BrauFest!

A couple Saturdays ago I attended my first ever BrauFest. As you may or may not know, Brau Brothers Brewing Company in Lucan, MN was the location of our beer club's first ever field trip (we even got our picture on the slideshow on their home page). The day we went included an open house at the brewery which included a self guided tour of the hop fields followed by a street dance outside the Brauhaus restaurant and bar (with supper in between at the Brauhaus for us).

I was hoping to get a good sized group of us down there again because it was the perfect set up for us. It's not too often that you can pitch a tent (or in our case, camper) right next to a brewery and drink beer until sleepy time and then sleep off all that beer until morning. Alas, a big group was not in the cards but we were not deterred.

I talked my sister Cheryl and her husband Bruce into coming and they met Allison and me at the brewery around 4:00 on Saturday afternoon with their camper in tow. What's better than owning a camper? Knowing someone who does! I was ready to sleep in a tent but glad that I didn't have to.

When we hit the brewery, I found out that rumors of the appearance of Rubus were true. Rubus is the newest Brau beer, a big ass imperial blackberry porter. Ignoring all rules about what order to drink beers in, I immediately requested one as my first beer. It was damn good too. Not too overwhelming with the blackberry, but just enough to give it a nice flavor. The 9.something% ABV was nicely hidden too. All that for only $5 in a Brau Brothers pint glass that you got to keep (and refill for only $3).

Now Cheryl and Bruce are pretty loyal to Michelob Golden Draft Light (no, I haven't disowned them yet) so I knew Rubus and Sheephead (7.7% ABV pale ale) were out. So we started Bruce off with their version of a light(er) beer, Old 56 and Cheryl had a Strawberry Wheat (and eventually switched to Old 56 as well.

Allison & Cheryl wouldn't hijack the van for me

I switched to Sheephead after a pilsner and soon realized that it was really growing on me. It's a big flavorful pale ale that, if you didn't know better, could easily be mistaken for an IPA. If you like big hops with big flavor, give it a try sometime. They went down way to easily and after a few of those and another Rubus, it was a wobbly walk up to the Brauhaus for me.

When we moved on to the restaurant to eat, we all ordered Brau beers again except Cheryl, who reverted back to Mich Golden form and ordered one. After I gave her crap and Bruce glared at her long enough, she changed her order to an Old 56 and stuck with it for the rest of the night. I'm not sure if they'll ever drink another Brau Beer (or craft beer for that matter) again, but I think I did my part to show them that their perception of craft beer is a little off (like most people's) and that there are some good starter beers for them in the better beer world.

I also bought Bruce an Old 56 t shirt and like I told him that the Brau Brothers might not be able to afford a Super Bowl commercial, but they can put a t shirt on a guy walking around Atwater, MN!

Bruce enjoying one of many Old 56's

After eating way too much good food, my stomach wasn't exactly ready to start drinking a ton of beer again so I decided to switch to the Brau Cream Stout. In spite of me being stuffed, it was still delicious to sip on which is a testament to how smooth that beer is. It was the perfect dessert/after dinner drink.

The street dance was pretty cool, not a lot of dancing going on except for the two little kids having a blast in front of the stage but the band (Hicktown Mafia)was pretty good and played a good mix of stuff from the 70's through the 00's and we had a pretty good time.

I read a comment online from somebody who went last year that said something along the lines of "it was mainly a bunch of locals drinking Bud Lights". For the most part, that's what it was again this year but I don't think you need to have a Mecca like Dark Lord Day with beer geeks crawling out of the wood works to be a good craft beer festival.

I actually appreciated the smaller crowd because you don't often get that kind of face time with the guys who run a brewery and as long as you have good beer to drink, having a good time is all up to you. I got to meet someone I've chatted with on Twitter at the brewery too and had some good conversation with her and her boyfriend. There's always an opportunity to meet someone new and talk about beer with them. Even if they're not big craft beer fans, you can still talk about it with them at an event like this one.

Hanging with Dustin & Trevor Brau

My goal is to get that good sized group to hit this thing next year and we can turn it into our own private beer festival (with a few locals thrown in the mix for fun). Or maybe word will start getting out and it'll get way bigger next year. Either way, I'm going to have fun and who knows, maybe my name will finally get on the plaque at the Brauhaus by then for eating those damn wings last spring!

Winterfest 2010

So I've been all in to the craft beer scene now for less than a year and as of ten days ago I had yet to attend one of the big beer festivals. I've been to Surlyfest and Darkness Day but I'm talking about the kind where you can drink a billion samples of kick ass beer all under the same roof. I barely missed out on Autumn Brew Review last year because by the time I had discovered its existence I had already set up my annual Freedom Fest and couldn't back out.

So needless to say when I saw that the tickets for Winterfest in St Paul were going on sale awhile back I had to jump on it. After asking several people to go it ended up being (my cousin) Paul and (my co-worker) Paul and me. I soon found it it ended up being easiest to just adopt co-worker Paul as "my other cousin Paul". Scratch that last sentence if you didn't see the sit-com in the 80's.

