A Perfect Pint’s Certified Cicerone™ Michael Agnew will be co-hosting hosting an Oktoberfest beer dinner with the Dining Studio on October 16 at 7 p.m. at. Michael has selected brews from Victory, Ayinger, Surly, Köstritzer, and Wiehenstephan. The food will include Chef Philip Dorwart’s signature soft pretzels, passed hors d’oeuvres, and four courses matched to the beers above. Dorwart takes an original approach to beer dinners and uses very little beer in the actual cooking of paired courses. Instead, he uses more of a wine dinner model by highlighting a flavor in the beer with food. By implementing this practice he is able to offer unique beer to food matching without relying on the “just add some beer” ethos. It’s sure to be a blast. Prost! Reservations are $65 and available at 612-331-3310.
Category Archives: Events
Where the Wild Beers Are Recap
My thanks go out to Jeff Halvorson, first for putting on Where the Wild Beers Are, and second for holding it later in September so that I could attend. Where the Wild Beers Are is a sour and wild ale tasting that was held yesterday at Stub & Herbs in Dinkytown. For those who have never been, it is a great event for which the cost of admission is a 750 ml bottle of sour beer. The beers that attendees bring are the beers that are sampled during the event. Each bottle buys the donor ten samples. A simple yet elegant scheme.
I missed the event last year and so was excited when I saw the date posted for this year’s tasting. I had intended to bring two or three bottles and wile away the entire afternoon sampling great wild beers. I had even purchased the beers I wanted to bring. Sadly, real life intervened and other responsibilities made that an unwise way to spend my day. I wasn’t going to miss it though, and in the hour and a half that I had I greatly enjoyed the beers I got to taste. Here are some of my favorites.
2006 Cantillon Iris – Traditionally lambics are brewed with 30% unmalted wheat and aged hops that add no flavor or bitterness to the beer. Iris is a rare lambic made from 100% malted barley with fresh hops added to the beer at two points in the brewing process. It is delightfully light and refreshing. Vinous, tart, and dry as a bone, it has some nice peach and pear fruitiness and peppery spice. The barnyard and leather character is light. This is a great beer for a hot day in the sun. It was my second favorite of the day.
Russian River Consecration – This was my favorite beer of the day and one that I went back for more than once. It is a dark amber beer made with black currants. The flavor is a combination of chocolate, caramel, and tart berries with underlying barnyard funk. Consecration is definitely a funky sour beer, but not in any way over the top. Russian River is one of those breweries with a larger than life reputation. They just might be deserving of it. Tasting this made me want to open the bottle that I have been holding in the basement for a while. Great beer!
Lift Bridge Raspberry Lambic – Who knew the guys at Lift Bridge had brewed a framboise? This was apparently the one and only bottle in existence. While lacking some of the complexity of the other beers, it was not a bad effort from the young Stillwater brewery. The aroma sported huge berry notes and some brettanomyces funkiness. The flavor followed suite with tart berry dominating and light barnyard funk in the background. It was light, dry, and refreshing.
3 Fonteinen Sharbeek Kriek – Kriek is a young lambic that is aged on cherries. The traditional cherry of Kriek is the Sharbeek cherry, a regional variety grown in the area around Brussels where true lambic is produced. The best way to describe this beer is tart cherry pie. If you can conjure up that taste for yourself, then you have this beer. My third favorite of the day.
I tasted many more beers and would gladly have spent another hour and a half tasting even more. I envy those who did not have to leave. I look forward to next year’s event.
Session Beer Night Recap
Members of the Twin Cities Perfect Pint Beer Club who have attended even one meeting have heard me rant about balance and subtlety in beer. While I like big beers and appreciate the complexities of high alcohol, barrel-aged, über-hopped, snifter-sippers, my real preference is for simpler, smaller brews. With this in mind, the club met Saturday night at the home of member Vickie Parks to explore session beers. A session beer is the essence of balance and moderation. Low alcohol allows you to down a few and still retain reasonable possession of your faculties. The best ones are both flavorful and light enough to make you want more. Session beers are beers for socializing and conversation. For the purposes of this event defined session beer as having no more than 6% alcohol by volume. It would have been nice to stay below five percent, but in this time of “bigger is better” those beers can be a bit hard to find. We persevered, however, and sampled our way through eight flavorful beers ranging from 3.3% to 6% ABV.
