Aslin Beer Co. (2019)

They posted a map on their website. Looks like VIP is indoors and the rest is mostly in the back parking lot.

 

Do all of the guest kegs tend to kick at the anniversary party and if not who gets to drink the leftover beer?

If they need any help, I'm free tomorrow if the beer is.

 

We had a great time. Very well run event. I was pleasantly surprised to see Aslin pouring their BA bottles with almost no line. Got to tick a bunch of those off the list.

 

I guess I had higher expectations for the VIP, cuz I’m a little disappointed. Nobody at the gate knew what they were doing so it took us 20 minutes to even get in. By that time, beers had started to kick. Many breweries were out of beer an hour in I know that’s not Aslin’s fault, but I think they oversold the fest. There was also no mention that you had to pick up your cigar at the “lounge” in the back so I left without it. Also plastic tasters for a $150 ticket was kinda lame. Don’t get me wrong I had a good time, but the kicker for me was being given unlabeled and under filled bottles. I didn’t notice they weren’t labeled until I was outside and couldn’t get back in.

 

Understand your point of view. I’ve done GA the last three years and thought it was a great value.

 

Our group had general admission passes. We got in line at 12:50. The line moved reasonably well for being pretty long. Our IDs were checked and we were given our wristbands while we were in line. At the gate, we were given our sampling glasses pre-filled with Aslin Orange Starfish IPA - a nice start to the fest.

I was impressed. They managed to fit all those breweries in the available space. The brewery signs on the canopies were legible at a distance and the layout was a logical alphabetical order, which made locating particular breweries simple. Bonus points to the breweries who added signs listing the beers they were serving to their brewery sign. It should be made standard practice next year.

Dancing Gnome had the longest line, like last year. All the lines moved smoothly and the crowd's good spirits and cloudy weather kept the waiting pleasant. All the staff people were cheerful and worked hard to keep things running smoothly. So many new breweries to experience. Overall I'm happy with how everything turned out and look forward to seeing what Aslin is planning for their 5th anniversary.

Aslin could have done a better job of providing pre-event information like where to park and responding to questions on social media. I do not understand why they didn't block the entrance to the service/business parking lane being used by the fest entrance line of people since no parking was available there. Having all those cars passing a couple feet next to the line was just asking for a accident.

Did Aslin sell too many passes? By 3 pm, a number of breweries had to stop serving completely. The popular beers were kicking by 2 pm. So, either bring more beer or sell less passes.

 

The bottle and 4 pack? Bottle is a pastry stout with like 5 adjuncts including curry, the 4 pack is a fruited marshmallow chocolate hazelnut sour.

 

I think they had every barred-aged stout they've ever publicly released pouring on a staggered schedule throughout the event. Based on Untappd photos, that even included the originals like Beaumont, West Chester, etc. Neither of the private release stouts, though (Gang and BBC). Some of them had to be pretty limited, because I was trying my best to get Sperryville, and it appeared and disappeared in a flash.

They had some non-Aslin whales, too, like 3 Sons Big Sxxxy, WeldWerks Vanilla Medianoche, and Horus Ruffle the Feathers, though, like some of the Aslin stuff, the highly-rated bottles seemed to be in short supply. I didn't get any special non-Aslin goodness because of that.

Aslin also had A GA-accessible booth between the end of the alphabet and the cigar bar where they were pouring their more standard fare.

The Horus bottles were along the best I had that day, but you didn't miss anything with the Island Stout. There's a reason its Untappd rating went from 4.66 immediately before the event to 4.18 today. That wasn't just one of the bottom 5 beers I had at the party, but also one of the most underwhelming beers I've ever had compared to its prior ratings.

 

Only thing I'll add is that the number of breweries that were done 2 hours in was disappointing. For an event that was supposed to be 4 hours long, it was really set up for 3 hours. When I was in line for Aslin's beers around 330-345, the entire tent next to them was all kicked breweries. Pretty lame, if you ask me. Overall, I had a good time, but they should definitely limit ticket sales next year. Or, get breweries to bring more, which probably ain't happenin.

 

I think part of the problem was over pouring, as in filling up the glasses with too much beer. The line on the tasting cups should have been the pour size (roughly 3oz) until maybe 4pm, then increase the pour size if need be.

 

That was the case for VIP. The Aslin booth open to GA folks had kegs.

 

+1 for GA here. It sounds like VIP is getting to be more and more of a gamble with A) the price point- almost 2.5x GA B) the anniversary beers- unannounced until day of, more on this below and C) the crapshoot that is availability of VIP pours during the first hour.

Like others have mentioned, some big stouts kicked by 1:15. I don't know enough about the expectations for brewery inventory but it seems like Horus should have brought more than 8 or 9 bottles of each of the Crown variants (at least that's how many empty bottles I counted when I walked up to the table...heard the guy pouring say "that's it" a few seconds after I walked away). Besides the Inu stout, I think the only other two that I was bummed about missing were the Hidden Springs Black Aggie and 450 North Slushy, though it was probably closer to 2:00 by the time I made it to the beginning of the alphabet on the other side of the parking lot...

Can't really understand the motivation to keep the anniversary cans and bottles so close to the vest, especially since each had...rather interesting flavor combinations. People seem to like Silk though.

Overall, $73 well spent if you're a ticker, especially with the Aslin truck pouring bottles from over the years. Randomly saw that VIP was 1000 and GA was 2500 tickets sold.

 

Per Aslin's IG, brewing on the new Alexandria equipment began today.

 

Anyone try the recent batch Beer Drinking is Not a Crime? Saw someone post that the batch was way off.