The Triple-A baseball team known as the Lehigh Valley IronPigs (pig iron production, get it?) plays its games in Allentown at Coca-Cola Park, which opened in 2008. The Louisville Bats are in Allentown for four games starting tonight. What are the craft beer options at Lehigh Valley's home park, and how do they compare with the perennially disappointing macro-mania fixation in Louisville?
My verdict after cursory Internetz research: Thumbs way up.*
Those readers suffering through another year of the gaping craft beer drought at Louisville Slugger Field will find the following article quite interesting. As a whole it surveys craft beer at ballparks nationwide, with this relevant excerpt focusing on Lehigh Valley:
Minor tastes
The lure of craft beers isn't limited to just the major leagues.
Coca-Cola Park in Allentown, home to the Phillies' Triple A baseball squad, the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, offers four craft beers created by Allentown-based Fegley's Brew Works: Always Sunny pale ale, Fegley's Amber Lager, Knuckleball blonde ale and Hop Explosion IPA.
"It forges a bond between the fan, the experience they have at the ballpark, and the beer," company spokesman Mike Fegley says.
Fegley says the benefits of partnering with the stadium and having their beer on tap are multifaceted. He says "Always Sunny" -- a reference to the FX comedy series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" -- is their No. 1 seller at the stadium.
Fegley says Coca-Cola Park sells about 100 barrels of beer during the season. The stadium will host the second annual PBS39 MicroBrew Festival on June 23.
"If they are a fan of the IronPigs, we hope they are a fan of our beer," Fegley says.
Fegley says there has been a trend in tastes among beer consumers — "the hoppier the better," Fegley says — which has also played into the popularity of craft beers.
"Those tastes are changing and part of the reason is stadiums are realizing that's middle America," he says. "Baseball fans are beer drinkers. They're not beer snobs, they're just guys who drink beer."
Yet again, we see a locale illustrating the proposition that mega and micro are not mutually exclusive, grasping the existence of demand for craft beer among the customer base -- a statistical certainty that neither the mercenary Bats nor others in Louisville own craft brewing community seem able to bring themselves to concede.
Entertaining all the fans who come to a game by offering genuine choice? It may or may not be ideal, but Lehigh Valley appears to have gotten it. Have you attended games in Allentown? Let me know how it works there as we continue to build a case for proper, genuine, locally-brewed craft beer at Louisville Slugger Field.
* The standard disclaimer, to be considered any time one cannot actually be there to see things up close and personal, pertains to the bastardization of the "craft" concept by multinational, industrial brewers. Absent qualification, it remains likely that "craft" in many PR-speak contexts probably includes beers that are "crafty" (i.e., mockrobrews like Shock Top and zombie crafts such as Goose Island), and not locally-brewed craft beer.
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Previously:
Buffalo Bisons, Coca Cola Field, and local craft beer access.
Indianapolis Indians, Victory Field and a merciful end to "don't ask, don't tell" in local craft beer access.
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