We began the evening with Samurai from Breckenridge Brewing Company in Denver. Like an ale version of an 
American or Japanese rice lager, Samurai is light, crisp, and refreshing. Lightly sweet and grainy malt is balanced by moderately bitter spicy licorice hops that set off a nice apple and citrus fruitiness. A great lawnmower beer for the lingering summer. Samurai was followed by Anchor Small Beer. For this beer Anchor Brewing, the folks that make Anchor Steam, have revived an old English brewing practice of getting two beers from one barley mash. The rich, sweet first runnings become their Old Foghorn Barleywine, while the more dilute second runnings become Small Beer. At 3.3% this was the lowest alcohol beer we tasted. But low alcohol doesn’t have to mean no flavor. Small beer has a sweet caramel malt profile with hints of toast that serve as a base for an assertive bitterness. Pleasantly grassy hop flavor and light fruitiness round it out. The big taste in this small beer led one person to ponder why all the supermarket 3.2% beers aren’t as flavorful.
Next up was Trout Slayer from Montana’s Big Sky Brewing. This beer was the surprise hit of the night. Big Sky calls this beer a “wheat pale ale” and the description is apt. This is a very well balanced 4.7% beer with moderate bitterness, bright citrus hops, and a beautiful bread and biscuit malt. Neither malt nor hops dominate as the beer heads to a clean, dry finish. This one’s a keeper. A fruit beer was next. Samuel Smith’s Organic Cherry Ale to be exact. Next to the Belgian Red and Raspberry Tart from New Glarus, the Samuel Smith fruit beers are the best tasting fruit beers I have had in a while. These blended wheat-based ales are brewed in collaboration with Melbourn Bros., the last sour beer brewery in England. They are lightly tart, deliciously refreshing, and enormously fruity. While the strawberry and raspberry versions are great, the cherry gives the most fruit bang for the buck. I would drink this beer all night and at 5.1% ABV I could.
It’s time for Oktoberfest, so we celebrated the season with Ayinger Oktoberfest-Märzen. Traditionally brewed in March at the end of the legal brewing season in Bavaria, Märzen style beers were stored cold over the summer to be consumed in the fall to celebrate the harvest. Lighter in body than some examples and with a crisp, clean lager character, the Ayinger Märzen still has a rich caramel/melanoidin malt profile. Malt is the star, but it is supported by moderate bitterness and spicy German hop character. The other German style session beer that we tasted was Headless Man Amber Alt from Tyranena Brewing Company in Wisconsin. Brewed in the style of a Düsseldorf Altbier, it has a caramel and toast malt profile with assertive bitterness and spicy German hops. This was everyone’s least favorite beer of the night. I found it to be a bit out of balance with thin malt and overdone bitterness that was somewhat astringent in the finish.
The favorite beer of the night was Moose Drool Brown Ale, our second beer from Big Sky Brewing. Moose Drool displays a rich toasty and 
cocoa malt profile that I described as toasted Tootsie Rolls. The balance leans toward the malt, but spicy/resinous hops play a significant supporting role and assertive bitterness from both the hops and the light roasted malt keep it in check. It had been a couple of years since I had tasted this one. I don’t think I will wait so long to try it again. The last beer of the night was also the biggest. At 6% ABV, the silky smooth Black H2O Oatmeal Stout from the Town Hall Brewery in Minneapolis seemed almost decadent compared to the evening’s other selections. While some thought it was lacking in body and oat character, I found it to be quite satisfactory. Smooth and a bit sweet with pronounced coffee and cocoa roasted flavors, Black H2O was a satisfying capper.
At the end of the night, after tasting eight great beers and consuming the leftovers, we each headed our separate ways still sober. That is the real beauty of session beers.
