I agree but around here it depends on the size of it and who is sponsoring the deal. Sierra Nevada, as an example, are always first class and have shuttles from different locations back to the brewery and festival grounds.
Locally sponsored beer festivals are a mixed bag, however. Some have sponsored rides from different locations, others just leave it to the atendees to handle, which becomes a big giant mess of traffic once they stop serving beer.
With the festival here, it was a bit of both. The organizers worked with several local hotels to set up shuttles. But a whole lot of folks don’t bother with that, and so then you get the giant mess at the end. My group’s car service was over with the shuttles and so it was pretty easy for us to get out, but a lot of folks were spending a good long time in the traffic lines.
I wrote a short recap. TL;DR - There was a lot of beer, and the majority of it was good. I probably drank more than I should, but then, what are beer festivals for?
Sounds like it was fun!
This is the one in Asheville where I got schnackered.
Beer from around the country! This is a beer festival after all. More than 50 breweries from around the country will feature their burliest, biggest, and rarest offerings for you to sample in your commemorative tasting glass. We’re thrilled to host a bunch of our local brewery friends as well.
● 2SP Brewing Co.- PA ● 4 Hands Brewing Co.- MO ● 21st Amendment- CA ● Adroit Theory Brewing Co.- VA ● AleSmith Brewing Co.- CA ● Allagash Brewing Co.- ME ● Asheville Brewing Co.- NC ● Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits- CA ● Bell’s Brewery- MI ● Bhramari Brewing Co.- NC ● Birds Fly South Ale Project- SC ● Birdsong Brewing Co.- NC ● Boulevard Brewing Co.- MO ● Brewery Ommegang- NY ● Cigar City Brewing- FL ● Coppertail Brewing Co.- FL ● Devil’s Backbone Brewing Co.- VA ● The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery- NC ● Ecusta Brewing Co.-NC ● Finback Brewing Co.- NY ● Foothills Brewing Co.- NC ● Founders Brewing Co.- MI ● Fortnight Brewing Co.- NC ● Fullsteam Brewery- NC ● Half Acre Beer Co.- IL ● Haw River Farmhouse Ales- NC ● Heist Brewery- NC ● Hi-Wire Brewing Co.- NC ● Highland Brewing Co.- NC ● Hoppin Frog Brewery- OH ● Lazy Hiker Brewing Co.- NC ● LIC Beer Project- NY ● The Lost Abbey- CA ● Lost Province Brewing Co.- NC ● Mikkeller- DK ● Mother Earth Brew Co.- NC ● Mystery Brewing Co.- NC ● Nantahala Brewing Co.- NC ● New Holland Brewing Co.- MI ● Newgrass Brewing Co.- NC ● NoDa Brewing Co.- NC ● Oskar Blues Brewery- NC ● Ponysaurus Brewing- NC ● Port City Brewing Co.- VA ● River Rat Brewery- SC ● Sanctuary Brewing Co.- NC ● Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.- CA/NC ● Stone Brewing Co.- CA ● Terrapin Beer Co.- GA ● Trophy Brewing Co.- NC ● The Unknown Brewing Co.- NC ● Upland Brewing Co.- IN ● Weyerbacher Brewing- PA ● Wicked Weed Brewing- NC ● Wild Heaven Beers- GA ●
I have been to a few of the festivals but the only one I really liked was this one - https://www.ocbrewhaha.com
It’s ridiculously large, or well, I thought it was until I took a look at the Michigan one. Damn.
One thing I like is they ditched the tokens and just went with unlimited tasting. Even the first year they did it every brewer just declined to take your tokens 80% of the time. On the flip side, the tokens were a convenient measure of what you had drunk and 15 samples was enough to get me barely capable of operating my legs, let alone a vehicle of any sort.
Depending on the locality, this may not be feasible everywhere. Here in West Michigan, there are all sorts of screwy rules about what’s OK when serving alcohol. You can’t give it away at any gathering over a certain size, not even if you’ve charged entry into an event. Thus the tokens, which are technically payment. For wine, the person who owns the supply can’t serve, so they end up hiring college kids to pour while the booth owner stands out front. It’s a patchwork across the country of all sorts of different laws, state to state and sometimes county to county.
To a Californian that sounds pretty weird. Here if tokens are given it is a means of restricting how much you can drink. I have visited many wineries in my time and hove on occasion been served by an owner, the wine maker or a professional server.
