The last event I attended during Philly Beer Week was the Older Bud No Wiser panel discussion at the World Cafe Live. Here’s how the event was promoted:

1996 was an historic year for Craft Brewing. It was in this year that Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head, Bill Covaleski from Victory, Mark Edelson of Iron Hill, Tom Kehoe of Yards, and Gene Muller of Flying Fish all took that epic leap of faith and started their own take on a craft brewery. Fourteen years later they’re all still in business and doing better then ever. Can you imagine what it would be like if they hadn’t? What a world it would be . . .

Host Greg Koch of Stone [which was also founded in 1996] will be your master of ceremonies as we turn back the clock to see what these monsters of craft brewing were doing and where their lives would have ended up, if not for hops.

Victory’s Blog also has a write-up on the event and you can watch the trailer below to see what was planned for the event.

Below is a video trailer for Older Bud No Weiser.

And it was also promoted with this hilarious fake class of ’96 yearbook, showing all of the brewery founders’ high school photos.

I arrived from the Kite and Key event, where we met the rest of the brewers assembled there. We got beers at the back of the theater as people streamed in and founds seats.

Toasting the Class of ’96: Greg Koch, Mark Edelson, Bill Covaleski, Tom Kehoe, Gene Muller & Sam Calagione.

Once the theater filled up and everyone was in their seat, the first beer was served and the five brewer/brewery founders took to the stage.

Greg Koch served as emcee for the evening (although I took over for a short time twice throughout the long night) and after a short introduction about what a bad year 1996 was for the craft brewing industry, he introduced each of the five and they told their own story about starting their individual breweries that same year.

The Panel: Tom Kehoe, Gene Muller, Mark Edelson, Bill Covaleski & Sam Covaleski

The evening went by quickly with all participants taking questions from the crowd, as the beer flowed freely. For each question asked, each brewer brought along several bottles of their own beer to give to participants who asked question, which — not surprisingly — led to even more questions. Bill at Victory tells me that they filmed the entire show and that they’re editing it down to a more manageable size. It should be an interesting record. One hilarious part of the evening that deserves a wide audience is the video below, which is a spoof of what might have become of the five brewery founders if they had not been successful with their respective brewers entitled “Craft Beer Class of ’96: Where are they now?”

Below is a slideshow of the World Cafe Live event. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.