Autumn Brew Review Recap
Saturday was Autumn Brew Review. At least half a million people turned out at parking lot of the historic Grain Belt Brewery in Minneapolis. Okay, so maybe there weren’t quite that many, but there were a bunch of people there. The sold out annual event was very well attended with beer lovers given the opportunity to taste the wares of 57 different breweries both local and national. Construction in the field approaching the river made the festival confines feel much more confined than last year and hot muggy weather made the compact crowds a bit hard to take by the end, at least for me. However, food lines never reached the epic lengths that they did last year, which was a definite improvement. I think the line at the Surly Brewing booth was the longest that I saw anywhere all day.
It was a good day for sour beers in my view and so-so day for pale ale and IPA. The first three of my top five beers were sour beers, with funky wild brews on offering from a number of brewers including Surly, Herkimer, Ommegang, Two Brothers, Victory, Great Waters, and others. As for the huge numbers of pale ales and IPAs on offer, nothing really stood out. With so many of these out there, brewers have to do something really special to rise above the crowd. In this category I found myself writing over and over again, “yet another hoppy IPA.” I think I’m just kind of over it.
Because of a tie for the top beer, my top five picks are really my top six picks. Starting at the bottom and working up, my number five beer was Summit German Style Kölsch. This is just a fantastic beer. Light and delicate, bready and subtly bitter, it provided me a blissful retreat at the end of the day when my palate had been smashed by the excesses of big, bitter, and barrel-aged. Remarkably its flavors still held their own. My number four was Odin Baltic Porter from Town Hall. This was a wonderfully rich and chocolaty porter with luscious caramel undertones and assertive herbal/grassy hop flavors and bitterness. Continuing up the list, my number three pick was Chestnut Hill from Lift Bridge Brewery. A big Nut Brown Ale, this beer had a creamy nutty and caramel malt profile nicely balanced by spicy/herbal hop bitterness and flavor. Rich but drinkable, Chestnut Hill would make a nice session beer even at 7% ABV. In the number two slot I put Thermo Refur from Furthermore Beer. This was an aged version of the beer they released last winter. The further aging has done it some good. This beer has developed a wonderful wild yeast funk; not sour, but redolent of earth, leather and barnyard. It is bone dry, but not lacking in body. I even think I tasted the beets.
My two top picks for this year were Rouge from Brewery Ommegang and Gose from the Herkimer Brewpub. Rouge is a Grand Cru style Flemish red ale that is a collaboration between Brewery Ommegang and Brouwerij Bockor in Belgium. It was spontaneously fermented and aged for 18 months in oak tuns. The result is a beautifully sour and barnyard beer with loads of cherry and berry flavors. While the acidity is strong, there remains a balancing malt sweetness that keeps it from being over the top. Beautiful. The real surprise of the festival for me was the Gose from Herkimer Brewpub. Gose is a rare North German ale style from the city of Leipzig, one of the few surviving representatives of the “white” beers that were once brewed all over northern Europe. A sour wheat beer flavored with coriander and sea salt, Gose is unique. Only one or two breweries in Leipzig still produce it and I know of only one that is available in the US. The Herkimer example was a nice one. Light and refreshing, tart but not overly sour, with a roundness of body and subtle saltiness from the addition of sea salt, I went back for this one three times during the day.
Other beers that seem worthy of mention but didn’t make my top five list include New Belgium Hoptober, Schell’s Roggenbier, Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ and Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Extra from Lagunitas (the only pale ales that managed to stand out from the crowd), Surly Brett, Avery Collaboration Tripel, and Vine Park English Premium Bitter. All in all it was a great event with a lot of great beers to sample. Can’t wait for Winterfest.
Session Beers
The September Meeting of the Twin Cities Perfect Pint Beer Club
When: Saturday, September 19, 2009
Cost: $25
You must be a member of the club to attent. Go to the Twin Cities Perfect Pint Beer Club to join and RSVP.
Great Taste! Less Filling!
