Didn’t buy your tickets to Denver early enough? Still want to see the GABF awards ceremony? If you live north of Philly, you’re in luck! The Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant in North Wales (about 40 minutes outside Philly) is simulcasting the awards ceremony, beginning at 2:00 PM. They will be serving soft pretzels and some of their own nominated ales and lagers. The awards will be simulcast live at 3:30 PM. Costumes are, of course, encouraged. See www.ironhillbrewery.com for more information.
Archive for the ‘Beer Events’
GLB Features American Take on Oktoberfest Tonight
Portland’s Great Lost Bear will host its Oktoberfest (spelled with ‘c’, unfortunately) tonight. Unlike Novare Res’s single beer edition, this one will feature three American-brewed Octoberfest beers, a token German beer, and an ale for those who’ve had quite enough lager for one week. Samuel Adams and Harpoon Octoberfest, and Dogfish Head Dogtoberfest make up the American contingent, along with Beck’s from Deutschland. The Ale will be Long Trail Harvest Ale. I’m not quite as excited about this as I was about the Monk’s Fest, but for only $2.50 a pint from 5-9, this one is worth checking out as an easy way to compare a handful of good American brewer’s take on the German tradition.
On Drinking Liters, German Style
As a devotee of cask ale, I’m accustomed to standing and chatting with friends, pint in hand. Octoberfest yesterday featured liter mugs, a very different experience.
Liters of beer in a heavy glass mug get tiring after a while. No wonder those guys drink at long tables, they need a place to rest the mug!
One other thing… A half inch of beer at the bottom of the mug looks like just a little bit; tipping the mug up to finish it off means there is a lot of beer heading for one’s face.
I’m too old to be re-trained… I’m back to pints, thank you.
A Fine Octoberfest Experience
Octoberfest at Novare Res was a success in spite of an unexpected turn of events. Eric Michaud’s plan to offer just two draft beers all weekend took a hit when the Brooklyn Octoberfest turned out to be defective… all ten kegs of it.
I happened to be present when the Novare staff tasted through the beers, and can verify that the decision to pull the beer was not a close call. The beer was cloudy, full of off flavors, and tasted not at all like the bottled version of the beer. A Brooklyn representative arrived with a growler of draft Octoberfest from a keg with a different production date, and the issue was sealed. That this could happen to a fine brewery like Brooklyn is a reminder that brewing great beer is harder than it looks…
The failure of the Brooklyn beer left Novare Res with just one beer for Octoberfest: one beer per tent, just like Munich!
Fortunately the Klosterbrauerie Weissenohe Monks Fest was fully up to the task of carrying the weekend. I’m far from being a student of German beer, but this one was wonderful. It’s a lager with dark copper color and a creamy head, medium mouth feel and subtle flavors that pleased rather than dazzled. I drank a lot of this stuff and never got tired of it. At $9.00 a liter I thought it was excellent value as well.
When I left Saturday evening the Monks Fest was about to kick and the staff were busily putting the handles back on the taps. I think Eric said something about going through 15 kegs. I certainly did my part.
Pumpkin Showdown at The Bear
Check out Great Lost Bear tomorrow night for a Halloween showdown. On Thursday, October 2, GLB will be pitting Portland’s own Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale against Dogfish Head’s Punkin Ale, Jack’s Spiced Pumpkin Ale, Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale, Southampton Pumpkin Ale, and Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale. That’s a whole lot of pumpkin ale, but at $2.50 a pint from 5-9 PM, you can afford to try them all. Hope to see you there!
GLB Looks to Improve Lager’s Image Tonight
There are two basic types of beer—ales and lagers. Among the non-Budweiser drinking population, ales are generally lauded and lagers mocked as weak, clear beers not worth drinking. Of course, Bud is trying to break into the ale market as well with an “American ale,” so maybe they agree with that sentiment? Unlikely…
Anyway, lagers as a whole can be much better than the macro-brewed examples would lead us to believe. In fact, there are actually some pretty good lagers out there (you like Octoberfest beers, yes?). Great Lost Bear will present a few lagers that might just improve your opinion, tonight. On tap tonight, you can find Stella Artois, Flying Dog Old Scratch Amber, Sam Adams Octoberfest, Brooklyn Lager, and Sam Adams Boston Lager. Having enjoyed all of these (well, Stella is only above average; the rest are pretty good though), I hope the Bear is able to expand beer horizons tonight. As always, $2.50 pints from five till nine and brewery and GLB prizes to be had. Enjoy!
