Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest 2013...

Made me feel like a midwest whale hunter out there in the extremes.

 

I too felt that year two was just as good as year one. I really appreciated the little things that could have been easily overlooked such as the added easy ups in the queue area in Frontier Town and the added shade structures in the music area. The swamp coolers and misters also were a HUGE help. With the exception of the area where Alpine/Golden Road/Ballast Point were, there seemed to be just enough shade and misters/coolers.

The only thing I noticed that was kind of lame was the swarm of people when the Bruery would release one of their special beers on the hour. Having the separate line was good in theory but with no way of patrolling it there was rampant line cutting. Seeing this, and wasting probably 30 min in line, was enough to make me not bother with anything in that area for the rest of the afternoon.

I found it funny that this year there was, again, a large group of locals that hung around the booth giving out the regular Firestone Walker offerings. Branch out a little guys!

 

Nooooooooooooooo....not the BCBS Vanilla. ;-)

 

I thought the event was once again awesome. I didn't get any of the "special" pours and still feel like this was a much better event than last year. Nefarious and the Brandy Huna were my top new to me beers, and of course Citra was fantastic as always.

 

I think I went back for Citra at least 4-5 times. That stuff was probably the best drink for the day as it fit in perfectly in refreshing you.

Not knocking BA DL or Brandy Huna, or even that amazing System of a stout - But perhaps those heavy gravity beers weren't the best to be drinking on such a hot day. Still glad i tried them. But man did that Citra just hit the spot.

I also was a bit disappointed with the Bruery. It seemed like those on-the-hour bottle pours only had one or two bottles being poured of it. Compared to the lines that formed for them. I was shut out of two of them while still being under the shade of the area. Perhaps more bottles were needed as it didn't make much of a dent in the lines that tried getting them.

The event was amazing in itself. Well organized. Def. want to go back next year.

 

That's funny, I'm the exact opposite. I thought that Brady Hunahpu was alarmingly mediocre given the hype (and I use that word pointedly) around it. It's not even close to in the same league as Apple Brandy (and that was the 2nd beer I had, so it's not like my palate was jacked). BADL, on the other hand, was one of my top few beers of the day. Keene Idea was the clear #1 though, it's really too bad that it's not a regular in their rotation.

I'm in agreement, our bottleshare the night before was way better than the fest beer, which was actually sort of disappointing to me from a taste perspective, I had relatively few standouts and A LOT of 3-3.5 level beers. It was still worth it and I had fun, but I was a bit surprised by that.


As for logistics and stuff, it is pretty well run, the best festival I've been to by a large margin in that regard. But what the fuck is with leaving the water stations out in the sun? Yeah, 100-degree water is super refreshing. I lucked into getting some water off of a just-replaced tank once, but the rest of the time was using the breweries' water, which was shaded.

Also, I'd like it if more of the food was finger-food. I know they gave you the tray, but I don't really want to be carrying that thing around all day. As far as I could tell there were like 3 places serving things you could just eat with your hands, and 2 of them had waits that looked longer than the BADL line. They need a few more places doing sliders/sandwiches/pizza. They also need to put who's serving what on the map, just having the names of places without what they served was pretty useless.

 

Highlights:
Beachwood BBQ Amalgamator
Alpine Hoppy B Day
Kern JO IPA (maybe it was the weather but actually preferred it to Citra)
BA speedway with no line at the end
Dude getting kicked out of bottleshare for not wearing a shirt, friend defends him by citing his homebrewing prowess

Low points:
BA Dark Lord
BA Indra Kunindra
Beer and food running out
Everyone getting kicked out of the pool at Best Western
An unfortunately short trip to the local "casino"

All in all a great day.

 

This was a pretty fun fest. It was my first time attending.

Pros:
- Very well organized entrance system. We barely waited 20 min to get in the front doors.
- Beers started pouring at 1 pm, giving us a little time to figure out where to go.
- The waiting area was shaded. I would have passed out from the heat otherwise.
- There were more than enough breweries to keep me happy.
- The misters were a fantastic touch.
- The plates had a slot to hold the snifter while eating. Brilliant!
- Despite the criticism for Surly, I was really happy to have two tasty, low-gravity beers to sip in the sweltering heat. I don't want Darkness on a hot California summer day. But Coffee Bender would have been nice.
- People were ridiculously friendly.
- Hot Buttered Rum was awesome.
- Someone pinched my ass.*

Cons:
- The event officially ran till 6, but it was not clearly stated that beers would stop pouring at 5 pm, though I was aware of it via word-of-mouth.
- They stopped refilling water and providing food at 5 pm as well -- why? Let people sober up.
- The water was in sunny areas and often became grossly warm.
- Three Floyds definitely phoned it in. Dreadnaught, typically awesome, tasted like an old keg. BA Dark Lord apparently kicked in 20 minutes, then reappeared later and kicked "again" in 20 minutes. Did they bring a 5 gal keg and split it into two pouring sessions? Dumb. The line for their booth wasn't worse than Bruery or Cigar City, so I don't believe they served the same volume of beer. BA Hunahpu's lasted for hours (but it was also terrible).
- The food lines were often longer than the beer lines. I should have gotten in line for food first, then beer -- but I was worried some of the rare stuff would kick fast.
- *It was a dude.

