My second day in Denver was not a packed as the first day but I still made it to a few different places. I started out the day at Falling Rock Tap Room for the tapping of the Mutinous Battle Chai followed by the Friday night GABF session and ending my evening at Euclid Hall for a late night dinner.

Falling Rock Tap Room has a huge draw during GABF and the place seems to always be packed. Its a great scene of people who enjoy beer. I talked to several friendly folks while I was eating my lunch and waiting for friends. The special beer on tap was a collaboration between Mutineer Magazine and New Holland Brewing, called Mutinous Battle Chai. The beer is a Chai spiced ale that matches the aspects of Chai tea without loosing the maltiness that makes it beer. It smells like sweet black chai tea consisting of cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon. It is malty sweet a little astringent, like tea. The photo of three half-pint beer glasses below are the Mutinous Battle Chai.

The session at the Great American Beer Festival on Friday night started with a very short line for the members and for the first 30 minutes of the festival it seemed less crowded than the previous night. That soon changed to become a night that was much busier than the previous night.

Also out Friday night were many of the brewers, I had a chance to talk with the brewers or owners from Uncommon Brewers, Brooklyn Beer, Brugge, Fat Head’s Brewery, and Eagle Rock Brewery. I also wrote many more notes on the beer I sampled. Check out my raw, unedited tasting notes after the photos.

After the festival, I headed to Euclid Hall with some friends where we, again, had a delicious meal. We sampled the sausage, pickles, and poutines for appetizers and for dinner I had the very delicious brat burger, a sandwich where the meat is like a bratwurst patty.

Tasting Notes

Pro-Am

- Jerry McPhie & Avery, Roggenbeir, choco nose, a hint of banana/clove, earthy. Roasty

- bob peak & Bear Rwpublic, American pilsner w/black pepper, pepper nose, very peppery, nice, sweet, bitter, like eating a peppersteak, fresh cracked pepper

- Donny Hummel & Eagle Rock, Red Velvet, citrus roasty, velvety smooth sweetness, a smooth rye sweetness, 77 IBU but doesn’t seem so bitter

Tustin Brewing

- portola coffee blonde, made w/coffee extract, light color amd flavor, like a fresh pot of coffee

Cigar City

- Guava Grove, fruity, slightly tart, great flavor

- oatmeal raisin cookie, a brown with vanilla and raisin, tastes like cookie dough, raisins

Cumberland Brewery, Louisville

- bourbon barrel keister, 75% bourbon flavors, sweet malt, chocolate, cacoa, intense vanilla, caramel, coconut? Superb

Brooklyn Beer,

- Brooklyn Sorachi Ace, lemon zest, herbal, slight white pepper, not too bitter. Slightly sweet, good stuff

- Manhattan Project, supposed to be like a manhattan cocktail, a little fruity, sweet, interesting

Blue Point Brewing, NY

- toasted lager, lager, slightly toasty, maybe like a Vienna lager

Rockyard, CO

- pigtail cream ale, creamy, crisp, clean

Rocky Mountain

- alt, awful, dirty wet sock, sorry guys, did it ruin my cup?

Ithaca

- Flower Power, ipa, citrusy, grapefruit, floral, bitter, clean, almost dry, crisp

- Super Friends, grapefruit, wet hay, wet dog but in a good way, it’s Simcoe after all

- Brute, sour with just a bit of sweetness, Flinstones vitamins (asorbic acid)

Brugge

- IPA, herbal nose. Tettnang, chinook, centennial, bitter and tasty

- Spider, goji berry, 9-year pickled plums, cherry. Wild yeast. Sour and candy, a little roasty, OMG so complex and delicious, sark chocolate covered cherry liquor. So nice.

Founders

- breakfast stout, coffee beans dark roasted, molasses, a little oats, full bodied

Jolly Pumpkin

- Biere de Mars, sour sweet nose, crisp sourness, hint of spice

Fat Head’s Bewery, PA

- KoKo Head Chocolate Coconut Cream Stout, chocolately, candy sweet. Coconut and cream

- Up in Smoke, smoky alder wood, smokes right on the loading docks, nice smokiness but a sweetness in the finish that balances nicely.

