The passengers on the sold-out bus shared food and beer until we arrived at Monk's Café in downtown Philadelphia. They opened a half hour early for us, and we proceeded to take the place over. They had about 30 beers on draft and hundreds in bottles from all over the world, with a heavy emphasis on Belgium. Two events were being celebrated that day.

One was Péché Day 2018, associated with Canadian brewery Microbrasserie Dieu du Ciel. The brewery released several of their Péché Mortel beers (which are coffee stouts) to about 50 bars around the globe, with 18 of them being in the U.S.

The other was Orval Day, an international celebration of the classic beer brewed by Orval. This was the 3^rd year for the event.

It only took half the folks on our tour to fill the back room. There were only two servers back there, and they worked hard to accommodate us. The beers I tried were:

• Dieu du Ciel Péché Mortel Bourbon 2017
• Dieu du Ciel Péché Mortel Framboise
• Russian River Pliny the Elder (nice but not as great as the hype would suggest)
• Russian River Blind Pig (an IPA that was better than Pliny the Elder)
• Oxbow Freestyle 42 (rye saison)
• Hof Ten Dormaal Kriek (made with Tildonk cherries and aged 8 months on wood)
• 2014 Orval (oxidized, hops had disappeared, horse blanket still there)

Next we rode to Tired Hands Fermentaria, which I had visited a few months before. The place was packed. Every seat was taken, and there was a two-hour wait for a table. The manager said that they could accommodate only 15 of us at a time. Fortunately there were two other locations just a few blocks away that we'd planned to visit anyway, so everyone split up and spent several hours doing their own thing.

My friend Sean and I went into the Fermentaria and talked to a couple at the bar who, luckily for us, were just about to leave. We commandeered their seats and ordered 4-ounce samples of:

• Hop Hands (pale ale with oats)
• Neck Bus (a very nice DIPA)
• Envirothon (Belgian IPA oak-fermented at their Dispensary)
• Pineal (IPA with oats)
• We Are All Infinite Energy Vibrating at the Same Frequency
• Alien Church (good but not as flavorful as it was on my first visit)
• Guillemot (dark, tart saison)

We then walked to the Tired Hands General Store, which sold swag, bottles, and cans. They gave out free samples of two of their beers. We tried the Saison Hands, which was a nice tart saison.

Next door is the Tired Hands Brew Café. It's a heartwarming little place that serves both food and beer. We sampled:

• Habitual Existence (so good that we each bought a crowler to go)
• Headband (imperial stout)
• Farewell Transmission (a good semi-tart ale)

On our way to Iron Hill we stopped at the Beer Shoppe. They sold hundreds of different beers, including a good amount of local stuff. We each bought several cans. They also had many beers on tap, so we sampled:

• Weyerbacher Sunday Morning (stout)
• Ballast Point Tongue Buckler (red ale)
• Manayunk Perseverance (DIPA)
• Vault Mosaic Imperial IPA
• Conshohocken Heaps of Green (IPA)

A few doors down the street we stopped at Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant. The decor is mainstream. We sampled:

• Ore House (IPA)
• Dead Stop (Belgian IPA)
• Sweet Leaf (IPA)
• Money, Cash, Hops (DIPA)

We then boarded the bus and rode down to Baltimore for our final destination, Max's Taphouse. This world-class pub has about 100 taps and hundreds of bottles, including many Belgians. Sean and I sampled:

• De Leite Cuvee Soeur'ise (a kriek from Belgium)
• Green Bench Testing Batch 788 (IIPA)
• Omnipollo Belgo (a DIPA from Sweden)
• Siren / Hair of the Dog Fred in London (barleywine)
• Diamondback Green Machine (hazy IPA)