It started with a Christmas gift, a book on Philadelphia’s brewing history from Justin Steinberg to his cousin Matt Brodsky.
“I started reading it and just got really inspired,” Brodsky recalled. “Like, ‘I want to be a part of this history. I want to be a part of this scene.’ ”
Expressing his appreciation for the book over drinks a few nights later, Brodsky said, led to a spontaneous decision by the cousins, who had grown up together and shared a love for beer, to try their hand at commercial beer-making. A decade later, they’re running Sacred Vice Brewing, with an expanded taproom launched earlier this year in Kensington.
Located at 120 West Berks Street, the 3,000-sq-ft space is evenly split between brewing facilities and a “family living room” style front of house, furnished for 50 with couches, plush leather seating, a projector for movie screenings and big games, and a music library of approximately 1,500 records behind the bar — a longleaf pine counter selected by design firm Betsu Studio to match the still-visible original beams of the building.
For the back-of-house facilities, head brewer Andrew “Ruby” Rubenstein, who joined Sacred Vice in 2021 after award-winning runs at 2SP and Iron Hill, has designed a 10-barrel, three-vessel system for “every option that I might need to make any sort of recipe.”
Currently on tap: Special Enough, a 3.6% American-style cream ale; Corner Stuck, an 8.2% pomegranate- and guava-flavored double IPA; and Rubbish, a 6% sweet and tangy Citra-hopped hazy IPA. There’s also Softy Table, a dry 3.6% saison and the first recipe brewed by Ruby for Sacred Vice, as well as Green Garden, a 7% malty West Coast IPA named after his favorite Chinese restaurant. Concertina, a collaboration 3.3% saison with Forest & Main, is also available.
The West Berks location is not the first home for Sacred Vice. After coming up with the name — a combined reference to the long-held family ritual of hanging out every Sunday, as well as their love for drinking — the cousins started brewing at Brodsky’s house “until we got kicked out of the kitchen by my wife,” he said. “And then, eventually, we got kicked off the patio.”
A search for a space large enough for commercial brewing took them to 3237 Amber Street, a former textile mill, where they opened a taproom in late 2018 and “had a pretty good run of it,” Brodsky said, “until Covid hit.”
Selling to-go beers in person off the building’s loading dock, the cousins managed to expand their customer base throughout the pandemic, so much that when the time came to reopen the taproom in 2021, they were already thinking of moving into a larger space.
With the Amber taproom now only available for special events, Sacred Vice’s brewing operations have shifted entirely to the new location, which opened in March. Working out of the expanded facilities at West Berks, Brodsky said, allows the trio to concentrate on developing new recipes while also showcasing some of the brand’s older beers, like Northberg, a pale ale first brewed for Steinberg’s sister’s wedding and combining the bride and groom’s last names, and Back Trunk Britches, a dark mild inspired by memories of Brodsky’s grandfather, a traveling clothing salesman.
Initially driven by a love for brewing, the cousins were forced to step back from the process to instead focus on finding and setting up the new location, as well as on their regular day jobs—Brodsky, 50, works full-time as an insurance communications and marketing professional, while Steinberg, 42, co-owns a title insurance company. With the taproom up and running, the two are eager to resume a larger role in Sacred Vice’s brewing.
“While Ruby is the master and we follow his lead in all things beer-making, we certainly would like to get back into [brewing],” Brodsky said. “At the very least so that [Rubenstein] can take a vacation every now and again.”
There are still plans in motion for the taproom, including a soon-to-be-installed DJ booth for “late-night parties” and other events, as well as an expansion of the drink and food menus — the taproom currently hosts a regular rotation of food trucks and pop-ups Thursdays through Sundays, most recently featuring sandwiches from La Raclette.
“We’re a very small part of the overall Philadelphia beer scene and Philadelphia beer history, but we are a part of it,” Brodsky said. “So, the original dream — we’re living it, and pretty excited to be doing so.”
120 W. Berks St. | 4 to 10 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday; 4 to 11 p.m. Friday; 12 to 11 p.m. Saturday; 2 to 9 p.m. Sunday | sacredvice.com | @sacredvicebrewing | Kids allowed, no dogs.
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