- Collaboarive evil, bourbon aged smoked Baltic porter, KY bourbon barrels, not as smoky but much sweeter almost like molasses or malt extract, the bourbon flavor is also present and compliments the sweet and smoke very well

Mammoth

- Dbl Nut Brown, toasty, sweet, molasses, roasty, light coffee, a little nutty

Il Vicino

-Citra wheat w/citra hops, citrus grapefruit, grassy, light sweet almost lemon hint of pomelo, grainy, delicious, southeast Asia pomelo is the

Green flash

- bourbon barrel stout, whiskey flavors, sweet malty, a little chocatw and coffee

Firestone

- Parabola, chocolate espresso beans, roasty, ice cream, silky smooth

Eagle Rock

- IPA, grapefruit a little grassy, a little sweetness but very well balanced with the bitterness. A food use of both Simcoe and Citra (no manure nor dirty wet at smells)

Cambridge

- The Colonel, porter with cherries and wild yeast, slightly spur and astringent, roasty and sweet, intense

- arquebus, barley wine, malty slight molasses, quite sweet with a hint of sour

My first day in Denver for the Great American Beer Festival was quite full with a stop at Harry’s Bar for a double IPA, Euclid Hall for food and some excellent beer, a visit to Great Divide Brewing, GABF exhibit and tasting hall, and finally a post-party at Freshcraft for a late dinner and excellent beer.

I started off the day at Harry’s Bar (conveniently located in the hotel where I’m staying)where I met up with a few folks that I met on Twitter. Each day of GABF Harry’s plans to carry a new beer on draft. The beer that I sampled was Blue Moon Brewing at the Sand Lot Kneewalker Double IPA. It wasn’t as hoppy as I thought it would be but it also was not as sweet as I expected. Fairly well rounded.

The next stop was Euclid Hall, a great restaurant and beer bar that serves interesting and very tasty food, almost like comfort food. For lunch I had the chicken and sourdough waffles with maple syrup. The special event that I attended was a special tasting of Avery barrel aged beer. A representative from Avery brought over a few bottles of Dépuceleuse and Quinquepartite, both are sour ales aged in barrels. The were both quite sour and delicious and it was great to get a free sample.

The photographer at Beerlens.com caught me in action taking the photo below where I was experimenting using a wide-angle lens that I rented from BorrowLenses.com. I’m not sure I like being called a wannabe though . Enthusiast, hobbyist, aspiring photographer, any of these would work.

Euclid Hall also has a great bottle selection in addition to the tap. It just so happened that while we were there, they had the last 12 bottles of Grat Divide Brewing’s Barrel Aged Old Ruffian aged in Stranahan’s barrels. It was an excellent aged barley wine beer. It was sweet, earthy, woody, slightly herbal, hints of old licorice candy, and the presence of whiskey flavor quite apparent. Quite an amazing beer.

The next stop was Great Divide Brewing Company’s tap room and brewery in Denver. This was a great spot because not only do they have their great beers on tap they were also letting folks wander around the brewery, so naturally I took a few photos. The beer that I sampled that I found quite interesting was the Samurai, an unfiltered beer made with rice. It was a medium bodied beer that had some flavor to it.

After meeting up with The Beer Wench and others at Great Divide we all headed over to the Convention Center for the festival. Even the member’s line was long (see photo below). Once inside the place was crowded but not uncomfortably so. You get as many 1 oz. tasting as you can handle. There is also an annoying tradition where if you drop your tasting glass and the people around you shout “oohhhhh!” and it echoes throughout the hall. Even though the tastes were only an ounce, you could still really get a good taste of the beer. After the photos below you can read through my raw, unedited notes.

Tasting Notes from Day 1 of GABF

New Holland

• Enviuos, raspberry but only slightly sweet, bready & earthy, oaky
• El Mole Ocho, pepper and chocolate, smooth & sweet, peppery but not spicy, tomaco

Cigar City

• Final Push smells dead on like chocolate covered coffee beans, tastes like a dark espresso with a touch of cocao

Sweet Water

• Dank Tank, Belgian quad. Sweet earthy clove, banana well crafted, more drinkable than Koenigshaven but nit as complex.