No, we won’t be drinking Miller Lite, but when talking about session beers the often repeated advertising slogan is appropriate. A session beer is one that allows the quaffing of several beers without feeling the need to be wheeled from the bar either because of bloating or impaired coordination. Session beers invite another pint. They drinkable, flavorful, and low enough in alcohol that you won’t need to worry the next morning about what you might have done the night before.
For this meetup we will taste no beer above 6% ABV. We’ll return to the pleasures of small beer where simplicity, balance, and subtlety are the measure of greatness. We’ll lubricate our social interaction with beers that inspire conversation, not confrontation. So enough of the big, bad, boozy, bitter, bourbon barrel, monster beers. Let’s drink more of less.
(Don’t worry. We’ll get back to the monster beers in a later meetup.)
Beer Club Pot Luck
The August Meeting of the Twin Cities Perfect Pint Beer Club!
When: Saturday, August 29, 2009
Cost: A beer and a dish
You must be a member of the club to attent. Go to the Twin Cities Perfect Pint Beer Club to join and RSVP.
August is my busiest month of the year and I am too booked up with other business to make a meeting happen. So we’re going to take a little breather. We’ll fall into the dog days of summer with a more relaxed theme.
The theme for the August meetup will be potluck. Everybody brings a beer to share. Something that sounds interesting that you have never tasted. Do a little research on the beer you bring so that you can talk about it and let everyone know what they are drinking. Bring a simple food item to go along with it; just enough for everyone to get a taste. That’s a beer club potluck.
Summer Beer Night
It’s summer in Minnesota! Really it is…even though it may not feel like it. It’s 63° and overcast as I type this, but my current reverie for summer beers goes on. It was in this dogged spirit that the Beer Geeks sat outside on an overcast and chilly evening last week to explore “summer”. Fifteen summer sippers (and maybe a couple of not so summery beers) were sampled before rain forced us to flee the picnic table and retreat into the relative warmth of the great indoors. As a reminder that it actually is summer, many of the geeks were otherwise occupied with ballgames and bike rides. We had a small but convivial group on this most un-summery of summer beer explorations.
American Lagers were in abundance for this session. The first and best of these was Minnesota’s own Grain Belt Premium. I’m not ashamed to admit that I don’t mind a “Primo” every now and again. Lightly sweet and corny with mild bitterness and some licorice hop flavor, it does go down easily when you are in the mood for something that doesn’t tax senses. Too bad about those clear bottles though. This example was a bit skunky, as are most that don’t come from a keg. The second best was Coors Banquet. Not the ubiquitous “Silver Bullet”, but the real stuff in the vaguely yellow can; the stuff Burt Reynolds smuggled to Georgia in Smokey and the Bandit (1977). Like Grain Belt, Coors Banquet is a cornbread lager featuring the sweet flavor of maize and light spicy hops. We all noted a peculiar gasoline smell in this example, but to be honest, we tasted this toward the end of the night, so it didn’t really matter that much.
Fruit beers were also popular at this event. The best of these by a long shot was Samuel Smith’s Organic Raspberry Ale. Described as 
“hopped raspberry soda”, this was a sweet and vaguely wheaty beer with huge tart raspberry aroma and flavor and a long sweet syrupy raspberry finish. Also noticeable was the typical Samuel Smith chalky mineral character present in all of their beers. I think that I was the most enthusiastic one in the group, but I would have been happy to drink this beer all night long. Next up was Berry Weiss from Leinenkugel. I don’t usually mind this beer, but coming right after the Samuel Smith it really didn’t hold up, tasting thin and artificial. We also sampled Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy. Cloudy yellow and quenching like liquid lemon drops this version of the classic English drink of beer and lemonade would have been great served ice cold on a 95° day. Unfortunately, that’s not the kind of day it was.
