The Great American Beer Festival, the second largest beer festival in the world took place last month and I had the good fortune of attending this year’s festivities.  Celebrating their 30th anniversary this year, the GABF tickets sold out in record time, clocking in with 49,000 attendees.  There were 466 breweries at the festival, serving 2,375 different beers, and 238 medals were awarded, including 18 to breweries entering the competition for the first time.  In a word, it was EPIC.

In addition to the festival itself, there are dozens of ancillary events at beer bars and breweries around town.  From beer releases to beer dinners to lectures and tastings, it was a week of non-stop beer love. I attended a few extra events, including a beer tasting class with BJCP judge Gwen Conley, and a midnight beer dinner with Avery Brewing at Euclid Hall. My point being that the week surrounding the Great American Beer Festival was a jam-packed week of awesome events, amazing beer, and crazy people. I didn’t take a single picture (who has time for cameras when you have a beer in your hand?), but I did take notes.  They’re more like scribbles vaguely resembling words, but for the purposes of this article, they’ll have to do. So without further ado, I give you some of my favorite beers from this week’s festival

1. Short’s Brewing – This Michigan-based brewery received permission to distribute their beer in Colorado for the week surrounding GABF, something that had never been done before.  So in addition to trying their stuff at the festival, I was also able to pick up some of their six packs.  If you can, find the Bellaire Brown Ale (a year-round release) and their Woodmaster, a high gravity brown ale fermented with maple syrup and toasted pecans.

2. Bull & Bush Pub and Brewery – In spite of their ridiculous name and even more absurd costumes (disco balls on top of construction hats?), Bull & Bush turned out one of my favorite beers of the festival: Turnip the Beets.  Honestly, I don’t remember in what stage of brewing the beets were used, but I do remember the lovely balance between the malty and earthy flavors of this stellar ale.

3. Ignite Denver –  Think lecture series meets speed dating, in which beer industry big-wigs are given 5 minutes to talk about their role in the beer industry, while their powerpoint slides are advanced automatically every 15 seconds.  Wild, crazy, hilarious, and surprisingly informative. Also, unlimited beer. Only downside: Greg Koch of Stone Brewing wearing a t-shirt with his own face on it.

4. Avery Brabant - Served at the Euclid Hall Midnight Brunch event, Avery’s Brabant is a wild ale aged for 8 months in Zinfandel barrels with brettanomyces. Sour. Dark. Delicious.

5. Right Brain Brewing’s Lavender Wheat Beer - Every lavender-flavored beverage I’ve ever had (including my own lavender pale ale) has inevitably tasted like soap.  That was until I tried Right Brain Brewing’s Lavender wheat beer. Clean and floral, balanced with a light caramel malt flavor.  Perfect amount of lavender.  Well done Right Brain.

6.  Pints for Prostates’ Rare Beer Tasting - 30 different hard to find beers from some of the best breweries in the country. My favorite: Lost Abbey’s Deliverance, a blend of brandy barrel-aged Angel’s Share and bourbon barrel aged Serpent’s Stout, packaged in 2010.  This smooth and well-balanced ale offered a subtle boozy heat with notes of caramel, vanilla, and raisins. Least favorite: Sam Adams’ Utopias.  This 27% ABV  beer was overly boozy, syrupy, and completely unbalanced. Generally just not worth my time.

I could go on and on and on about all of the amazing things that happened during the week surrounding GABF.  But in reality, the Great American Beer Festival is something that needs to be experienced in person, because no words can actually describe the enormity of this event.  People come from all across the states to be a part of  the magic that the craft beer industry has created. It’s a beautiful time for discovery and exploration of all those beers you can’t find in your city, and trying everything you can until your palate can’t take it anymore.  With every passing year, the festival gets bigger and bigger, so I suggest you mark your calendars and book your tickets for next year’s fest.  You can thank me later.

Every trip I take begins with the mapping out of local breweries. This week I am vacationing in Chautauqua Lake, located in Western New York, with my fiancée’s family. Along the road-trip from Boston to Chautauqua lie two of the east coast’s greatest breweries Southern Tier and Ommegang. This week I will focus on the prior.

