good man, how'd you like it?
And now, without further ado, Bill Goes to Belgian Beer Fest: Part the First
I bussed up to Boston on Thursday morning (with one and a half bags of beer and half a bag of clothes in tow
). Arrived mid afternoon and, as a sign of my priorities for the weekend, headed immediately to a bar from the bus station. I met the guy I was staying with at Cambridge Brewing Company for a late lunch and a few rounds. First was Bumper Crop IPA, the first in a line of upcoming IPAs they had because evidently they had ordered too many hops for the year (didn't realize that was possible
). It was alright, but I was picking up a certain onion-y taste that I usually get from Summit hops. Next was Cerise Casee. Every year CBC brews the same batch of sour beer and ages it on cherries in french wine barrels. Every year they put together a blend of various vintages of this beer, and that becomes the Cerise Casee they serve for the year. It was pretty tart, but the cherries still shone through and I really enjoyed it. After a brief stop to drop my stuff off we continued to the Publick House, Boston's premiere Belgian beer bar, for a couple rounds at the official pre-fest party (which featured lots of Allagash beers, since they're the official brewery of the festival. The first round was a beer called Big Little, which was one of two beers the Beer Advocate founders went up to brew with the guys at Allagash just for the festival. It's a Belgian Single/Table beer, pretty light with a little sweetness and a lot of yeast flavors, and pretty good. Next was Allagash Ghoulship. The name comes from a coolship, an old school Belgian way of fermenting beer. The unfermented wort, rather than being transferred into the kinds of tanks we usually see on tours, is pumped into a long shallow pool (called the coolship) where it is allowed to sit and cool down overnight, and windows are left open so whatever natural yeast and bacteria are in the air can come in and ferment the beer. Not many brewers still bother with one in Belgium, and a few years ago they built the only in in the US. None of the beers they've produced from it have been released commercially, but they do a lot of experimenting and bring some of the better ones to festivals/special events. This one was brewed with pumpkins (hence the name) and was good. I couldn't taste much pumpkin though, it was mostly sour/funk from whatever's in the air up in Portland, Maine. Last round we split a Little Big and a Lawrence. Little Big is Big Little's companion, a more concentrated version of the latter that was thrown in oak with some brettanomyces for a few months between brew day and the fest weekend. I didn't care for it too much, I thought it was way too oaky and just tasting of wood. Don't know much about Lawrence, other than that it was pale sour ale that was *very* good. The party was starting to get crowded, so we headed next door to the sister bar, American Craft, for dinner and a few rounds. First we each had an Ithaca Brute, a yearly released sour blond ale from Ithaca that is very very good (and rarely on tap). For my last round of the night I needed something with big flavor to cut through all the sour on my palate, and Brooklyn's monstrous Detonation double IPA did just the trick. We did hit the bottle shop next door for a minute since Left Hand was doing a tasting there. We tried a bunch of Left Hand beers (not that I remember anything about any of them
) and talked with the rep for a few minutes before heading home for the night.
Holy shit, that's a lot of text and we haven't even gotten to the fest proper yet... that'll be for tonight after I make it home from work.
Topic: The Beer Thread: Mach 2 (Read 99421 times)
