EBF Highlights

i believe friday had same number of tickets sold as saturday sessions. it was PACKED.

highlights (in no order):

friday
cascade - sang royal
stone - IRS 2008 BA
lost abbey - double red poppy (best in show y'all)
boston - utopias 2k12
founders - doom
cambridge - ozymandias, cerise casee, the colonel

saturday
short's - key lime pie
evil twin - ron and the red ryan
bruery - black tuesday
alchemist - heady topper
thomas hooker - mexican chocolate stout (cask)
stone - sublimely self righteous ft. orange peel, bitter chocolate
weyerbacher - sunday morning

 

I got to the Bruery station about 20 minutes into the Saturday night event and they had 2 bottles of Black Tuesday left at that point. WEAK. Whatever I just stood there and got about 6 ozs. Also, I barely missed trying the FW Barrel 22 but did get literally the last pour of Stickee Monkey. FW must have poured too much for the afternoon session.

Friday:
DH BB plead the fifth
Lost Abbey double red poppy
Evil Twin Aviary 6
Cascade Figaro
Cascade Vlad the Imp Aler

Saturday:
Heady
Bruery BT

Big props to Cascade and The Alchemist for bringing enough to last the whole night.

 

I think having a case or two of Black Tuesday at the events is better than there being no Black Tuesday whatsoever...a case at each session would still be roughly 150-160 people per session getting to try it. While I would love every beer to last the entire fest, if you had it at the top of your list and hit them up at the beginning of the fest, you probably still got to try it. The Bruery never sends people and just sends some bottles of beers.

The past few years Cascade has just sent various vintages of the kriek in bottles and not sent people, and they never have a line (which was pretty awesome as well). It was really cool to see them send some different stuff this year and send a lot of everything; I wouldn't be surprised if the Bruery starts doing that at some point in the future since they get distributed to the East Coast so much.

I'd rather see guys like the Bruery, Cascade, Evin Twin, etc. send bottles and run out then not show up at all. Same with Funky Buddha last year....I didn't get to try all their beers because they ran out quickly, but was still very glad they came and to try some of them.

 

I went to the Saturday evening session. I had some other conflicts so I had to drive and didn't have a ton of time, so I didn't try as much as I'd like. But as usual, I thought it was well organized and very civil. Even when it got crowded folks were cool and I didn't see anyone getting drunk (at least not by 8 when I had to leave). There were consistent lines at Short's, Alchemist and DFH, but everywhere else had only a few folks in line most of the night.

I had some things I really wanted to try at last and I wasn't disappointed:

Black Tuesday - I got it about 6:40 just before they ran out. It was terrific; probably my highlight
Short's Key Lime Pie - they actually pulled off a Key Lime Pie taste in a beer. Go figure. I tried a few of their other things, but nothing really impressed me.
Mytic's Entropy - I've been tracking this program for a while and apparently they are getting ready to bottle it. I thought it was really intriguing and tasty, but it seemed to me to need some more time. The mouthfeel didn't deliver what I expected.
Boltcutter - I have a bottle that I'm thinking I should let wait. Good decision.
FV13 - Terrific. Nice sourness with a lot going on.

Some other things that stood out:
Bruery's Hottenroth Berliner
Smuttynose BA Robust Porter - really picked up the barrel well
BA Framinghammer - Delicious, but I'm not sure I like it more than the regular Framinghammer (which I love)
Vespula Mysticus - wow; so delicious for 4.5% alcohol. I could drink this all day.

I regret not getting to CBC as well as some of the newer breweries - Trophy, Four Hands, Burley Oak. Sounds like they were great.

 

Halfway into the Saturday evening session I talked to my friends about the Friday session seeming more crowded. It seemed like some of the tables on Friday had 2-3 breweries so the lines were longer but I still agree that overall it felt more congested even though the entire center area was open with tables where as Saturday it was brewery booths. Oh well!

 

Friday did seem absolutely slammed.

My highlights (only went Friday):

Veritas 011
4 Hands Cuvee Ange (awesome)
Double Red Poppy (awesome, a littttttlllle too sweet for me though)
Cascade Noyaux (my favorite of the night)
Utopias 2012
Allagash Golden + Midnight Brett, both killer

both Doom + Bolt Cutter were a lot better than I was expecting. was really disappointed by Golden Delicious, which I thought was incredibly bland, and the Smuttynose Barrel Aged Baltic porter - I love sours, but that tasted just straight up infected to me, not "sour".

really sad that the Cuvee Delphine keg broke... Was realllllly looking forward to that.

 

The smuttynose Baltic porter did taste a infected or something.

 

How could you tell with the onslaught of bourbon and barrel?

 

that was rough. i attempted to duct tape it as best i could, but without a real sealant, i couldn't compete with the psi - the shell was cracked. a few people got some samples, but i just couldn't get it serviceable in the long run.

 

Maybe infected wasn't the right word to use, but I thought it had a strange sour taste to it, and the group I was with had the same experience.

 

oof. hope that beer managed to be extracted and served somewhere/somehow

 

Strange, I didn't find any sour impression at all, and I sampled that fairly early because I wanted to try it. Different palettes I guess.
Cheers,
John

 

Bruery Black Tuesday - Best Stout
Short's Key Lime Pie - Best Beer I Would Eat
Founders Spite - Best Spicy Beer
Evil Twin Justin Blabaer - Best Sour
Cambridge #Hashtag - Best Hops

 

friday's problems stemmed from the same number of people in drastically fewer lines -- fewer breweries attending and 2-3 breweries to a table made for astronomical lines, especially for e.g. cascade. whatever two tables surrounded Stone's table made it look line stone had a huge line but in fact for a large portion of the NOTB, there was no one waiting for their beer.

 

Went Friday Night.
Favorites included Stone IRS and Dark Horse Plead the 5th.
Also noted "sour" tasted with Smuttynose Baltic Porter. Heard same comment from several others about "sour" taste.

 

Just a quick FYI ...

Reasoning behind Friday being more packed than usual was that Eventbrite simply miscommunicated the # of tickets to be refuned due to the event being postponed. Both parites were playing to be the good guys. Hell, I'll take some of the blame for not triple checking by asking for the data they had. Apologies for that. This essentially left us with less attendance on Sat, we could have sold more tickets for Sat but what was done was done.

None of this was our intention. Thankfully this is a scenario that will never happen again.

 

This was my highlight bro!

 

Only went Friday but my highlights (of stuff I've never had before)

Sang Noir
Double Red Poppy
BB Plead The Fifth
Cerise Cassée

 

Framinghammer Bourbon Barrel Baltic Porter
Key Lime Pie
Double Red Poppy
Cascade 2009 Kriek & Vlad the Imp Aler
Bourbon Barrel World Wide Stout
Black Tuesday
Trophy's Rose Gose
White Chocolate

Even though Friday was a little more crowded, I still had a blast and was able to try everything I wanted. Saturday night's attendance seemed to be the perfect amount of people IMO. Great times. Looking forward to it again next year.