Since Lakewood, New York is home to one of my all-time favorite craft breweries this was a must stop. When I think of amazing imperial stouts I think Southern Tier Brewing Company. My first encounter with the brewery was with their Pumking. Appropriately named considering it is the king of all imperial pumpkin beer (fact, not opinion, ok opinion, but still). If you have had this beer – if not, shame on you – and agree of its greatness then you should trust that the beer I am about to suggest is an absolute must buy…

About The Beer:

The Southern Tier Crème Brûlée Imperial Milk Stout is brewed with pale malt, dark caramel malt, vanilla bean, lactose sugar, and kettle hops – you get the picture – this defines dessert beer. If you live in the area you can pick up a growler, but if not, you may find this beer either on tap or in a 22 oz. bottle. For an imperial stout, it comes in about average at 9.6% ABV. If you have ever eaten crème brûlée before then you already know what this beer tastes like. This is its 22oz boozy sibling.

In A Nutshell:

Southern Tier’s Crème Brûlée Imperial Milk Stout is an absolute must buy. This beer is top of its class and does not disappoint. Find it and buy it.

Review:

Seldom do I find a beer that has that “it” factor. That thing that grabs you and shakes you and makes you wonder why it is, that before today, you have been clueless it ever existed. Saturday I was shaken after taking my first sip of a Crème Brûlée Imperial Milk Stout fresh off the brewery’s private taps at the end of their bottling line. The sweet flavors lather the tongue in a silky deliciousness. I realize that deliciousness is a technical beer nut term so let me break that down a bit. In this case it is defined as the specific combination of malt, caramel, vanilla, and sugar sweetness. Next time you are looking for a dessert beer pairing for your grilled chicken, steaks, or burgers give this one a shot.

Rating:

5 out of 5

On a side note, if you are interested check out some of the pictures I snapped from the tour. We lucked out and winded up taking the tour on the day of their annual Summer Fest. For the record though keg bowling is way more difficult than it looks.

It’s summertime in Boston again, which means it’s time for another American Craft Beer Fest. This year was a lot of fun. Team Beeriety got to try a lot of new beers and chat with a bunch of different beers lovers. We saw some familiar faces, but also made many new friends and tried many new beers. Here are five of our favorites.

Boulevard Brewing

None of us had ever heard of this Kansas City based brewery before the fest, but it’s safe to say we’re now all fans. All of their beers we tried were amazing. In particular we enjoyed their Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale. This delicious Saison, dry-hopped with Amarillo, completely blew us away. Unfortunately Boulevard doesn’t distribute out to our homebase of Boston, but if you can get you’re hand on some, you’re sure to enjoy it.

White Birch Brewing

White Birch is a relatively young brewery from Hookset, NH that has recently caught our attention. We were really impressed by their Wrīgian beer. This Belgian strong ale made with Rye was another really surprising find of the day – a lovely marriage of the spicy complexity of rye and the full, sweet flavor traditional to so many Belgians.

Goose Island

This sizable brewery out of Chicago made quite an impression with fest goers. The line to try their Bourbon County Brand Vanilla Stout was of the longest we’ve ever seen at any beer festival. The beer did not disappoint, with big bold flavors that were nicely balanced by vanilla.

Brooklyn Brewery

Brooklyn never fails to disappoint with their beer and this year was no different. The brew that stood out for most of us was The Concoction, an unusual beer brewed with smoked malt, minced ginger, lemon juice and wildflower honey. It was tasty, but unlike any other beer I’ve had in awhile.

Duck Rabbit

A North Carolina Brewery that specializes in dark beers, this place has steadily been growing its reputation over the last few years. Their End of Reason was one of the best baltic porters I’ve had in many, many years. If you’re lucky enough to have access to this brewery, you’re in for a treat.

Did you attend the ACBF? If so let us know what you’re favorite beers were in the comments!

After staying coastal for a few weeks, I was pretty jazzed to make my first trip ever to Colorado, and better yet, to Denver.  Regarded as one of the best beer cities, I knew I was in for something amazing and the Centennial State definitely delivered.

