Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest 2013...

Great event, Great event. Too much criticism here.
I had a great time meeting evreyone and second the name tag idea
Bottleshare was outstanding.
Favorite was psyzo or wild one rasp.

Cheers and give me back my growler (lol)
Pat

 

Great event... thought the misters and cool zone fans were great. I took every opportunity to mist my head and neck. Really helped.

I wish the water was cold, or like others said, hide the bottles in shade instead of in the direct rays of the sun. I felt the increase in the number of people... hope that is the cap for them.

The Bruery made that area a cluster... I tried two of the offerings just because I was there really, if you're in the RS you could just keep on trucking. Wanderer was a nice one to revisit everyone so often. Last year that shed area was a place to go and hide from the sun a bit, this year it was a mad house.

Not a big fan of the CC Hunahpu... preferred the BADL over it, quite easily actually.

I thought the sneaky great beer of the day was the Toronado & Pizza Port collaboration "High Fives," which wasn't in the booklet but poured in the afternoon. Happily drank more than my fair share of it.

I liked drinking PP Dusk Til Dawn next to SN's Maple Stout...that was a nice double combo to try out. Both great beers.

Hoppy Birthday and Keene Idea... maybe the best.... no, it was the best 1-2 combo of the day. Contrary to others, I preferred HB (I know, kill me now).

Beer in can: Heal the Bay was tasty... surprised me.

Bell's - Wild One Raspberry, nice beer that I killed a bunch of before the day ended.

Friday night I went to a sick bottle share at a beautiful house on top of a hill overlooking a Paso winery.... wales upon wales, upon wales.... and even after pulling my own plug and tying to get home in one piece there was still a $hit ton of more wales to be put down. Much debauchery.... one of those shares where a bottle of Armand 4 Oude Geuze Zomer just lies around half full because a 5 yr vertical (02,06,07,08,09 --- 06 ftw btw) of LP Kriek is going on, or someone is making the next best greatest Chocolate Rain French press coffee concoction up... or because a never before seen/heard of (at least to me) bottle of Armand "Donovan" just pops up for random tasting! Thanks to Westcoastbeerlvr, Arbitrator and Largadeer (I've seen a lot of double fisting in my day, but never 4-5 fisting with beers tucked in armpits, truly skilled... like Bobby Fisher playing 20 games at once... master taco maker too, skillz x skillz) and all the other guys (whom I lack their BA names) for the truly over and above awesome hospitality. Can't wait to do it again, but next time I'll probably just couch crash and stay until we all drop, haha.

Saturday night, after the festival, I fell asleep on the hotel bed, buzzed and sun beaten... I later awoke to find that I had a 2nd rush of liver capacity, however, was not in shape to drive so didn't head back up to the bottle share house... we joined a small bottle share at Adelaide in the little park/resting area and it grew like wild fire... Lots of bottles flowing, tried maybe 15-20 beers I hadn't had before.... later they moved us to the pool area to continue. The security guard made a better librarian with all his "shushing" ever 20 mins... Lot of generosity by all in attendance, lots of great beers. Stumbled back to my hotel room and knocked out.

I'm sure I'm missing a ton of stuff, but hell, can't type forever.... Looking forward to next year.

 

My brother in law told me to get tickets and I would not be disappointed and he was right. My wife, who drinks but does not necessarily appreciate, had her eyes opened to so many very good beers. Helps provide an excuse to keep my trading up.

Great things / idea:
Misters and the Swamp Coolers helped tremendously throughout the entire place except where there was direct sunlight by the nasty paella next to the Scuplin Habenero. I felt bad that Alpine was swallowed up in this mess.

Evo water-I brought in a camelpack and filled it. The water got warm quick....but Evo water was cold and available the entire time.

Cover during the wait inside to open...brilliant. Get our ids checked, glasses handed out, and put us at the ready. Would have appreciated the swamp cooler fans blowing in there though. The Merch Shop had A/C though.

Beers: Southern Tier thank you again for the special barrels of Schizophrenia. Kern definitely had the best 1-2 punch. Boneyard was the biggest surprise and quite enjoyed the DIPA.

Bad things / ideas:
I was lucky to figure out FW kept pouring until 6pm inside the fort. So, Stone and Pizza Port did the same. It got damn hot in there though with all the people concentrated in a smaller area

Booths were so squished together that sometimes you had to look several times to figure out which line was for which brewery.

Bruery is on my bad list. Special lines good idea. Telling me there were 150 pours of Gray Monday and seeing it go dry after about 50...not cool. Just pick one next time and bring extra.