We lined up rides to and from the venue and decided to get dropped off at Great Waters which was around a half mile from the Minnesota History Center. We kicked off with a couple of pitchers and a good meal to get a good base in our stomach before proceeding to drink as many beers as we could in 3 hours. We discussed our plan to hit everything we wanted and try as many "must try" beers without getting totally smashed.

All in all, it was a total success. We had great timing for getting in line because even though we had to wait quite awhile, 90-95% of the crowd was behind us. We were in the first wave to attack which was a good thing because Surly was the first booth there and I knew I wanted to try the One (lager aged in a fresh Bourbon barrel for one year), Two (Oak aged Cranberry Stout) and Three ("Jesus Juice" Brewed with 50% honey and 50% German Dark Munich malt, aged on toasted White Ash and aged in a French oak Pinot Noir barrel) year anniversary beers for sure. Also ended up trying the Four (Double Espresso Milk Stout).

Todd from Surly

After we got those knocked out (before some people even got in) we proceeded up to the second and third levels. Long story short, within the first hour we had tried about everything on my hit list (basically any big stout or IPA or anything with oak-aged, bourbon or cherry in the description) and just took a relaxed approach to the rest of the night.

It was awesome being there with hundreds of people that you knew you had something in common with (I can't imagine a Bud Light drinker dropping $50 on an event like this) and you could walk up to just about anybody and start chatting about beer (and we did).

I didn't take detailed notes because I was there to just see what tasted good and to socialize. But I did keep track of what I tried and here's what was memorable to me:

Schell's Dry Hopped Maifest - The only beer I tried from my hometown because I have the other three sitting in my fridge. It was unique because it was uncarbonated, unfiltered and served from a Bavarian Stich-Fass (not sure exactly what that was). Cool because it was unique and I'm all over unique beers.

Barley John's Unoaked Rosie's Reserve - Basically their Rosie's Old Ale without the bourbon cask aging. I was surprised at how big and tasty it still was. I can't wait for Rosie's to come back again (and to try the Dark Knight for that matter).

Brau Brother's Rainwater Oak-Aged Stout and Brau Brother's Elisha's Old Ale - I've had the Rainwater before but really like it so I figured a quick sample was in order. The Elisha's was pretty good stuff too, I hope it'll be available to me sometime soon. Also got to chat with Dustin Brau again, very cool guy. He invited Beer Club to come out and take a tour of the brewery sometime and hopefully I can get it organized sooner tan later. I figure a swing down to Schell's to make it a 2-for-1 day would work well too.

Cold Spring's John Henry 3 Lick Spiker Ale - I have seen ads for this in my beer magazines several times and thought it sounded like something I should try. I was right. I can't believe I never realized it was from a Minnesota brewery. Looking forward to getting more of this soon.

Fitger's Bourbon Barrel Aged Edmund Imperial Stout - Check out my hit list criteria and you'll see that this covered pretty much every thing (including the cherries that it was racked on). Fitger's sounds like a place I really need to visit. Who can argue with the scenery of the North Shore and beer this good? I'd have to work Lake Superior Brewing in as well.

Flat Earth Grand Design Porter - I would have never tried this if (my cousin) Paul wasn't raving about it. S'more infused anything didn't really sound like my cup of tea but he kept saying how I needed to try the vanilla porter. It was money and we weren't the only one who thought so because it won the Snowshoe award. I went down to get a growler of it this past weekend but sadly, there was none to be had. Hopefully next weekend.

Granite City Batch 1000 - I had it before but I wanted to swing by for a sample just so I could bug them again about putting this on their full time draft list. I like their other stuff but for the most part it's more for people who are dabbling in non-BMC products. This stuff is something I'd seek out and would cause me to make a trip to GC just for the beer.

Great Waters Vulcanus Rex & Great Waters Cherries Dubbelee - The Vulcanus Rex was unique and pretty tasty but a bit too smokey for me. The Cherries Dubbelee was right up my alley. Who wouldn't like a cherry & vanilla flavored Belgian double?

Lift Bridge Belgian Biscotti - They served it with a scoop of ice cream made from the beer just like a root beer float. Goodness gracious it was tasty. I sure hope we can get our paws on this delightful treat come summertime.

McCann's Maple Quadruple - Not sure if I'd drink this on a regular basis but I'd love to get my hands on some and try to make pancakes with it. How could that not taste fantastic?

Rock Bottom Vanilla Oak Infusion Imperial Stout - Doesn't the name say it all for me? I friggin' loved it. Also got to skip the line (not on purpose) because I was just trying to get a rinse but the pitchers were empty and the girl told me to come on up and get beer anyway. Who was I to refuse?

Town Hall Twisted Jim - Barley wine aged in oak from Jim Beam? Predictably delicious.

Surly One - My favorite beer of the night. Tasted almost like a more intense version of Darkness with some beautiful bourbon aging on it. Ridiculous.

Surly Two, Three & Four - Loved 'em all.

It was a night to remember and I can't wait to do it again next year. Hell, I can't even wait for the next festival of this kind. It was like unleashing a kid in a candy store with a dozen Willy Wonkas running the store.

surlyboywonder& MrSpudnik

New friends from Rochester & Alvey from the Four Firkins