Uptown Beer Garden

Uptown Beer Garden is the quintessential pop up beer garden. It opened July 1^st but was ordered to shut down after a week by the Department of Licenses and Inspections. It reopened July 15th and initially had a lot of success, especially on Wednesdays when it participates in Center City Sips.

I went to this beer garden around 5:30pm on a Monday and the place was completely empty. It was late in the season but this beer garden boasted a great happy hour and popularity after work. My friends and I ordered beers at the bar and then found a table since there was no waiter or waitress working that day. There was not a very large selection but most of the drinks were specialty beers and were reasonably priced at $5 or $6 for draft beers. The bartender recommended an Ommegang Hennepin and I was hooked. I try to make it a rule to not order things that I cannot pronounce but I took a chance and it definitely paid off. The Ommegang Hennepin was very tasty but still light and perfect for summer.

This beer garden was the most basic beer garden I visited of the summer. The décor was very standard, with picnic tables and some trees for shade. There was only one corn hole board set up and only four other people there the entire time my friends and I were at the beer garden. The location of Uptown Beer Garden is in between buildings and directly across from the Comcast Center in Center City. I was expecting this to be the most crowded location I would visit and was put off by there being no one else there.

Of all of the beer gardens I visited this summer, I found my favorite drink at Uptown Beer Garden. But I was the most disappointed with my experience there out of every place I went to this season. Hopefully next year Uptown Beer Garden will redesign and have a better decorative vision.