FFF - I had DL so I avoided the extremely long line. Only positive, it let me get to others quicker.

Mix in smaller known with bigger known. Cigar City and Southern Tier next to each other was crazy.

Beer - Surly was my biggest disappointment hands down.

Start time would have been better around 1130 - 1200. The length of time was perfect but getting in a little earlier would have been great.

All in all, I am already waiting for tickets to go on sale next year. It was one hell of an event. It was also great seeing most of the owner and/or brewers of the beers we were tasting. The crowd was very friendly and there were few people who got college drunk. The few passed out in the grass were quickly escorted away or usher to other areas...gotta love that. If that was you, remember next time that there is no prize for drinking every last offering and full glasses of each of them.

 

Great event.

We capped it off Sunday by visiting the FW Barrelworks in Buellton at noon on the drive home. Got lucky and did a quick private tour of the Wild Ale Barrel Program with David Walker and the Japanese brewers from Yo Ho. We sampled several of the beers that ran dry on Saturday.

 

Best beer fest I've ever been to. Swamp coolers and misters were awesome.

Keene Idea, Boneyard nefarious, Hop Ninja were the highlights.

Bottle share on Friday night was amazing, really generous BAs out there and the wife and I appreciate everyone's hospitality.

Boo on the Best Western for having such strict swimming pool regulations....

Shout outs to Lobo (great to finally meet ya), Stu, Steve, anotherJoe, Beerdy, Russ and of course, Two-shirt Kurt.

See y'all next year.

 

What type of beer was this? Or did you mean to type Notorious?

 

It was a DIPA. Notorious is a different beer. I thought the same thing.

 

"Think hoppy, not bitter. Brewed with six lbs per barrel of Simcoeand Mosaic, no doubt its all about the hops. This beer has never been brewed before and should not disappoint."

--It did not disappoint. Great stuff. 10%abv, 75 ibu, 10.5 srm

 

Nefarious = DIPA
Notorious = Triple IPA

Thanks MssrT

Edit: Shit was amazing BTW

 

Thanks, I know about Notorious. (Loved it) Didn't know they had a beer called Nefarious though.

 

I think it's either brand new or was a one off for the festival. It was damn good.

 

This thread is doing a great job of summing up everything that I currently feel is wrong with "beer culture". If a brewery decides not to bring an under attenuated barrel aged stout they are the biggest let down of the fest. Personally Surly was one of the highlights for me and I'm glad to have actually had a rare beer that I'd never had from them.

 

Surly didn't have to bring a barrel aged stout. . .

They could have brought Coffee Bender, Moe's Bender, Furious, Abrasive, Overrated IPA etc (i.e. popular beers) and they would have caught less flak.

I think Darkness is meh, while Bitter Brewer is good, and I was still disappointed.

 

I really wanted to like bitter brewer because I love bitters and wish more breweries made them, but it just tasted like a watered-down IPA to me.

On the other hand, Tartare may have been the best beer there. I forgot about that earlier when I said it was Keene Idea. I'm kind of mad I forgot about CCB's Berliner and never tried it. The world needs more berliner.

 

Did they actually pour it? I hit them up first thing (to try Brandy Huna before it got crazy), then went back later, and the only beers I saw from them were Brandy Huna and Inversion Pale. Was the Berliner a special mid-fest pour? Or was it a rumored beer that just never materialized?

 

Oh, could be that it never poured, I was just going off rumor, I guess. I never went through that line, looked like a horrorshow.

 

I get what you're trying to say, but I don't think it really applies in this instance. Let's acknowledge that the the pour list for the event overall was tremendous. I showed it to a friend of mine and his response was something to the effect of "wow it'll take a week to get through all of that!" With so many great beers to be sampled in a relatively short amount of time, it wouldn't have been practical to approach the event with a truly care-free attitude. It was necessary to create a short list. Beers didn't need to be barrel aged stouts to get on mine--just unique and interesting. If there was ever a time to bring something memorable to the table, it was this festival.

 

the line was 5 deep most of the day at Cigar City while it was 30 min wait across at RR. People had to get that pliny

got 5 pours of Brandy HU so good

no Berliner was poured that I saw

 

Weird, every time I walked by the line at CCB looked enormous. Maybe it was a place next door. And yeah, RR's giant line was sort of mysterious, but I suppose it prevented a line somewhere else.

 

Did RR pour anything besides Pliny, Temptation, and the 9L of Supplication? It would've been cool to get a pour off the 9L, and Pliny and Temptation are both old favorites, but that line seemed oddly long for most of the fest considering a lot of the people at the fest are in RR's distribution footprint.