PHILADELPHIA - Our fourth stop on the tasting tour brought us—along with our special guest eater and drinker, Lala—to Victory Brewing Co. on Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Now, I have to make a full confession. As we walked in, I was almost completely distracted. I ended up with only one decent picture and a 25-second video.
In my defense, I am a huge Victory Beer fan.
To say I love their beer is an understatement. The Juicy Monkey and Berry Monkey are, without exaggeration, two of my top 5 favorite beers in the entire world. I've been to several other Victory locations, and I'm a loyalist through and through. I'm the kind of fan who knows they were founded back in '96 by Bill Covaleski and Ron Barchet, childhood friends who met on a school bus.
The "Monkey" line is iconic, and it's basically my automatic go-to. It all started with the classic Golden Monkey, their Belgian-style Tripel with notes of banana and clove. Then they unleashed its "tastefully tart" sibling, the Sour Monkey. My personal favorites are the newer additions: the Juicy Monkey, which is a Hazy Imperial IPA packed with fruit notes, and the Berry Monkey, a fruited sour that's perfectly tangy and sweet.
So, while a normal reviewer might have been diving into the food menu or analyzing the tap list, I was really just there to see the space and officially "check off" the Philadelphia location.
And what a space it is. This place is big. It’s got a massive, wide-open floor plan that Joanna Gaines would be proud of. The decor is open and airy, almost to the point of being minimalistic. It’s a clean, modern, and comfortable spot to enjoy a few drinks.
I could tell they had a full scratch kitchen, and I vaguely registered a menu with promising items like house-made pretzels, cheesesteak eggrolls, and various burgers. I'm sure Lala was checking it out, but my eyes were glued to the tap list.
Given my mission, I didn’t explore new territory. I got one of my usuals (a Monkey, of course) and, as expected, I loved it. It was the world-class beer I’ve come to expect from Victory.
A word to the wise: be careful with those! That 9.5% ABV is no joke. It's a deliciously smooth sipper, but it will sneak up on you.
My apologies to Lala for being such a distracted host on this stop! But as a fan, I was just happy to be there. If you love Victory beer like I do, this location is a must-visit, even if it’s just to say you’ve been.
