New! Beverage blog
This is the first installment of a spankin' new part of Culture Shock!: the beverage blog.
In this Numero Uno edition of the beverage blog, the best way to do it - and do it well - would be to have some kind of grand party to go to.
Which was packed. Almost too packed, some might say. Most of the brew festivals are a little more open air, and nobody has to wait in line too long for a beer. Maybe Summertime Brews did that by design at the Greensboro Coliseum Pavilion. It kept everyone from getting too loaded. Riiiiight.
Props to the organizers, too, for providing us with real glasses for sampling. The last beer festival I made it to had plastic for tasting. Good beverages should be served in a proper vessel. Also, later in the festival, when people (for some reason) began dropping their glasses on the concrete floor, the shatter led to several hundred people to all holler "Ohhhhhh!"
There were a lot of the usual Southeast breweries there: Sweetwater (a personal fav), Terrapin and Carolina Beer and Beverage (from my hometown, and brewer of one of the best pumpkin ales around). The big guys showed up too: Rogue, Flying Dog, and Sierra Nevada - all places that ship nationally and are fairly easy to find in your better beer sections.
So we made a beeline to the Sierra Nevada booth for a sip of that Anniversary Ale.
Which I won't bother to describe here, other than to say it's got a little more front-end bite and a sweeter finish than the good-beer staple, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
You could have one or two before switching to your favorite Cold Cheap and Domestic. But we weren't here to get loaded. We went to sample good beer.
The next most memorable beer came from Liberty Steakhouse and Brewery. Usually anything that's a "something and brewpub" loses points right away for being not all about the beer. Remember Hops? You probably remember those croissant-honey rolls more.
But Todd Isbell, brewmaster over at Liberty, made the place credible when he poured one of the more memorable beers of Saturday with his Blackberry Wheat. When the beer is cooling in the fermenter he puts 80 pounds of blackberry puree into the beer and lets it mix for a week.
The result is a touch of dry flavor, and none of that sweetness that shows up with other fruit beers. Definitely worth a sip, and it's only available in High Point.
And then we cruised over to the Winston-Salem Wort Hogs booth. These guys, homebrewers all, showed up with their best stuff. And boy, was it good.
Steve Nance poured his Olde 92 Tripel until the keg ran dry. Sitting up around 9 percent alcohol, it'll make you sit up a bit, too. Unlike some high gravity beers, though, his didn't have that alcohol flavor that tends to mess up the flavor. But you can't get that in stores or a restauraunt.
-here's Nance handing a glass of his homebrew to a thirsty taster.
I think I might start homebrewing.
Happy Labor Day weekend - lift a glass of good beer for the working people of the nation.
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