Beer at the Grocery Store

My 5-year-old was invited to a birthday party last night.  That's not unusual but the party was at the Plymouth Meeting Mall in a place called Krazy City.  We live in Phoenixville and the party was in Plymouth Meeting.  Now that is krazy.  I volunteered to take her and left my wife with the other 2 kids at home.  I figured while my daughter was having her fun I might head down the road to the General Lafayette Inn and Brewery for some fun of my own.  Unfortunately, due to the snowy roadsides and the fact that it was rush hour on a Friday night it took well over an hour to get there and we were late.  I wouldn't have time for the General Lafayette.  I did remember that Whole Foods opened up at the mall and they had a pub with supposedly some good craft beers on tap.  So after my daughter settled in at the party I went to the grocery store. 

It's not like Union Jack's or TJ's or Craft Ale House have anything to worry about.  I really don't see any reason to go to the grocery store to drink a pint of beer but I would do it again if for no other reason than to support the idea of being able to buy beer at locations other than the traditional.  It's well past time for Pennsylvania to grow up and allow beer purchases at Wal-Mart, convenient stores et al. 

Back to Whole Foods.  The pub is actually called Cold Point Pub at Whole Foods Market.  You go into the store and the first thing you notice is that grocery store smell.  You know the smell I'm talking about.  I don't know what it is but all grocery stores have that smell.  I think it is a mixture of over-ripe fruit and stale milk.  Anyway, the pub was not immune to the smell.  I ordered a Yard's ESB.  It is malty and fruity but I don't get the bitter and I'm not sure why it is called an Extra Special Bitter.  In a weird way I kind of enjoyed sitting there drinking a pint of beer and watching the people bag their groceries.  Maybe it's because the cashiers were working, the customers were working and I was sipping a craft beer.