With Love Beer Garden

Last year, the Chester County-based Victory Brewing Company teamed up with Philly Beer Week and the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation to brew the limited-edition Summer Love Ale--an approachable, refreshing beer that served as a popular bottled ambassador for Philly. This year, Victory and Philly Beer Week are sharing their love with Philly with the launch of a new pop-up: the With Love Beer Garden. Located in the lush Four Seasons’ Courtyard at 1 Logan Square, the beer garden is open nightly this week (June 6-10) from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. They’ll feature a different local brewery each day, alongside backyard barbecue-inspired bites from Four Seasons’ executive chef Ralph Gonzalez.

Last night, I stopped by the With Love Beer Garden’s launch to sample featured Victory beers, including the re-released Summer Love Ale. I strolled into the courtyard via the 18th Street entrance at around 5:00 p.m., and dozens of just-off-work Philadelphians were already checking out the scene and swilling Summer Love Ale. For the beer garden, the Four Seasons has outfitted their lawn with summery iron furniture, tall bar tables, and a grill station where you can cop (very) small plates. Up on the waterfall-bedecked patio, bottles of Victory favorites like Hop Devil and (the albeit out-of-season) Storm King Stout were featured alongside the Summer Love Ale.

The With Love Beer Garden is using a ticket system for beer and food purchases--a system that should make the buying process more efficient, as the vendors don’t need to count out change for each transaction. Unfortunately, the tickets just seemed to lend a sort of impatient, disorganized school-carnival feel to the garden. The ticket booth is located in the far corner of the patio, and by 5:30 p.m. the line was so long that it intertwined with the line at the centrally-positioned bar. The tickets are pricey, too. Last night, all Victory beers were $4.50, except for the stronger brew Golden Money, which went for $6.50. I found the bottled beer steeply priced, as I usually pay around $3 for bottles of Victory at Food and Friends. Food tickets, on the other hand, were $6.50, though pretzel tickets only cost $2.

My fellow garden-goer and I grabbed a bunch of tickets and sampled the Summer Love Ale, the Port Richmond Kielbasa Sandwich, and the Philly Beef Slider. The Summer Love Ale was a pleasant surprise for both of us--we’re both hop fiends, and we had been expecting less bite from this crowd-pleaser American Blonde Ale. Instead, we got a smooth, citrusy, refreshing beer with a fairly aggressive hop finish. Victory also brews Summer Love Ale with German Malts, which give the beer a nice depth. On the food front, the Kielbasa (pictured) was our favorite little bite. Saddled neatly in a toasted split French roll (and thankfully not the ubiquitous, soft hoagie roll) the porky, savory sausage came topped with sauteed onions, and a mild, almost sweet Polish mustard. The Philly Beef Slider was a messier, greasier affair: topped with Taylor Pork Roll and an American cheese bechamel, it satisfied my salty summer food cravings. The little round of Pork Roll was an unexpected touch on this “Philly” slider--isn’t Scrapple our strange meat?--but as a Central New Jerseyian (we call it Taylor Ham) I appreciated the smokey bacon substitute. The grill was also offering a soft shrimp taco, a half-dozen Lancaster County chicken wings glazed with honey, and steamed New Jersey Clams, as well as soft pretzels and mustard. We topped off our beer and bites with a complimentary scoop of strawberry-and-Summer Love Ale ice cream from the Franklin Fountain ice cream cart, manned by bowtied co-owner Eric Berley. My companion deemed it the best ice cream he’d ever tasted--made with now in-season organic strawberries, the creamy scoop benefited from the zippy notes of beer.

Despite my reservations about the prices, I would recommend the With Love Beer Garden as a happy-hour meeting spot during Beer Week. As I enjoyed the last sips of my Summer Love Ale in the well-groomed garden, I realized how rare of a treat it is in Philly to get to enjoy beer in a green space, rarer still in a snazzy private courtyard like that of the Four Seasons. So, relish this limited beer garden while you can.

Here is the rest of the With Love Beer Garden brewery schedule. Summer Love Ale will be available throughout the week, as will the cookout menu of small bites.

Tuesday: Weyerbacher

Wednesday: Dock Street Brewing Company

Thursday: Sly Fox Beer

Friday: Yards Brewing Company and Stoudt’s Brewing Company

-Kristen Martin