reads the festival’s press materials.

The $65 ticket ($30 for designated drivers) supports the PA brewers guild and hop and barley research.

See the website for details on tickets and a free shuttle from City Hall.

Beer Camp Across America [Official]