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The Lambic World is more divided, politically charged, and fraught with danger than the Middle East. So it's a really big deal when you get Armand Debelder (3 Fonteinen), Frank Boon (Brouwerij Boon), and Jean Van Roy (Brasserie Cantillon) together at the same table. In fact, it's never been done before.

On Wednesday evening, June 9th, as part of Philly Beer Week, these three greats -- indisputably the three most traditional and authentic producers of real lambic in Belgium -- will be gathered first to celebrate and praise each others' work. Liberal quantities of special beers from each producer will be passed around, including some extremely rare items being flown over to the U.S. for the occasion which will likely never be seen here again. There will be some artistically prepared foods, naturally. There will also very likely be some fireworks. Even at the top, not everyone sees eye to eye, to say the least. And there will probably some discussion, and some dirt dished, about what's going on in the darker corners of Lambic World. Dan Shelton, beer importer, lambic fan, and well-known pain-in-the-ass, will be hosting the discussion and doing his ugly best to make sure that the evening is not without controversy, just the way you like it!

It all happens under the wise and watchful eye of the Sphinx, in the Lower Egyptian Room in the depths of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Art. The ancient inhabitants of the Nile River Valley were of course the first great civilization to make an art and religion of brewing beer -- relying on unseen and then unknown wild yeasts to ferment their brew, just as the famous brewers and blenders of lambic beer in Belgium's Senne River valley do today.

You can't afford not to be there for this once-in-a lifetime happening: