Hickory Hops Festival

I'll be there, Eric!

 

Trying to be there at 1. Gotta work out and stuff first. Can't wait!

 

I'll be making the trip from Greensboro, hope to meet a few of you folks.

 

One more sleep until beerfest.

 

Great festival. Somewhat surprised that Top Of The Hill took BOS with a Pils and a 2nd BOS with an English IPA, both were really good. Event Horizon took 3rd. Overall, some really great beer was served. Only complaint is that there isn't any food at the festival.

 

Agree. Great Fest but the lack of food was a surprise.
Overall a great experience.

 

Highlights for me were the secret bottle of Bardstown Brand, Daniel Boone BBA Imperial Brown, Saison Gee, Seven Devils and Event Horizon from OHB... always good.

The Saison from Birdsong was good.

Catawba Valley killed it with Gypsy Blood and La Petite Fleur. Not sure if those are in their regular rotation, but they should be.

Maibock from Foothills was tasty.

Sex Viking from Roth was great of the style.

Solstice Tripel from Pisgah was nice.


It was an odd day for my palate... none of the IPAs were really appealing to me and stouts came across weird as well. But, I was mainly sticking with saisons and belgian styles. That probably led to it.

One thing that surprised me was some of the bad beers that I had. I'm nowhere near a professional judge, but there was some straight up flawed messes that were being given out.

 

Agree with the OHB beers, by far the best of the bunch for me. Really disappointed on the attempts at sour beers. There were some interesting beers to try, can't remember who it was from, but the Pumpernickel Rye beer stood out for some reason, may have been the use of caraway seeds. Really tasted like try bread.

 

Well, did you make it through the festival in one piece? I was one of the idiots who dropped a glass... damn it. We had a blast & tried a lot of great schtuff. Catawba Valley's Gypsy Blood was a standout... OHB killed it, as usual.