Back to Beer, Part 2

Attempting to jog my fuzzy and quickly fading memory of the summer beer fest was...difficult. But through the power of caffeine and aided by a jumbled mess of soggy handwritten notes, which I discovered in the back pocket of my shorts the following day, I think I have come to some level of comfort by way of discussing the beers that highlighted the evening for me.

So here we go - back to beer:


Kuhnhenn's Alien Ale spiced with Chile peppers and served with dry ice

This was one of, if not the most talked about beer at the festival. Why you ask - have you read the aforementioned description? Pours a turbid, straw-like green and the dry ice effect when they served it to you was a little jarring to be perfectly honest. If they were going for the, "I thought we were supposed to be at Beer Fest, not David Bowie's backyard BBQ," then they hit the nail on the head.

Hot sauce, salsa, green vegetables come up front and finishes with spiciness (hotness) that lingers in the throat. I don't enjoy Chile beers much like I don't care for pumpkin beers because I tend to shy away from heavy handedness in one particular flavor profile. On the other hand, how can you not love something like this? Kuhnhenn is known for their quirkiness, producing high gravity beers (summer release Solar Eclipse is at 18 percent ABV) and distributing in painfully small batches. They showed up well at beer fest bringing a boatload of beers I have never seen before and I have a feeling we won't see again. They seem like the child who can't sit still in church.


Jolly Pumpkin Roja De Kriek, Bamagranite, Blanca with Hibiscus and Biere De Mars

The Jolly Pumpkin table was a welcome sight in the midst of 98 degree weather with 105 percent humidity. For this year, Brewmaster Ron Jeffries brought a handful of one-off beers, all served in firkins, and found a hidden treasure in locating and happily dispensing a firkin of the brewery's version of a French Biere De Garde - their Biere De Mars.

I believe that I tried every beer that Ron was personally dispensing along with his staff except for the Weizen Bam with lemongrass and they were all savory and refreshing each finishing with that beautifully subtle oakey sour finish. The Roja aged on whole cherries stepped up slightly to the head of the class for me, but each beer was delicious. And the conscious effort to serve each beer cask conditioned was great - they even had a few of those thermal, silver wraps that they give runners after they finish a marathon in an attempt to maintain the temp in the firkins. Those guys think of everything.

Oh and by the way, the pomegranite for their one-off Bamagranite (Bam Biere) was peeled by hand by Ron himself. Does he not have anything better to do?


Founders Black Biscuit and Kentucky Breakfast Stout

For the first time since I have been going to the summer beer fest, Founders brought both of its twin pillars of brewing in the Canadian Breakfast Stout (an imperial stout aged in maple barrels) and the Kentucky Brekfast Stout (an imperial, chocolate and oatmeal stout aged in bourbon barrels). I have never had the pleasure of sampling the CBS as it is not bottled and from what I have read up about it, is only served at the Grand Rapids brew pub.

So, needless to say I was more than a little excited to get the chance to enjoy such a sought after and highly regarded beverage. That excitement quickly turned into sadness, and then downright blinding anger mixed with the shame of failure, and then back to sadness as I saw that the CBS had been kind of pre-served at 5 p.m. to Brewers Guild Enthusiast members. Now, I was in the festival at 5 p.m. because of my media credentials but by the time I realized what was going on, it was 6:15-ish and the wonderful black gooiness of CBS had been long tapped by all of those lucky (expletive deleted).

But, I had no time to fret as Founders version of old/strong ale was ready to go in their Black Biscuit and soon after that, the great KBS was to be tapped. Biscuit pours an engine oil black flatness and delivers a malt-forward aromatic nose of apricots, dried fruits, bourbon, sugar cane and comes on real strong with a bready, oakey and somewhat oily mouthfeel. As for the 2010 Kentucky Breakfast...this beer can stand alone as a reason to come to beer fest. What words would I have for something like this to do it justice? Not much, I guess you can try here .

On a sidenote for KBS, my buddy John was the first person in line to try the KBS for Friday. He felt that it was a real accomplishment.


Bells?

I would like to throw some kudos to Bells Brewery which made, by all accounts, a highly successful return to the summer beer fest but I gotta be perfectly honest - I was never in the right place at the right time. I was absolutely dying to try their Biere De Gardes, of which the brewery sheet said they were bringing two different concoctions, but when I asked a few different times about those beers I could never get a straight answer. By the end of the night with the mud and the chaos all around I straggled over to Bells again and sort of demanded one of their Biere De Gardes, to which they quickly replied, "Sorry, all closed up for the night."