LoneRider

• IPA, hoppy nose like Dogfish Head, but dry not terribly sweet, nice and crisp, grapefruit, bitter, nice

Carolina Beer Company

• cottonwood moonrise rye, dirt and like a bin of pale malt barley, maybe like rye bread, taste is lighter and a hint of cola butane green tea

Alltech’s Lexington brewing co

• Bourbon barrel ale, like drinking bourbon w/out the alcohol sting

Maui, holy caw these guys rock

• smokeStack lager, very smoky, cherrywood, beechwood, beef jerky, wow

Main Street Brewery

• Old Woody, sour with a bit of sweetness, very nice, reminiscent of Cantillon. 18 months in the barrel, should be a contender. Inland Empire. Corona, CA

The Brew Kettle, OH

• Collaborative Evil Baltic Porter, good porter

Brugge

• Trippel is good, expected & good
• Peachy something, sour peach, crisp

Half Acre

• Daisy Cutter Pale ale, smells like Simcoe hops, grassy & grapefruit. Squeaky clean taste & texture, a little bitter, dry

3 Floyds

- Fest Beer, a little malty, mostly flat flavor

Each year, for the past seven years, a beer festival is held in San Francisco at Pier 45 on the S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien, a World War II Liberty class ship. The event is a benefit for the upkeep and restoration of this historic class of sea vessel. Held on September 11-12, this year the event featured unlimited tastings from the seven breweries that make up the SF Brewer’s Guild: 21st Amendment, Beach Chalet, Gordon Biersch, Magnolia, Social Kitchen & Brewery, Speakeasy, and Thirsty Bear. I thought this would be a great warm up before I headed to the Great American Beer Festival and I was right. This was a great event.

Although the event featured only seven breweries, there were 41 different beers available for generous samplings. Unlike some festivals, where each brewery brings only 2-3 of their best each brewery had, on average, 5 beers available. At $45 for one day or $75 for two days, it might seem expensive but  you have to remember this event is also a fund raiser. Also featured at the event was food from Orson and music by Zoo Station and Hot for Teacher.

Of the beers that were served, I sampled the following:

• 21st Amendment Hop Crisis
• 21st Amendment Golden Doom
• Magnolia Oysterhead Stout
• Social Kitchen Social Kölsch
• Social Kitchen Old Time Alt
• Speakeasy White Lightning
• Thirsty Bear Cask-conditioned ESB (dry hopped with Willamette)
• Thirsty Bear Rum Runner

The entire beer list at the event was as follows:

• 21st Amendment
  • Brew Free of Die IPA, Hell or High Watermelon Wheat, Hop Crisis, Golden Doom
• Beach Chalet
  • VFW Light, Bavarian Hefeweizen, California Kind, Presidio IPA, Riptide Red, Fleishhacker Stout, Saison du Chalet de Plage, Düsseldorf Altbier
• Gordon Biersch
  • Marzen, Schwarzbier, Festbier, Czech Pilsner, Hefeweizen, Export
• Magnolia
  • Kalifornia Kölsch, Proving Ground IPA, Prescription Pale, Big Cypress Brown, Oysterhead Stout
• Social Kitchen
  • Social Kölsch, Old Time Alt, L’Enfant Terrible, Rapscallion, Easy IPA, Big Mundy Weizenbock
• Speakeasy
  • Big Daddy, Prohibition, Double Daddy, Public Enemy Pils, White Lightning
• Thirsty Bear
  • Polar Bear Lager, Golden Vanilla Ale, Valencia Wheat, Rum Runner, Meyer ESB, Kozlov Stout, Cask-conditioned ESB

On Saturday, November 14, 2009 we made a short journey to Hayward, California to attend the 4th Annual Barrel-Aged Beer Fest, which is organized by The Bistro. When we arrived, we encountered 65 wood barrel-aged beers from about 30 different breweries, all available for tasting form the souvenir tulip-shaped glass. The tasting was $40 and included said glass, a very detailed listing of the beers available, and 10 tasting tickets, additional tickets were available to $2 each but I didn’t need more.

This beer festival featured some of the most interesting beers, in a wide variety of “styles,” from breweries all across the nation, all with two common themes: wood barrel-aged and high alcohol content. Although most were West Coast based breweries other breweries from other parts of the country and the world were there, such as Avery (Colorado), Allagash (Maine), Dogfish Head (Delaware), and Rodenbach (Belgium).

The festival itself, on average, wasn’t terribly crowded. I only had a little bit of trouble getting around when I first arrived but within 20 minutes the number people around was manageable. The people attending the festival and serving the beer all were very interested in beer and all seemed to be enjoying the beer being sampled at this event.