All I can really say about Colorado is this: there is a spirit in the beer community there that I feel is unmatched anywhere else (and I don’t think it was the altitude talking). Nothing seems to be off limits or unexplored.  If there is something you want in a beer, you can probably find a brewery in Colorado that does it. The breadth of interest and variety in beer is mind blowing, not to mention the incredible folks that comprise the beer community.  Without further ado, the highlights…

Upon arriving in Denver, I drove straight from the airport up to Fort Collins to visit New Belgium Brewing, the third largest craft brewery in the US.  I am lucky enough to know one of the head brewers (and sour beer guru) Eric, who has been at New Belgium for 16 years, and was kind enough to give me an epic tour of the ins and outs of the brewery.

They are rockin’ a serious operation up in Fort Collins, as one might expect at 680,000 barrels annually.  New Belgium’s signature Fat Tire Amber ale headlines their array of classic brews along with the Ranger IPA, Sunshine Wheat and others.  In addition there is a seriously impressive line-up of complex and intriguing brews coming out of New Belgium.  La Terroir is a dry-hopped sour ale that has a sort of citrusy and earthy sourness.  Another, La Folie, is a sour brown ale aged in oak barrels and has some granny smith apple flavors happening. Sour as hell and totally delicious.

Eric also introduced me to a little (seriously little) and very young brewery down the street called Funkwerks, which focuses on saisons.  This place is super tiny, rocking a taproom in the front and a baby brewing space in the back. We tried their classic saison as well as their chardonnay barrel aged saison, which adds some oaky and vanilla flavors to the sour base.

A little bit older and wiser, Great Divide has a really cool space in a cool part of town, and a great tour.  They started in 1994 with no commercial brewing experience and produced 300 barrels in their first year. Now they are up to 20,000 barrels a year and hope to up that to 30,000 for 2011. The Colette Saison offered a really great spicy, herbaceous flavor, while their Oak-aged Yeti Imperial Stout came out with the big roasty, carmelized flavors and vanilla notes.

I also spent some time in Boulder, starting at Avery Brewing Company.  What started as a father-son homebrewing team has grown into a brewery best known for Ellie’s Brown Ale, White Rascal, or even their DuganA IPA.  All great stand-bys, but I had the chance to try some special stuff that I hadn’t seen before: the Out of Bounds Stout on cask, and their 17th Anniversary Dry-hopped Black Lager.  The stout was so crazy silky, nutty, and chocolatey, and had this great almost piney bitter finish.  The Black Lager was a oaky and hoppy ending with a super clean finish. Amazingly balanced in all.

Twisted Pine is a little spot owned by a guy affectionately known as “Twisted Bob,” a homebrewer who opened Twisted Pine 15 years ago.  This place for me was a bit of a surprise, off the beaten path and hosting what seemed to be a steady stream of regulars.  Great beer though, including a brew called Billy’s Chilies brewed with jalapeño, habanero, fresno, serrano and anaheim chilies, as well as the Hoppy Knight Black IPA, with a beautiful balance of piney bitterness and roasty malt flavor.

Finally my friend in Boulder introduced me to Mountain Sun, a cool little brewpub that may have taken the cake for some of the best beer I tried in Colorado.  Their Old School Dry Irish Stout was super dry and clean with that lovely roasty burnt character balanced by a hoppy tinge at the end.  Their FYIPA (a local favorite as I understand) is a pretty basic but über delicious IPA, with that citrusy and piney hop flavor that is kinda hard to beat.  They’re making the kind of beers you come back to again and again.

All in all, the beer culture in Colorado was fantastic, complex, varied, and awesome enough to convince me to move to Denver.  So perhaps I am a little biased, but I’d bet that if one were to try a craft beer from Colorado, one wouldn’t be disappointed.  That’s the beauty of this state: there is a little something for everyone, and in this surge of craft beer excellence there has never been a better time to raise a pint.

The second leg of my beer journey took me to the West Coast, visiting San Diego, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco area (Seattle and Portland had to be saved for a separate trip).  But as far as California is concerned, the craft beer culture is thriving and the level of innovation and experimentation is high.  It seems to be the trend in the West; in a culture of hop-heads and extremists, crazy big beers reign the tap lists.