A couple of Belgian and Belgian-inspired brews were a welcome addition to our list. The standout here was Oud Zottegems Bier. I had done some research on this beer and seen it described variously as a Flemish Red Ale, a Flanders Brown Ale, and a Strong Golden Ale. In reality it is a very tasty Belgian Blond. Comparatively light at 6% ABV it has rich pilsner malt sweetness with huge candy-like honey and raisin 
character. There is plenty of spicy Belgian yeast that is accentuated by a dry finish lingering on spicy hops. The Limited Edition Tripel from Red Hook had a nice sweet candy orange malt character, but the sharp peppery hops and high bitterness were found to be harsh and overwhelming. Background medicinal flavors also detracted. Two Jokers Double Wit from the Boulevard Brewing Smokestack Series was universally disliked. An object lesson in “more is not always better”, this beer is so heavily spiced, especially with lavender, that one member of the group described its flavor as “old lady soap.”
Two other beers met with near unanimous condemnation from the group. The first was Sun Rye from Red Hook. The cotton candy aroma promises something rich and tasty that the flavor just doesn’t deliver. What you get is a somewhat sweet ale with light rye spiciness and then a whole lot of nothing; a middle-of-the-road rye. The other was Schell’s Zommerfest. Called a Kolsch, this beer lacks any of the delicacy of that style. I would describe it as an over-hopped wheat beer or an over-wheated IPA. Whatever you want to call it, we all felt it to be sharp and abrasively over-bitter.
The beers tasted were Grain Belt Premium, Lakefront Organic ESB, Summit Hefeweizen, Samuel Smith Organic Raspberry Ale, Leinenkugel Berry Weiss, Leinenkugel Summer Shandy, Red Hook Sun Rye, Oud Zottegems Bier, Red Hook Limited Edition Tripel, Paulaner Salvator, Boulevard Smokestack Series Two Jokers Double Wit, Schell’s Zommerfest, Mickey’s Malt Liquor, Coors Banquet, and Point Lager. Those in attendance were Michael Agnew, Chris Belsky, Wilbur Ince, Gera Exire LaTour, and Timothy Swanstrom-Stage.
Basically Belgian Recap
Last Friday night the Twin Cities Perfect Pint Beer Club was at it again. Meeting this month at the home of club member Cory, we took a beer tour of Belgium in an event called Basically Belgian. Club members sampled nine different beers in nine different styles and still only scratched the surface of the deep variety that is the Belgian beer world. Belgium is often seen as a beer lover’s Mecca. It is home to brewing traditions that go back centuries, many of which reflect what beer might have been like all over Europe before the rise of light lager beers in the 19th century. One of the greatest things about the Belgium brewing tradition is its lack of adherence to any real tradition. While other European brewers focus on perfecting a relatively narrow range of beer styles, brewers in Belgium produce hundreds of local styles with a large degree of variance even between different beers of the same style. Belgium is truly a beer adventure.
We began our trek with the lightest of the light Hoegaarden Witbier. White beers were once brewed all over Europe. With increasing popularity of light lager beers through the 20th century, the styles have all but died out with only Belgian Witbier and Berliner Weiss remaining. The Belgian Witbier style would have died out as well had it not beer for Pierre Cellis who started the Hoegaarden brewery in his hayloft in 1966, single-handedly reviving the style. And what a good thing that he did. It had been a couple of years since I last enjoyed a Hoegaarden and I had forgotten just how great it is. Light and wheaty with abundant citrus and a typical banana and clove Belgian yeast character that is enhanced by a touch of coriander, this is a beautiful summer beer.
We stayed with summery beers for our next selection, Fantôme Saison. One of the best examples of the style, this beer is light, crisp, and 
effervescent like champagne. Huge citrus fruitiness sits nicely on a bed of softly sweet bready malt, which gives way to a bone-dry finish emphasizing spice and bitterness. A shot of wild Brettanomyces yeast funk really separates this one from the crowd. This beer is so spritzy and refreshing, you would never guess at its 8% ABV.