Northern Bavaria rules….
Hey guys sorry for any delay, but I am sure the timescale is irrelevant.. So, two weeks ago, my wife and I drove over to a town in Franconia – Northern Bavaria if you will.. The town is called Bamberg. If anyone has heard of the name they will obviously know of the concentration of breweries within the town limits, higher than virtually anywhere in the world.. even the local maltings has a brewery !
We were there for the Sandkerwa – the church patronal festival, but it involves all of the local breweries – and get this ! a lot of the breweries from the outskirts – within around a 45 minute drive away.
We arrived Thursday afternoon from Luxembourg, a 3-4 hour drive(sorry guys German speed limits applied – ca 115mph all the way) took us there. We stayed in the IBIS in the centre of town, our preferred chain. This was a 10 minute amble from the Sand Strasse, where the festival was taking place. We had arranged to meet up with a few people from around the world, CA-USA and UK – various places. So we met up with Fred Waltman and his dad from CA, in the Schlenkerla tap – using SMS as a contact medium – I seem to have this knack of finding vacant tables….. so we dined and drank both the Schlenkerla Maerzen and the Smoked Weizenbier they do – slightly less smoked than the draught beer, so excellent.
After our meal, it was time to wander off down Sand Str. noticing that the Mahrs stand was only a few steps away – good, their OO was a beer to die for – by OO, it’s the Ungespundet, or unfiltered, zwickel or what ever you like to call it, always better than at their brewery tap – tried that last year. We followed on to the church whose festival it was, and on the corner was the Spezial stand, with their excellent Maerzen and, for us, a new beer – a wiezen, damn good it was too, sorry for the expletive…. but necessary. My favourite of the festival was the hausbier from Stegaurach, well what a beer! worth any trip – well from here anyway.
This festival included probably 30 different local breweres, all good, some better than others, but, I have to say, even the more mundan ones are leagues ahead of the commercial brewers.
Friday saw the arrival of Matt, a Brit on a mission, he samples beers he’s never drunk before, so as our CA friends Fred and his dad were off on a bike ride for the day – to outlying breweries, of course, we suggested to Mat we could drive out of Bamberg to a few inacessible microbreweries. First was a trip to the local maltings(with brewery), their shop was only open for 3 hours, so we had to get there with dispatch, we did, as for which breweries we visited afterwards, well not sure but …..oops! it was a good day, ending up for a paltry few beers locally – at Sand Str. of course. Saturday we finally had a complete reunion, our friends from London had arrived. We, as they say, ploughed the field down Sand Str. but Mahrs Brau was, as usual a gem – good beer, fabulous staff. We had a methodology of procuring refills second to none. Normally you would catch the wait staff’s eye for more beer, not here, the staff would recognise empty drinking vessels accompanied by a note(cash) and in about 30 seconds arrive with refills – now that’s what I call service, everyone else seemed to have to wait for a good 10 minutes for service.
By this time in the procedings, the fill sign was on it’s way up on the ‘ol liver’ so we called it a day, well we had been bashing away for nearly 10 hours……
Sunday was a little quieter, but in the same note. But you know haow festivals go, you get to a point over the days where you really don’t want any more….. it took me 4 days to get there !!! no worries mate!
Our return to Luxembourg on Moday was no dry day either. As I was driving, I stayed dry, save for some ‘EnglishBeer’ as the germans call it – fizzy water… We had three of our English friends in back of our compact Mercedes, we had arranged to drop them at Nuremberg for their flights back. We decided to do a few more out of the way breweries en route, so having left at 10AM, we stopped at 3 more breweries, as usual, my secretary(wife) took copious notes, but have been lost in the turbulence of time… or was it the inbriate clouds. Needless to say, the beer was exemplary in each of the establishments – even though all I had was a taster. We finally got to Nuremberg at around PM, bit what a tour.
Can’t wait for next year, and the Mahrs Brau again….