I visited a small sampling of breweries when you consider that California is home to hundreds of them.  Across the board, every brewery is focusing on re-defining the classic beers we’re used to, and coming up with some seriously complex and adventurous new beers to wet our palate.  As always a few stood out amongst the rest.

Stone Brewing, notorious for their big crazy beers with names like “Arrogant Bastard,” has made a name for themselves in the vein of hoppy and aggressive brews. These big brews dominate the market out there, which is evidenced by Stone’s recent announcement of a $26 million expansion.  The stand out for me was the Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale, an American Black Ale coming in at 8.7% that starts with a yummy brown sugar aroma and pulls through with a nice balance between malty, hoppy, and a roasty toasty finish.  With boldly hopped beers and equally bold marketing campaigns (“It’s not expensive, you’re cheap”) Stone has created a great deal of space in craft brewing for these irreverent beers.

Another SoCal brewery that deserves serious recognition is The Bruery in Placentia, CA.  Being only three years old and producing around 2,700 barrels annually, The Bruery’s presence in craft beer culture across the country is impressive to say the least. Packaging in 750mL bottles (no six-packs for these guys!) gives them an edge of exclusivity, and it’s fitting since they are making incredibly interesting and innovative beers. The Loakal Red, an oak-aged American red ale, offered a round, woody, and malty experience, while the Mischief (a Belgian golden strong ale) cask-conditioned with saffron is a spicy, herbaceous, and citrusy kick in the head (in a good way).  Or take their Black Tuesday, a 20% ABV imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels for over a year.  Everything The Bruery is brewing is complex, delicious and pushes the envelope.  You won’t find a flagship IPA from these brewers, they are more interested in developing a new definition of California craft beer, and doing a pretty good job at that.

If you head up north to the Bay area you’ll find some like-minded individuals, especially at a little brewery called Russian River.  Located in Santa Rosa, you won’t find any of their beers distributed out east, to the dismay of many.  Just like The Bruery, Russian River is pushing the boundaries, brewing with wild yeasts and bacteria like lactobacillus and pediococcus. The still have their signature IPAs to appease the hop-heads, as well as a triple IPA Pliny the Elder only released once a year.  I was lucky enough to try the Elder at Toronado in San Francisco, and even at 11% ABV, the hoppy and citrusy triple IPA is clean and goes down oh so easily.  They also have their Belgian beer series, which features beers like Defenestration, Supplication, Sanctification, Consecration, and Redemption.  Without a doubt, my favorite was the Supplication: a brown ale aged in pinot noir barrels with sour cherries, brettanomyces, lactobacillus, and pediococcus.  The cherries come straight through on the aroma, the barrels provide a nice oaky flavor while balancing the sourness from all the yeast and bacteria strains.  Again, some crazy things happen when you throw wild yeast and bacteria in to the mix, but Russian River is nothing short of eager to cross those lines for the sake of great beer.

Going from the first part of my trip on the East to the West Coast was a bit of a shock to the palate, but also quite fascinating.  A friend suggested that perhaps California crowds are more open to extreme beers because they don’t have to face the extremes of East Coast weather, which the more I think about, the more it makes sense.  Regardless, these breweries are listening to and answering the call for creative and experimental beers that define craft beer culture on the beautiful left coast.

As I began to explore the tremendous world of craft beer a couple of years ago, one thing became abundantly clear: every beer is like a person, possessing individual personalities, stories, and characteristics. The basic components are the same, but the variables that are present give craft beer immense potential to create insanely interesting, complex and delicious beers. I mean really, what could be more exciting?

So when I set out in early February for a six-week trip visiting breweries across the US, my goal was to learn about these wonderful individual brews. Having decided that the craft beer industry is one I’d like to earn a living in, I knew I needed to get an education in beer/brewing any way I could. Between the brewing process, the creators, and the beers themselves, there was a great deal to explore. What I didn’t realize is that I would discover the incredible passion and drive that acts as the common thread binding the American craft beer industry together. Beyond this amazing enthusiasm, I found that every region sets itself apart with its own specialty, focus, and creativity that fueled the community’s excitement.

