Did anybody else happen to check out the Guild Fest on Saturday? I'm an East Coaster and my wife was working a conference at the Convention Center, so I decided to check it out, since she was working all day. I'm curious to know what other people thought was good. I've gotten so used to East Coast IPA's that it took me a little bit to adjust my taste buds to the West Coast varietals. I thought Stone and Green Flash brought some cool stuff, which was surprising, considering that they were the larger breweries there. (Enjoy By w/ Tangerine might have been my favorite beer I had the whole trip.) I also enjoyed Abnormal, Groundswell, and Automatic for the smaller breweries. I know Alpine is sort of a hot-button topic now, and I thought Pure Hoppiness was great, but I got to try the Bad Boy IPA at Toronado later that night, and enjoyed that one even more. I'm just curious to hear other impressions of the event/beers.
A few I hope you got to try... Ballast's variants, Alpine - Hop Box, Societe - Pupil, Rip Current - Double Lupulin Lust That peanut butter from Karl Strauss I think it was in the the cask room was insane. Am I considered a local now that I didn't even bother to notice Stone or Green Flash's tents?
I think the peanut butter one was kicked when I went up there. It was a fruitier variety when I found the cask room. The Stone Cali-Belgique aged in Reposado barrels was really good! And the Green Flash Ourobouros Imperial Stout was great, too, but forced me to go get some food after. I did have the Pupil. I had the Iced Tea Sculpin at Toronado later... It was decent. I was kind of flying blind out there and the options were dizzying.