The whole way home as my friend and I were being graciously chauffeured by my very pregnant wife (what a treat for her!), we had a discussion on whether the Biere De Gardes even existed. In addition, their beer sheet reads that Bells was slated to bring a barrel-aged stout, a Berliner-Weisse, a Doppelbock and a barrel aged Hell Hath No Fury ale (an awesome seasonal). I guess it just wasn't meant to be for me and Bells because I didn't see any of those beers and probably would have flipped out if I would have been able to try just one.

Oh well, better luck next year.

Back to Beer, Part 1

As with the passing of the season, another Summer Brewers Guild Fest has come and gone and rather than compose the typical hackneyed wrap up of the event - which is, in my opinion, something that essentially defies words - I decided to do a brief overview of beer fest and focus on the photography, of which the very talented Adrienne Ziegler wonderfully obliged.

You can see Adrienne's work here and with the newly discovered world of scribd.com, you can see the layout we did here.

Now I know what you're all saying, "Austen, doing a beer fest wrap up nearly a month later is pretty lame." Really? Is that what everybody thinks? Well then, all I can say to that is sticks and stones and I am giving you raspberries as we speak.

In all seriousness however, you're probably right - it is quite lame. But, by way of excuses this summer has been crazy with a capital "C" for Heritage news staff. I edit and partially write the coverage for the Belleville and Ypsi papers and starting in June with the Strawberry Festival, it has been a whirlwind of mind-boggling activity that, at this point, has become a blur punctuated with too much coffee and not enough sleep. We had the Strawberry Fest, Ypsi's Fourth of July Parade, primary elections, beer fest and finally the Ypsilanti Heritage Festival which is set for this weekend. As I look back at this summer, I have no idea how me and my wife...oh, what's her name? (Ah, I'll think of that in a sec) even saw one another.

Anyway, long story short I've been too busy for beer over basically the past month. And when I started this blog, I vowed to myself not to fill in the blanks with petty nonsense just to say I wrote something today. This is a "serious" blog dedicated to serious craft beer lovers, and I'm here to give you substance! Not filler.

So, here we go - back to beer.

The summer beer fest was, of course, amazing despite the inclement weather. To quote probably every cliched news story (including my own) "...the weather didn't dampen peoples' spirits." And it didn't!

My best friend since I've been 14 and fellow partner in beer attended the fest on Friday, just like we do every year unless extenuating circumstances call for us to go on Saturday. I have found from past experience that Saturdays tend to be more crowded, lines are a bit longer but even aside from that, the heat and humidity causes me to shy away from the Saturday event because it is held from 1 to 6 p.m. whereas Fridays go from 5 to 9 p.m., it's typically a little cooler. I don't like heat and heat doesn't like me.

Well, imagine how smart I felt when we arrived at beer fest promptly at 5 p.m. to the most excruciating humidity I have ever felt in this state. Everybody, and I mean everybody, was dripping with gross sweat and my shirt felt like it had been dipped in candle wax and plastered on my chubby, beer-laden frame. But, even with all that, beer fest is still more fun than should be legal. I mean, it felt like 110 degrees easy with everybody dripping sweat and simply nobody cared.

It was about an hour and a half after we got there that the rain hit, and boy did it hit hard!

There has been much written already in various papers, blogs and forums about the rain so I won't rehash all of that. Needless to say, it wasn't a gentle spring shower.

So how many people left because of the rain you ask. Well, according to Scott Graham, the executive director of the Brewers Guild, maybe a dozen probably less. Wow. Here we are staring into the face of possible tornado-like weather, and what do people do? Well, they hunker down under the tent of their favorite brewer and let the good times roll.

As a matter of fact, Scott said people we're still buying tickets as the rain was coming in.

"Actually it amazed me that I saw people still walking up and buying tickets. They never stopped buying tickets," Graham said when I talked with him a few days after the fest.

Beer is community. Beer transcends. And I think this fest proves those points year after year. If you are staring into the face a possible tornado (and I believe that a tornado did actually touch down in Saline that day), and you're first thought, "Damn! I gotta get my ticket before they sell out!" Than you, my friend, have arrived and you will always be in good company.

Oh, and by the way, my wife's name is Susan...just kidding honey! I remember it most of the time.

See Back to Beer, Part 2 for beer highlights and reviews from the summer beer fest coming Wednesday