Six weeks, 22 breweries and some excellent beer bars later, I’m back in Boston and eager to take a look at the regional differences and national similarities in the American craft beer industry. The lovely folks at Beeriety have kindly given me a place to do that. Over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing a summary and various musings of 3 different regions and the breweries therein: I’ll start on the East Coast, then hop over to the West Coast, and end with the great state of Colorado (a region in and of itself, no?), looking at the awesome beers and breweries that help define the region.

Bottom line: Trying upwards of 100 beers on my trip was no easy task, but someone had to do it. I’m happy to share that with you, and I hope you’ll join me. First stop: The East Coast.

On Tuesday the Beeriety team joined some great folks for a lovely evening at The Haven, Boston’s premiere Scottish Pub. It was a fun evening with great beer and great conversation and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. The highlight of the night was the Haven’s own Special 70 session ale brewed by Notch brewery, which debuted just last week. It’s another great brew by the folks over at Notch, who’ve yet to produce a beer I haven’t enjoyed. The Special 70 was featured in a flight of four ales that folks were able to buy during the event-

Fraoch Heather Ale from Williams Brothers 5.0% ABV – Herbal ale made with heather & sweet gale

Innis & Gunn Rum Cask 7.4% ABV – Rum Cask aged pale ale Edinburgh

The Haven Special 70 4.1% ABV – Scottish Session Ale with subtle hints of caramel

Belhaven Stout 7% ABV – Classic Scottish ale from the town of Dunbar

As a way of saying thank you to all our fans who came out to see us we also had several raffle prizes to hand out, including beer and glasses from both Innis & Gunn and Williams Brothers. Thanks to everyone who came out. If you weren’t able to make it, don’t worry; we’ll be doing more events in the future.

If a little sign wasn’t hanging from the top of the building, you’d never even know Brooklyn Brewery was there. Since 1988, Brooklyn has distributed its beer from New York to Texas, and many states in between. On site, Brooklyn only brews about 20-30% of its product, concentrating mainly on their big bottle series (such as the Local 1 and Local 2), along with some more experimental brews. Our tour guide walked us through a quick educational lesson about the main ingredients in beer, the brewing process, and then walked us through the history of the brewery, highlighting the story behind their logo. The tour itself is very short, but everyone is encouraged to stick inside the brew house for 10-15 minutes, take a look at the equipment, and ask more questions as needed. You can even bring your beer from the pub to the tour!

Speaking of beer…no tasting? Unfortunately, Brooklyn does not do a traditional tasting at the end of the tour. However, there is a small “pub” inside the premises that carries a small selection of Brooklyn beers on tap. You can buy drink tokens (most beers are one token, specialty brews are two tokens) for $4 each, or 6 for $20. They do not serve food, but do allow visitors to bring their own goods or have food delivered (they’ll even supply local menus!).

My favorite part of the tour? A little (read: fat) cat named Monster (yes, named after the Monster Ale). Not all tour guides tell the story, but another employee was willing to answer our question as to why there was a cat at the merch/token booth judging us as we walked in. As the story goes, when the brewery was first setting up shop in its current location, the owners befriended a stray neighborhood cat. This cat eventually because “the brewery cat,” and has stuck around since. Don’t worry, she’s not hanging out around the bar, nor does it seem he’s interested in anything going on. Overall, Brooklyn Brewery is a great brewery to visit if you want a laid back experience that introduces you to what happens in larger scale beer production.

Today’s post comes from Justin K. Thanks Justin!

The New England Real Ale Exhibition (NERAX) runs from March 30th through April 2nd in Somerville, MA. This festival showcases cask ale from British and American breweries. (For a detailed explanation of what cask ale is read Beeriety’s article here.) Because  cask ale has a relatively short shelf life once it’s tapped the show focused on having new beers go up each day. If you were to attend Wednesday night and again Saturday you would see two very different beer lists.