The last of the Belgian session beers was Belgian Pale Ale from Flat Earth Brewing in St. Paul. I had wanted to select all beers from Belgium for this event, but no authentic Belgian Pale Ales are available in Minnesota. I like to feature local breweries in these events anyway, so Flat Earth it was. And their Belgian Pale is a good example of the style. Basically a Belgian take on the classic English Bitter, this beer features a caramel, toast, and biscuit malt profile supporting an assertive spicy bitterness and fruity/spicy Belgian yeast. Purchased in growlers from the brewery, we had both filtered and unfiltered versions to sample, although interestingly the filtered version was cloudier than the unfiltered. The differences between the two beers are small, but basically the filtered version features crisper flavors and mouthfeel with more pronounced bitterness and yeast derived fruit and spice, while the unfiltered version is softer and creamier with more subdued flavors. It is a bit like the difference between drinking a draft and a cask ale in a pub.
Our next beer, Urthel Hop-it, was an example of what’s new in Belgian brewing. Like the United States a decade ago, Belgium is in the middle of a craft-brewing explosion. Small breweries are popping up all over the country making a variety of traditional and non-traditional beers. Many of these upstart breweries are taking inspiration from the US craft beer scene, making huge and hoppy beers that blend old and new while pushing the envelope on bitterness and flavor. Hop-it is a Belgian IPA with huge hop bitterness and spicy hop flavor combining with that unique Belgian yeast character. While many love this beer, I have to admit that the combination is not one of my favorites.
The next stops in our journey took us into the world of Trappist and abbey beers. The dubel, tripel, and quadruple are the beers that many people most closely associate with Belgium. While most believe these beers to be age-old traditional recipes, they were actually created in the 1930s as a response to the growing popularity of lager and government restrictions on the selling of spirits. To be called “Trappist” a beer has to be brewed on the grounds of a Trappist monastery under the supervision of monks, with a portion of the proceeds going to charitable acts. Abbey beers on the other hand need only have an association with or use the name of a monastery. We started this leg of the expedition with Orval, one of the most unique of the Trappist beers. In a class all by itself, Orval is cloudy orange colored beer with caramel malt character, peppery hops and complex light stone fruit flavors. Its high level of bitterness is accentuated by high carbonation. A shot of wild Brettanomyces yeast at bottling gives this beer an added barnyard/funky depth. I had to pick up bottles of this beer from different locations. As a result, we had two examples bottled several months apart, affording the opportunity to try a younger and a more aged version. The younger bottles had a more pronounced hop flavors and a subtle background of wild yeast character. The aged version was significantly funkier with more malt flavor and a drier finish.
From Orval we went to St. Feuillien Brune and Westmalle Tripel. The first is an abbey dubel with rich caramel sweetness and a restrained Belgian yeast character. It lacks the dry finish of some of the Trappist examples of the style, but is quite tasty nonetheless. Westmalle Tripel is the original beer of the style. Deep golden yellow in color, it sports a rich, creamy head that lasts a good while in the glass. Sweet malt flavors quickly give way to an intensely bitter and peppery hop. The finish is bone-dry and the yeast character leans decidedly to the spicy end of the spectrum. This is the benchmark for the style.
The penultimate stop on this Belgian beer tour was Duvel, the original example of the strong golden ale. This style shares many characteristics 
with the tripel. There is so much similarity and so much overlap between the styles that only broad generalizations can be made about what separates them. These general differences were on display when comparing Duvel to the Westmalle. Duvel was lighter in color and smoother with a less assertive bitterness. The yeast character is fruitier than the tripel and the finish a bit less dry.
Our final beer of the night was the Trappist Rocheforte 10. This is a big, mysterious, rich beer with very low carbonation. Sweet caramel malt and complex dark fruit flavors dominate with some hints of spicy hop. There is just enough bitterness to balance the sweet. The warming effects of the 11.3% ABV are apparent.
Basically Belgian was a superfeast of big Belgian brews and we didn’t even touch the sour beers. With so many beers and beer styles to choose from we had to miss a few. Once again it was great people tasting great beers. Thanks to all who came. If you are interested in attending a Twin Cities Perfect Pint Beer Club event, click here for more information.
