Bruce Nichols, 'rock star of beer'

IN THE HEAVENLY precincts where beer is cherished, Bruce Nichols' star shined the brightest.

"He was the rock star of beer," said Don Russell, a/k/a Joe Sixpack, award-winning beer writer for the Daily News.

Carolyn Smagalski, the beer and brewing editor of BellaOnline, a website for women, called him "the Great Gatekeeper of Philadelphia Beer."

Bruce Nichols, president and co-owner of Museum Catering Co., which hosted many notables and world leaders at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and a founder of Philly Beer Week, which brings thousands of beer fans to the city for an annual 10-day extravaganza, died Tuesday of leukemia. He was 62 and had homes in Center City and in Blue Bell, Montgomery County.

Nichols was also well known for his work with organizations that support immigrants and refugees, and wrote extensively on the subject.

"Philadelphia has lost an icon," Smagalski wrote on her website. "You are burned into our memories and shall remain at every turn and passage as we raise a pint in your honor."

"He brought international notice to the city," Russell said.

In addition to his eminence in the beer world, Nichols was a "nice gentleman who was comfortable in all circles, whether with politicians, business people or whomever," Russell added.

"And he was a great guy to go out and have a beer with."

Nichols, Russell and Tom Peters, owner of Monk's Cafe, founded Beer Week in March 2008, spreading hundreds of beer-related events around the region each year.

Peters wrote on his website that Beer Week would never have happened without Nichols' "ideas and positive energy."

Nichols, a native of Kansas City, Mo., was a former chairman of the board of the Nationalities Service Center.

Dennis Mulligan, executive director, said Nichols "worked with great energy, wisdom and good humor to make NSC a stronger organization, and his sudden passing is a profound loss not just to Nationalities Service Center but to the immigrants and refugees we serve and to the whole community."

Nichols was the author of "The Uneasy Alliance: Religion, Refugee Work and U.S. Foreign Policy," and was the editor of Ethics and International Affairs, the quarterly journal of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.

He was co-editor of "The Moral Nation: Humanitarianism and U.S. Foreign Policy Today" by the University of Notre Dame.

He met his wife, the former Beatrice Liesch, while attending Swiss L'Abri, an international study center in Huemoz, Switzerland, on a fellowship. They were married in 1972.

He and his wife started Museum Catering in 1989, gaining an exclusive contract with the Penn Museum. Over the years, they hosted such notables as President Bill Clinton, former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, and rock musician and activist Bono.

Nichols' involvement with the beer world began in the early '90s, when he was introduced to Michael Jackson, a well-known authority on beer and whiskey, at the Dock Street Brewery.

In 1991, Nichols, in conjunction with the annual Book and the Cook foodie festival, organized an event at the Penn Museum, with Jackson discussing beer and Nichols providing the food.

The event would draw more than 3,000 people on a Saturday in March. It was so popular, Nichols added a Friday evening white-tablecloth event for a more sophisticated setting for Jackson's fans.

"These beer dinners and tastings became an annual phenomenon, but came to an untimely end with the death of Michael Jackson in August 2007," Smagalski wrote. "By then, Nichols' passion for beer had become an inexhaustible desire."

It was then that he joined with Russell and Peters to start Philly Beer Week.

Last March, Nichols opened the Headhouse, a beer and wine bar on Lombard Street, in Society Hill, but his ownership was short-lived.

He was past president of the Greater Philadelphia Restaurant and Purveyors Association.

He also is survived by a brother, David, and two sisters, Carol Fiocco and Jane Nichols.

A memorial service is being arranged.

Contributions may be made to Nationalities Service Center, 1216 Arch St., Philadelphia 19107, or St. Mark's Church, 1625 Locust St., Philadelphia 19103, of which he was a vestryman.