The focus on the British ales was really the biggest draw for me. Living in New England we are blessed with some of the best craft breweries in the country. This is a blessing and a curse. I can tell you the joys found in Allagash White or how the Peoples Pint make the best brown I’ve ever had but when it comes to breweries from the UK I’m completely lost. My goal was to try as many of the beers and ciders from the UK as I could. Some American beers snuck in but they were the exception to the rule, such as Avery’s Ellie brown ale. I ended up trying about 35 different British beers over the course of three days. Dark Star from Brighton, England brought Dark Moore which was amazingly dark and fruity at the same time, never have I drank a beer with notes of black currant. (Take that wine!) Another stand out was Fyne Ales who brought Jarl, a delightfully fruity hoppy beer that tasted of grapefruit without tasting too young.

In contrast with the Extreme Beer Festival I previously discussed, this festival really toned down the ABV, featuring mostly session ales. (Jarl clocked in at around 3.8% abv.) This made spending three or four hours as an attendee or eight as a volunteer entirely doable. NERAX definitely helped me learn about enjoying more subtle tones in beer and helped me look at cask in a new light. Digging in and learning about beers from the UK was an amazing experience as well.

Working in a beer festival sounds like the beer lovers dream. You get to hang around with fellow beer geeks, talking about malts, hops, eccentric brewers, home brewing techniques all while drinking delicious free beer. That’s the dream. In reality, however, working a festival involves a lot of work and an almost superhuman tolerance for beer.

Most of the festivals I’ve worked at have loose/ generous standards for staff drinking, which is great until you realize that you are working, representing some kind of organization and you can’t talk. Also note that while working you could have very possibly be lifting kegs or heavy barrels full of water. You are either moving at a fast pace for five or six hours while drinking or watching for attendees who have had too much, either way you have to maintain your composure.

There are benefits to working a fest though; you do get to try a much wider variety of beers than most attendees do. You also tend to get more information about the beers on hand, either from the event organizers or people much geekier than you. There are typically after parties at the fest as well where taps are open for volunteers, that’s the real fun. You get to sit and drink full pints of extremely rare beer at the price of your blood.

I’ve also attended festivals  but when you work as a volunteer the experience is much different than when you pay to get in. It’s a tight community (At least in Boston) so you tend to run into a few familiar beer geek faces who can point you to what to try and avoid and if you’re lucky enough you’ll know the pourer and they’ll hook you up too.

Working these festivals is always a blast and I get to sample an amount of beer that is nothing short of spectacular but as we speak I’m icing my ankle, have blisters on both of my feet and a nasty hangover. I guess there is a price of admission there.

Today’s post come courtesy of our newest contributor Justin!

Last weekend Beer Advocate hosted their annual Extreme Beer Festival in Boston. This is easily one of the most popular beer festivals in New England, with both days selling out within hours of being on sale. They showcased over 150 different beers from brewers all over the country.

The Friday night event “Night of the Barrels,” was focused primarily on barrel aged beers. The process is done to add subtle notes to beer and help them with aging. Local (and personal) favorites Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project was the star of the barrel night for me with their Plum Quad Baby Tree. The overt sweetness of the beer was so toned down that it made it something that I could sit and sip all day.  Short’s Brewing from Michigan blew me away with their Whiskey Sour beer. It was as strange and beautiful as it sounds.

Saturdays focus was on extreme beers. What classifies as an extreme beer? There is such a variety of strange and wonderful examples of extreme from last night like the crazy high alcohol content in Sam Adam’s Utopias ( staggering 24% alcohol) or strange brewing techniques, like Haverhill Brewery’s Fire and Weiss which used burnt wood in the brewing process. It pretty much tasted like smoke, not to be confused with Stone’s two pepper beers from the barrel night, Crime and Punishment, both tasted like burning. Extreme could be Dogfish Head‘s use of the Randall, a filtering system that runs the beers through tubes to enhance the flavor like their Worldwide Stout run through J.P Licks coffee beans, which was amazing. There was also Dark Horse from Michigan that was serving their UberBoober barleywine that was made with baby formula through a breast pump.

Probably the most interesting part of this was Beer Advocate founders Jason and Todd Alström challenged brewers to make low alcohol extreme beers, this is part of the reason there was such an onslaught of magical strange beers. With this festival done the fine people at Beer Advocate have cemented their reputation as throwing one of the best and unique fests in the country. Now it’s time to start thinking about the American Craft Beer Fest in June.