There were no two beers that produced a similar tasting experience, each beer was very unique, interesting, and well crafted. This would be no surprise when inspecting the beer list and the details of each beer. The “styles” ranged from barleywine, imperial stout, Belgian-style strong dark ale, Scotch ale, doppelbock, Flemish red, IPA, fruit beers, and many were blends of everything in between or experimental styles crafted very well. I’m using “style” in quotes because it seems like by-the-book styles were thrown out the window in favor of creating something very interesting and delicious with a complexity of flavor and aroma. Next, the alcohol content by volume ranged from 6% at the lowest all the way up to 13% for the strongest, with the median being around 9%. On top of that, add the diversity of barrels used to age the beer: bourbon barrels from a variety of makers, wine barrels from various styles of wine, brandy barrels, neutral barrels, and toasted oak barrels. Finally, each beer was aged for different amounts of time with the shortest for 2 months and the longest for 2½ years.

With 65 very interesting beers available, it was difficult to figure out what to try so after my first beer I talked to one of the servers and I also ran into the future owners of 510 Brewing Company and Peter from BetterBeerBlog, all of whom had some great suggestions. The following are some brief notes about the beers that I tried at the event.

Interlude by Allagash. Aroma of green apples and a malty sweet flavor with a hint of sour. This 9.5% abv beer was aged in French Merlot and Syrah oak barrels for 12 months. It was fermented with a Belgian farmhouse yeast and Brettanomyces.

Voltron by Avery. Roasty, sour, rich, dark malty sweet aroma and flavor with some woody notes. Voltron is a blend of 5 different small-batch 12 month barrel-aged beers including 2 Chardonnary barrels, 2 Port barrels, and 1 Carbernet barrel. This beer was fermented to 9% by several strains of yeast: 2 Brettanomyces strains and several strains of lactobacillus and pediococcus.

Clobberskull by Bear Republic. Clove honey aroma and flavor. This 10.5% ale was made with 10% raw wheat and 10% split peas and aged for 100 days in Medium Toast French Oak Cabernet barrels.

Imperial Porter by Black Diamond. A medium bodied beer that reminded me of brownie chocolate and roasted coffee beans. This 9% beer was made with Scharffenberger chocolcate cacao nibs and vanilla beans and aged in Tenzing bourbon barrels.

Imperial Eclipse Stout 2008 by Fifty Fifty. This stout was like liquid dark chocolate with a a roasty nature like cacao nibs. A 2008 GABF bronze winner, this 9.5% abv beer was aged in Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon barrels for 1 year.

Cruisin’ with Ruben & the Bretts on Cherries by Lagunitas. Aroma and tasty of dark and sour cherries with a dark malty sweetness and a hint of dill spice. The was by far the strongest beer at the festival at 13%. The beer listing had the following description of this beer:

Ruben and the Jets was an Imperial Stout, yeast dropped and aged in stainless on Criollo Peruvian cacao nibs, then into [Heaven's Hill] Bourbon barrel for 6 months, Brettanomyces claussenii added to the barrel for 3 additional months, then Sonoma County cherries offered as a snack to the yeast for another 3 months.

Black Pearl by Maui Brewing. Roasty, coffee/espresso, woody, a little smoky, slightly malty sweet. A 6.5% abv beer that was aged in Jim Beam American Oak barrels.

Wet Hopsicle 2009 by Moylans. Hoppy, bitter, and a delightful experience of hops. At 9.2% abv, this beer was aaged in Girad Chardonnay Medium Toast French Oak.

Old Woody 2006 by Schooners Grille. Malty with an aroma of candied orange peels and a little bit boozy. This beer is 10.5% abv and was made with whiskey soaked oak chips and then added to a neutral oak cask.

Scotch on Scotch by Sierra Nevada. Had flavors and aromas of caramel, Almond Joy, and syrupy-malty Scotch ale.  Scotch on Scotch is 9.4% abv and was aged in Glengoyne Scotch barrels for 7 months.

From left to right in the picture above: me (David), Travis (510 Brewing Co.), Petter (BetterBeerBlog), Dean (510 Brewing Co.)

For another recap of this great beer festival read these blog posingst:

• BetterBeerBlog – 2009 4th Annual Barrel-Aged Beerfest Recap.
• K.M. Waever Hop Press – Tipsy Coverage of The Bistro’s Barrel Aged Festival 2009

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