A Colorful Night of Beer with Prism Brewing Company's Rob DeMaria

A couple years ago, a few friends and I met a guy named Rob DeMaria. He was just an average working stiff at Merck. But he had big dreams. Dreams of owning his own brewery. We met him at the General Lafayette, a formerly awesome brewery and restaurant in Lafayette Hill. You see, they had somehow run an incredible establishment into the ground. No idea how. But on this night they had invited several "friends of the General" out for a brainstorming session on how they could keep the place afloat. Basically, they were trying to hit us up for money in exchange for...well, nothing. The good feeling of knowing we helped some other a-hole keep their business from tanking, I guess? Anyway, after they tried unsuccessfully to con us out of our money, we headed into their bar area for a drink. Or six. So did Rob DeMaria. At some point in the night, he approached our table. He said he was working on opening his own brewery and he wanted our opinion on what we thought was a good name for his IPA. He gave us two names. One was Bitto Honey IPA. The other was...something that we have already forgotten. In any event, we gave him our opinion: Bitto Honey was a better moniker than...whatever the other name was. That is the name that DeMaria went with. And now, lo and behold, he has his own brewery. It's called Prism Brewing Company, and on Thursday, Feb. 9 he had a very successful beer dinner at Chap's Taproom in Norristown.