 

Great observations. I couldn't agree more with respect to the brandy Huna. Having already tried BA Dark Lord in the past, I made a bee-line for Cigar City where I received at max a 1.5 oz pour. I honestly wouldn't have wanted much more because I felt like it was pretty mediocre. My second beer of the day, ST Schizophrenia, was much more enjoyable for me. Oh well, different strokes and hype is a weird animal.

I ended getting some of the BA Dark Lord later in the day, which I found much more enjoyable than the brandy Huna, though I'm sure my palate was a bit tired at that point.

As to your logistics comments, I agree that the event was very well-run. I felt they did a really good job about combating heat related problems. At the same time, having the fest this time of year creates all sorts of logistical nightmares related to the heat that simply wouldn't exist if the event was a different time of year or indoors. The fest was extremely enjoyable as is, but would be significantly more enjoyable if it were a 70 or 75 degree day in April or early May as opposed to the beginning of June. I'm not really sure if there is anything they can do to ameliorate the weather issue (which really is an issue when people are paying big bucks to sample high gravity beers), but it would be great if there was.

I am also in complete agreement about listing food menu items on the pamphlet and providing more finger foods. As a vegetarian, walking around to food booth after food booth hoping for a vegetarian option was a little frustrating-would have been nice to know who had what just so I could have been a little more directed in my food search. I do think it's nice that they try to be environmentally friendly by providing the tray to use all day, but having the tray in one hand and the glass in the other hand didn't leave a whole lot of freedom to do much of else (yes, yes I know that you can put the glass in the tray, but I was too nervous about dropping the glass to do so).

All in all, these are minor gripes about what was otherwise a phenomenal event. It didn't unseat FoBAB as my all-time favorite beer event, but that's a horse of a whole different color, to quote from Rookie of the Year.

 

I have to say that it was a great festival with the exception of 3 Floyds. Great way to show respect to those that helped your brand grow and develop...run out after 40 minutes of a 5 hour event. I hope that the beer advocate community thanks you back in the same fashion as I choose...by boycotting your products altogether! Great job to Cigar City for fantastic brew and bringing enough to share with the people who paid $80 to get in! Dark Lord Boooooo!

 

Another thing that I just thought of, why on earth was the list of breweries next to the map not in alphabetical order? It made finding anything a total PITA. I get that they wanted some kind of order to the booths, but other than each line being in order it really wasn't that helpful. They need to switch that next year, list in alphabetical order, numbers all over the place.

I'd also really like it if the book were taller and if there were a couple pages that just listed the beers. Flipping through 20 pages of breweries isn't that easy. CBC in Copenhagen had bigger pages and smaller print and that worked much better for actually using to navigate and guide drinking decisions.

Again, these are small things, but if FWI wants to be the best beerfest in the world (and it seems like they do) then they need to get this right.

 

Friday night Bottleshare @ Adelaide Inn was unreal. Thanks Dave!

 

I liked the size of the booklet. People were already tossing the plate because it was too bulky. The small size of the booklet was perfect to fit in your back pocket as you already had to hold on to your glass in one hand. why would you want a bigger booklet?

 

To be able to see all the breweries/beers on a couple pages. I completely missed Green Flash's offerings just because I somehow kept skipping that page. If there were a master list that wouldn't have happened. I really can't be the only one who'd appreciate an overview of the offerings in addition to all the gory details.

And I don't think it needs to be much bigger, I could find the one from CBC to get dimensions (I think I still have it) but it was plenty big enough to get everything onto a couple pages while still fitting easily in my pocket.

 

Won't be staying at the Best Western again... "Go put you beer outside on the grass" Weak!

 

Troll much? I really don't think 3 Floyds needs this festival to grow brand awareness in a region it doesn't come close to distributing to. The fact that they show up with extremely rare beer that lasts for 40 minutes is a huge testament to how much they respect the beer nerd community. That is really the ONLY community this event is catered to considering FW doesn't promote this event to the local community for the most part.

 

Next year, everyone needs to wear a nametag with their BA name on it.

 

My fiance and I both agreed it was the best beer event we had ever been too. She went and grabbed us food while I grabbed us beer. It was great! I will proudly admit that I never waited in a line for over 10 minutes, and still got to try everything that I wanted to...other than BA Dark Lord and Keene Idea. I loved Silva, Raspberry Wild One, Southern Tier Chokolat variant, Pinot barrel Lagunitas stout, BA Huna, BA Maple stout from Sierra, and Mango Habanero Ruination. Citra was good as usual. Was awesome to taste Wanderer and Grey Monday again. Sipping on unlimited Hoppy Birthday and BA Speedway with no line toward the end was AWESOME! Met some great people. Thanks to those who drank Fou Foune with me at Adalaide pool before the event and for sharing Hammerhead! Amazing time!

 

This sounds alarmingly similar to my experience with my wife...although better yet, she was much more interested in the food than the beer after too long, and I wound up double-fisting. More for me.

 

Was it just me or did the evening shift front desk clerk look like the treyvon Martin killer?