Scott S.
Yelp
One cannot make the claim that one is a self-professed Beer Geek/Beer Nerd without having visited the Foodery.
Yes, the beer here is marked up anywhere from 120% - 150% like everywhere in Philly thanks to the god-awful alcohol/import restrictions, but if you walk into this place dumb enough to think you're going to walk out of here with a bottle of beer that you can probably find in one of the many distribution centers that only sell alcohol by the case, then you sir or ma'am, are a square.
But getting back to business.
I spent two days visiting various liquor/bottle stores in NJ and Philly looking for my favorite beer. Buy-rite at Cranbury? Nope. Oak Tree in South Plainfield? Nope. Bottle Bar East? Nope. The Bottle Store? Nope. It all seemed hopeless until I stopped by the Foodery, whom I had called about two days ahead and asked if they carried it, to which they told me: NOPE.
So to my amazement, I found my bottle of Brouwerij De Dochter van de Korenaar Embrasse Ardbeg at the Foodery. Four bottles of it, if I may add. I also happened to pay six dollars less than I did the last time I found it in another awesome beer store in Elkridge, MD, who only carried one bottle of it on stock. I was so happy with my purchase, that I went further and picked up two bottles of Dogfish Head 120, Amager Batch One, Firestone Walker Double DBA, Russian River Damnation/Temptation and some Trappiste Rochefort 10 (yeah I know, Rochefort 10 is pretty common now and I overpaid like three dollars/bottle, but that's what you get for being lazy)
I also had a brief but enjoyable conversation with one of the beer geeks here, who informed me that they will have some of America's rarest craft brews in stock come April time, save for Pliny the Elder/Younger and the Heady Topper which almost never leaves CA/VT in bottle/canned form: Firestone Walker's Parabola and Founders KBS/CBS is apparently available here on a first-come-first-served basis.
So for those of you who don't speak beer: please don't come here and be disappointed that you spent 200 dollars on 18 bottles of beer that you probably could have gotten for cheaper elsewhere. But if you're looking for some place where you can and will get some of the rarest and debatably awesome beers that the "craft beer movement" has unleashed upon America, then bring all your monies and march right on to the Foodery.