Firestone walker beer fest

Hulk smash table to beer chug on the way to a nice dinner.

 

I will hopefully be going next year and I can bring my cornhole set also

 

The barrel character just seems to lend well to the gnarly sweetness inherent to DL. Not that it erases the sweetness, just gives it a little more complexity and somewhere for it to "hide."

 

The best part about BA Dark Lord is that it doesn't taste like Dark Lord.

 

shhh.

 

Amazing Fest and Adelaide Inn is the place to be.

 

Sounds like it was great. I didn't go but hit FW on Sunday, don't know if I have sand In my vagina, but $25 growler fills of Wookey seemed excessive to me. I really enjoy that beer, but I seem to recall pliny fills for like $10 less for a (significantly) superior brew. Cmon FW....

 

You should have went next door to the restaurant and got yourself a $100 on premise bottle of FW13. wtf?

 

Wow, yeah that makes no sense. I purchased a bottle off the shelf this past Labor day at a store across from the Buelton tap room, it was $32, which was already a markup near double since release, but given the vintage, I didn't mind at all (was stored well too, tasted best in a vertical a few months later) but $100!? that's just excessive, especially since it's from the brewery that made it.

 

I didn't want to be a total Debbie downer. Wasn't the vintage black xantus up there too?

 

I believe it was. All the prices on the bottle list were pretty shocking to me at first. I'm sure they priced it that way based off being located in a wine-centric area and people not blinking an eye at $100 for a bottle of vintage wine, only problem is we are talking about beer.

 

This really was shocking. San Diego pubs sell the same bottle for on-site consumption @$35-40.

 

Maybe they just marked it up for the weekend knowing BA's from all over the country were showing up. Especially beer related business people that could probably write it off as a business expense, where 100 bucks is nothing but a drop in the bucket.

 

Not cool. And, I doubt it.

 

They have had that price on that beer since it opened. I am not sure why they set it so high, maybe over valued their own vintages, or just because they didn't keep many, not sure. But it wasn't a weekend mark up. As for the growler fills, sadly beer prices aren't based off of taste or flavor, but ingredients. Pliny the Elder is a great beer, but it is no where the most expensive to make or sell.

 

^

Sure, I'm certain its not the most expensive beer to make. I'm only pointing out the price point discrepancy and chose pliny since the cost to produce pliny and Wookey to me seem very comparable.

 

Not even close. Pliny is a DIPA. It probably has a basic malt profile, and a ton of hops. Wookey Jack is a Black Rye IPA. The Malts alone could make up the price difference, and it has a noticeable hop flavor, which to stick out over the dark malts and rye makes it pretty hoppy itself.

 

This was an awesome event. Well organized, with excellent beers (Dark Lord with vanilla beans, Eclipse Elijah Craig 18 years, to name a few), a wide selection of top-notch breweries and a lot of good food that was included in the price. Kudos to Firestone Walker.

 

Not even close? I beg to differ: Both brews are roughly same ABV (8 & 8.5 %, respectively) so the grain bill won't be too drastically different. Wookey is made with extra specialty grain, which is used sparingly (what, 15% grain bill MAX?) I would argue that Pliny requires significantly more hops to brew, which will be the most expensive component during brewing. When I brewed a Pliny clone, I was fucking shocked at how much I was paying in hops.

I guess what I am trying to say, is that in this example of two beers, the growler fill cost is not commensurate with cost of brewing the beer. BTW- I really like the Wookey.

 

A better comparison would be growler fills of Double Jack with are also $25. At least they only charge $5 for the glass but that is still a really expensive pour compared to other breweries. I still pay the price when I go back up that way as it is an amazing beer.