This weekend’s homebrew is going to be an Irish red. Nothing special as far as ingredients goes; we’re just working on refining our technique.
So, because one of our issues has been insufficient aeration, I bought a few materials to make a venturi aerator when I was at the brewing store today.
In the thumbnail you can see the stream of bubbles in the thinner section of tubing, flowing into the water from the right.
Intersting technique! I have not seen that. I’m assuming you add a venturi fitting somewhere along the wort pump path?
I use something akin to this:
I usually have the wand and stone sitting in a bucket of starsan (also used for other sanitizer duties) and once I pitch I’ll hit it for about 15-30 seconds. Some people use the same but instead of the bottle of O2 there, they use an aquarium pump.
It’s actually just a piece of rigid 3/8" OD tubing in line with six feet of 3/8" ID tubing. We’ll just connect it to our siphon. The venturi is close enough to the output end that it’ll sit inside the carboy, so even if it leaks we aren’t spilling anything. To make it, I punched a hole in the rigid tubing with a heated nail, angled in the direction of the flow, and that’s all it took to get the bubbles above.
We’d like to eventually go for a better system, but this one had the major advantage of costing $6.
That is a decided advantage. :)
The venturi worked like a charm—tons of bubbles when we were filling the carboy. Between that, a cooler mash (154F instead of 160F), and a nice healthy-looking yeast starter, we’re hoping to hit our target final gravity this time.
Our efficiency from grain to kettle was about 80% again, which is great. Since that’s what I was expecting given last time, we hit our target pre-boil gravity and target original gravity just about spot on, 1.044/1.041 and 1.052/1.050 (actual/target). That’s much closer than we’ve been on anything yet.
Can’t say enough good things about the refractometer as a brewing tool, too. Not having to worry much about temperature for gravity readings is super-nice.
Man that isn’t great, it’s excellent! And I agree completely about the refractometer. It’s like having a guage to say, yep, you’re good, or, nope, steer the ship a little. We still do tube measurements at the end, but it’s a pain in the rear waiting for them to cool down.
Fishbreath you’re earning your brew chops man! Next stop, brewpub? :)
Yeah, we had our sample jar cooling on the counter while the rest was coming up to the boil for confirmation, but it looks like calibration on the refractometer is pretty spot-on. I’m super-happy with brew-in-a-bag so far; all the fun of all-grain brewing with a single kettle and full stovetop compatibility. This time around, we positioned our thermometer better and weighted the kettle lid, and went from 154F to 151F over the hour-long mash, at least in the first six inches or so of wort.
The fermentation is very healthy, more active than we’ve ever seen before, to the point that there are yeast/trub clumps swirling around in the carboy at surprisingly high speeds. I think that’s promising for a complete fermentation this time.
As far as brewpubs go, I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t the dream someday. In the nearer term I’m going to have to settle for planting some hops in the backyard.
I would love to say I would, but for a hobby it’s fun. For a job, man that could be a lot of work. I have two friends that were 2 of the 3 founders of this brewery. They are doing VERY well. But their success story isn’t something common with other breweries around here. I know it takes a ton of things I’m not sure I could ever do well. My GF and I like to kid that we would retire with a brewpub, her running the front of the house and bar management, me running the brewing and back of the house. Still, who wants to have 50-60 hour weeks after retirement? Even if we could both keep up with a pace like that, it’s not retirement!
The title is a bit misleading. Yes, they talk about beer in space, but also robot-brewed beer and how one might grow hops on Mars.
Well, our Irish red is in bottles now, conditioning, and should be ready in a week or two. Happily, all of our brewing science paid off—we were targeting a final gravity of 1.014 and ended up with 1.012, and the hop/malt balance is right about where we want it.
Having completed our process optimization step successfully, we’re going to lurch forward into creativity again. Early next month, we’ll be whipping up a rye+wheat witbier, which I’m excited to try.
Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout is 👍👍🔥🔥 very good!
oh wow yes, wish I could find a bottle of that again.
Stone Enjoy By is such a treat any time I find it. As an IPA junkie, it speaks to me in such a wonderful way.
@SadleyBradley I don’t think I’ve ever had their Cappuccino Stout. That sounds pretty damned awesome though.
It hit me like a truck, but yeah, it’s delicious. Lagunitas really hits it out of the park with pretty much everything they make, and I usually get bottles for only 5 or 6 bucks.