Haven't heard anything and was just wondering if some of you guys who were lucky enough to get tickets had anything to say. I'm especially interested to hear if any of the up and coming Nashville brewers or soon to open brewers had anything that stood out.
Everything Straight to Ale and Good People brought up from AL was awesome... Surprise, surprise there The 2 big standouts for me were Rivertown Lambic and Hat Trick Wedding Cake Cream Ale- I would literally buy those both by the keg during summer months! As for Nashville based- Black Abbey was good, but didn't bring anything different that I was aware of and I cant wait for them to ramp up production in Nashville. I was a little disappointed with Broadcast Brewing (i think that was their name) but will give them another fair shot once they officially open; same goes for Nashvillion. I liked Cardinal, though the beers I really wanted to try they ran out of right before I got there. I was sad Double Door wasn't there, but I haven't heard much lately about them opening in Spring like originally posted. Calfkiller's Don and Dave are still 2 of the coolest damn guys in the beer scene and brought some fun theatrics along with their awesome beers- Wizard Sauce is great! Other random beers that rocked were all of Flat 12 Bierworks', Twains IPAs, GI Juliet and BCBCS (duh), and others I'm just not thinking of now... Overall, another stellar Leff performance for the Nashville beer scene!
I went and had a good time... I agree that Hat Trick (St. Louis) was great... they had some unique beers and really nailed them. Too bad they are still technically home brewers and don't bottle or have a tap room. My favorites from the festival were Goose Island Juliet and Bourbon County Coffee (of course) and He'Brew Funky Jewbelation. Breweries that I was impressed with: Hat Trick, Flat 12, Terrapin (of course), Calfkiller (of course), and Wild Heaven. As far as the new Nashville breweries, they were all pretty good (though the folks at Nashvillian really rubbed me the wrong way), but none of them seemed to be doing anything experimental or interesting. With that said, what they are doing is good, just not anything out of the ordinary.
I liked Jackalope's Black IPA, and I had Cardinal's IPA. That was good, but man, those guys are nowehere near commercial production. I talked to the guys at Hat Trick, and they're getting some 5bbls fermenters put in their space, so I'd say they're much closer to commercial brewers than homebrewers. Most interesting beer I had was probably a sour brown from MCB, and best overall was Hoptimum from SN. Just nailed it.
I asked the guy if they were bottling and he said no. I asked him if they have a taproom and he said, "No, technically we're still homebrewers at this point."