Basically Belgian
The July meeting of the Twin Cities Perfect Pint Beer Club
When: Friday, July 24, 2009
Cost: $25
You must be a member of the club to attent. Go to the Twin Cities Perfect Pint Beer Club to join and RSVP
Belgium is often seen as a beer lover’s Mecca. It is home to brewing traditions that go back centuries, many of which reflect what beer might have been like all over Europe before the rise of light lager beers in the 19th century. One of the greatest things about the Belgium brewing tradition is its lack of adherence to any real tradition. While other European brewers focus on perfecting a relatively narrow range of beer styles, brewers in Belgium produce hundreds of local styles with a large degree of variance even between different beers of the same style. Belgium is truly a beer adventure.
If that is the case, what exactly is it that makes a Belgian beer “Belgian.” This is the question that we will attempt to answer as we sample a wide range of Belgian beers and Belgian beer styles. From the delicate, summery Witbier to the ponderous Strong Dark Ale and mouth-puckering sours, we’ll try them all on our own little tour of Belgium.
St. Paul Summer Beer Fest
A few thoughts following the St. Paul Summer Beer Fest
Last Sunday was the first St. Paul Summer Beer Fest. It hopefully won’t be the last. While there are several beer festivals through the year in the Twin Cities, it is good to have one smack in the middle of summer. The weather was perfect, if a little windy. The beer was great. And it seemed as though all in attendance were having a good time.
I want to give kudos to Mark and Juno, the organizers of the event. This was their first attempt at staging a beer festival and they did a great job. From my experience and observation it was very well run. The parking lot at Midway Stadium was a great location, providing ample yet focused space for people to form beer lines and just mill about. Picnic tables in the middle gave folks a place to sit down, not unwelcome when the whole afternoon is spent drinking beer. Booth access for brewers and vendors was super easy. There was enough food and the lines for food and toilets moved pretty quickly. All-in-all, well done!
Congratulations to Flat Earth Brewing for taking the People’s Choice award for their Sunburst Ale. The honor is well deserved. This apricot infused version of their Belgian Pale Ale has become one of my favorite local brews and was the best of the beers I sampled at the event.
Congratulations also to the folks who won the Perfect Pint beer tasting party in the silent auction. Give me a call or shoot me an email and we will set up your event.
I was working at the event representing A Perfect Pint, so my sampling was limited. I commented to someone that this was the most sober I had ever been at a beer festival. It made for some interesting people watching. I was fascinated as the lines formed and ebbed for both food and toilets. Particularly interesting was the shift in the lines from these two things to the breathalyzer machines as the festival drew to a close. The Perfect Pint table was next to these handy machines so I got to watch as festival attendees, having just finished a beer, blew .35 or more BAC. I also witnesses as one guy who had clearly sampled a good number of beers blew a 0.00 BAC. I don’t think he believed the machine either. Good thing. As the day went on the number of cheers that rose from the crowd as patrons dropped their tasting glasses increased. It totally seemed like everyone was having a good time. The pinnacle for me though was the couple I spotted as the bagpipes played the event to a close, swaying to some unheard music with large brown stains all down the front of their white T-shirts.
There were a few breweries represented that I had never tried and a couple that I had never heard of. One of the latter was Gray’s Brewing Company of Janesville, Wisconsin. I tried their ESB and found it to be quite tasty. I’ll have to give some other of their beers a try. I was also pleased with both of the offerings from Founders Brewery. Their Red’s Rye P.A. was pleasantly hoppy with balancing malt and a nice touch of spicy rye character. While the cherry flavor in the Cerise was a little candied, I still enjoyed this tart, refreshing beer. [EDIT] I forgot that I had wanted to mention Minnesota Tan from Stillwater’s Lift Bridge Brewery. This was my first opportunity to try this, their newest release. A so-called lingonberry tripel, this is a tart, extra-dry beer with nice berry flavor and a bit of the Belgian fruit and spice yeasty character. I enjoyed it and would recommend trying it if you find it on a menu.
Once again, great job Juno and Mark. Please do it again next year.