Puckerfest

Excited for tomorrow!
I'll be the guy putting in work on the Block 15 beers.
Linsey will be trying to drain our keg of Desay a' l'Orange.

 

Um...I don't think you can go wrong with any of the dates, but for me 4 new de Garde beers plus Golden Canary and Premiere Annee on tap all together takes the cake. Wish I didn't have to work tomorrow

Vintage Supplication & Temptation and Fantasia are a close 2nd.

 

yeah, tomorrow going to be good....
anxious to try the cascade red too...

 

I will say this: anyone who has slept on Trinity (especially Red Swingline), I'd highly advise a reverse course. Easily top 3 beers I've had period in a long time. I literally can't wait for this event.

 

What are you doing instead?

 

p

yeah, that was crazy!
ohh, ice cream, shut up and take my money. no, its free. wait, what?
they wouldnt let me buy anything.

 

Dying, a day at a time

 

Puckerfest treated me well today. I had some work that could be done while sipping a couple beers. There was a decent gathering early. Really enjoyed the cascade lemon drop. The sanctification was interesting compared to fresh. Really enjoyed the birthday suit. Cucumber crush to wash it all down. Nice way to spend a couple hours this afternoon. Looking forward to a couple visits next week.

 

(Mainly directed @maltmaster420)

Does anyone know if there are leftovers that are going to come back on tap once the fest is through, maybe with growler fills? (I'd love to get a growler fill of Crush for a party I'm going to at the end of the month.)

 

I'm going to have to give a great big HELL YEAH to that. Red Swingline was a revelation and a game changer for me.

As for Puckerfest: After missing the first three days, I guess the day I'm most excited for is...tomorrow, and any other evening I make it out there.

 

Had a great time yesterday. Cherry Lee and a l'Orange from De Garde were amazing. Got a little busy, but having a seat at the bar was clutch.

 

Yesterday was fantastic. De Garde and Block 15 never disappoint.

 

She failed, thankfully, and I got some; Desay a' L"Orange was one of my favorites of the fest.

 

Just to avoid the fan boy label - which I probably deserve - I'll say that the sour barleywine did disappoint. Perhaps it was the heat - not the perfect beer for a 90+ degree day - but I felt barleywine character and rum barrel notes were lacking. I know, I know - Trevor is on here so maybe this is rude to say ... but I'd actually be interested to hear others chime in, including Trevor, with their thought. By no means do I feel my perception is definitive and I'd welcome education.

On the other hand, the Belmont 15 Year anniversary by Block 15 far exceeded expectations. Crazy that was still on the following day.

 

No offense taken!
We make different and creative beer. By it's nature it'll fail to be perfect for everyone every time.

Regarding the Oude English, I can absolutely respect your impression that it lacked barley wine notes and rum barrel.
I think it's the nature of wild fermentation to take a normal recipe, and after fermentation give you something very different! While on paper this looks like a barley wine by the ingredients and residual gravity, it's a full on freestyle sour ale in execution. Perhaps it could have been labeled differently, but we have to put SOMETHING on it. And I'm not sure what else that should have been... There's a reason we don't favor style guidelines, because particularly in wild beers, it's usually like hammering square pegs into round holes. Perhaps a failure on our part.

For the rum barrel, I actually do get a huge impact. They provided big oak tannins to help with aging, and while the sweet liquor qualities don't hit you in the face, they meld beautifully with the remaining sweetness in the beer itself. To agree with you though, we find that the spirit barrel characteristics that we're accustomed to in 'clean' beers are often integrated in a very different manner in our wild barrel fermentations.

I've made the comment that we generally prefer the bottle conditioned versions of our beers, and I THINK that in this case you'll be quite happy. This beer (as well as the Desay a' l'Orange) really benefitted from the conditioning process. I'm hugely loving both!
And yeah, this was definitely not the beer for 95+ degree weather!
Regardless of what I say, there's no wrong in taste. I hope you have the opportunity to try the bottled version, but if you still find it'd doesn't do it for you, no hard feelings on our part!

 

Totally valid points. I had a similar "discussion" (or was it an argument?) with a friend of mine about Faux Pas - I loved it and he couldn't get over the "what type of beer is it" hurdle. I fell into the same trap coming to this with a lot of expectations about what a barleywine would taste like. A momentary lapse of judgment on my part I hope since I loved Napolean's Downfall when I had it at Block 15's Golden Canary release and I think it also divides opinion by deviating from some stylistic expectations.

As for my lack of perception of rum notes, I'll chalk that up to the heat and probably my inability to get past my expectation of what my brain told me it SHOULD taste like and focus on what it DID taste like.

I look forward to trying it again. Out of the bottle. When it's 40 degrees out.

And if Desay a' l'Orange is better out of the bottle I might end up mugging people as they leave the bottle release.

 

The Oude English was indeed a rough one. I respect the creativity, but it just didnt work for me at all.

on the other hand, the currant and raspberry Bu variants were excellent on a hot day. The Desay a l'orange was also excellent and probably one of the best smelling beers i have had in a while, but actually tasted much more like grapefruit & grapefruit rind than it did orange.

Block 15 beers were all stellar as well. cant go wrong with Golden Canary


PS - This isnt related to puckerfest, but anybody who likes funky beers/sours/saisons needs to go and get a bottle of the Barrel Aged Flora Rustica! holy crap. went to Upright after Puckerfest and had normal flora rustica on tap and my wife had one of the saisons. both very good as usual. I then asked what was for sale and the Barrel aged version just dropped. it was only $12 so i picked on up and took it to our friends house. opened that night and the 5 or 6 of us that split it were blown away. Tasted very Ale Apothecary-ish (but at 1/2 the price!) . Highly recommended