Some friends and I went to this fest over the weekend. I have been to Belgian Beer Weekend in Brussels twice and as the evening gets later, it gets a little crazy. So I was looking forward to something a little more relaxed and conducive to tasting. BUT - *sigh*, I was sorely disappointed in the beer here. I had only heard of maybe two or three of the breweries there and was looking forward to finding some new favorites. However, it was just not meant to be, at least for myself and my friends. The reason is most of the beer we drank was very hoppy. Some mild, some IPA, and everywhere in between. None of us are hop-heads, so the beer was the low point of the fest for us. In the end, we should have sought out the triples and blonds as, oddly enough, those were the more tame beers in regards to hops. Aside from that, the venue was nice and easy to get around and try a lot of beers. Price seemed reasonable to me, and the people were very friendly! I wish they sold T-shirts for the event. Some brewers had shirts. We still enjoyed our time, but it's not something I can recommend unless you love hoppy beers. I am hoping this is not the trend for Micro-breweries in Belgium. Perhaps others enjoyed it more so please understand this is only my opinion.
It really depends on the festival and the brewery lineup. At leuven innovation everything was either hoppy or sour, but others like north sea beach festival were well mixed. Couldnt convince myself to go to this event tho.
Agreed. Wish I knew more about each of the brewers before I committed to go. Or really the beers specifically, but a lot seemed to have been made just for the fest.
Festibiere is one of the best smaller beer fests I've been to. The card this year had a wide range of beer with world class stouts, quads, barley wines, dubbels, saisons, etc, not just IPAs. I wish I could have gone. Do a little research before going, 9 out of 10 beer fests worth going to will publish a beer list online in advance. Sometimes going in blind isn't the greatest idea, especially to regional fests like Festibiere.
I hear you. But I believe they had not yet posted the beer list even just the day prior and with a nights stay, I have to plan well in advance. I also agree that they had many style of beers represented, but even the quads, dubbels, and stouts were very hoppy.
