The 4th Annual Bloomington Craft Beer Festival

A while ago I had written a story about what drives me to go out and try the new beer from all these new breweries popping up left and right in Indiana. In my blog I mentioned how at this point I was more likely to go out to a brewery boasting something different, generally a twist on an already solid beer instead of just going for the same styles over and over again.

What is the relevance to Bloomington Craft Beer Festival? A lot and at the same time not much. Festival time though is generally the time where breweries who usually play it same crank it up a notch. Some breweries do special beer tappings (which in bigger festivals generally make some beer drinkers upset if they can't cut through the crowd to try a special beer). Some breweries pick a theme for their beer offerings (I'm looking at you Flat 12 Bierwerks). Some breweries have some of their house beers but also bring some twists or outrageous beers.  I was pleasantly surprised and delightfully happy that this year's Bloomington Craft Beer Festival offerings were exactly what I was looking for.

First off..having a festival in Bloomington in April is amazing. The weather is perfect, the location is awesome. (Who can argue with an old mill as the festival backdrop), and the festival is smaller, more quaint and also gives attendees the ability to try more beer and get more bang for the buck.  However,  I think it has already started to get a little snug in the Woolery Mill this year with a sold out crowd of 3,000.  Unless you are good at snaking through crowds, being a little tough to get to your next beer, or don't mind being pushed around then by all means come back for the 5th annual BCBF.  This year did offer a little more as far as a grander musical stage, more accommodations and a "dining hall" up the hill for beer drinkers to rest and enjoy local food fair.

But enough about the layout and crowds.. I mentioned how the offerings were what I was looking for, so let me get to the important part of this piece - the beer.

Right out of the gate, I bee lined to Zwanzigs Scorpion Pepper Imperial Stout.
Taking a step away from the Ghost Pepper Infused Imperial Stout that Zwanzigs used to offer, this beer was still exactly what I was looking for. A chocolate, robust start and a slow tickle in the back of my throat burn.  The first offering was just a little to see if I actually would like it, but after quickly swallowing it down I asked for more, plus they had a small batch of it set aside to "kick it up" a notch. I, of course, had that added.  I was almost scared that it would cause a flame to shoot out my mouth, but was back to just having a pleasant burn, a bit more noticeable than the first time, but still just a nice pleasant beer.

From there I stepped down the row, my eyes in search of unique beers and Broadripple Brewpub did not disappoint. Their Cinnamon Roll Porter, could have been a great breakfast beer, if I drank beer at 8am.  The cinnamon flavor was just a slight, but there was definitely a creaminess that gave the drinker a mind set of licking icing off a Cinnabon roll.

Before my next crazy beer I did have a few interesting solid beers.  18th Street Brewery's Bitch Hands Pale Ale was a strong beer, that I would definitely drink more off, not just to say I was drinking Bitch Hands either (which brings up another thought I had during the festival off how crazy beer names are getting).  Choss - A triple IPA from Figure 8 was another solid good beer, that actually gave me a pop of taste as it hit the back of my tongue. It wasn't something that made my head turn like the beer was made unusually, the pop seemed to come naturally from the basic ingredients used for this beer .

Back to the crazy, (again looking at you Flat 12). Sidetrack - Flat 12 never disappoints me. Honestly, even if I may not like some of their crazy beers, <cough> Cucumber Kolsch, </cough>, they take the risk, they combine, they go crazy and almost all the time they hit their mark.  CC3, aka a Cotton Candy flavored Belgian Style Trippel was really great. It smelled like Cotton Candy, it tasted like Cotton Candy, I almost wish it was pink like Cotton Candy. I tried a sip of my friends Caramel Corn flavored beer for their table as well, it was sweet like caramel with that corn twinge.  If I wasn't on a mission to cover as many tables as I could for IB.com I would've tried all the beers at Flat 12. I'm hoping CC3 makes a comeback in the taproom. I know it won't be at another festival. Flat 12 keeps up with a theme per festival and so far hasn't repeated many of their festival beers at other festivals I've been able to attend.

My last special call out of beers has to be Crown Brewing's The Dude White Russian Java Porter.  The Dude definitely abides with this beer. I could almost hear the ice clink in the glass drinking cream, Kahlua and vodka with each sip of this beer.  

Besides being happy with finding these special diamonds in the beer festival rough, I was also happy to find good solid beers. Makes me rethink my intro of only popping into breweries that are pulling beer stunts.  Lafayette Brewing gets a shout out for their Star City Bock. I was definitely fan of this clean,slightly caramelized beer.  Salt Creek also deserves some love for the cream ale.  The biggest applause however goes to the homebrewing club, the Bloomington Hop Jockeys. I love their Berliner Weisse, the sour blonde and I did make it over the tapping of the sour stout.  Their Berliner Weisse opened my eyes to a new style of beer that may rise above regular sours as my favorite. the BHJ Berliner Weisse and later Desthil Brewing's Berliner Weisse were my ideal summer kind of beers. Tart, sour and shocking.

All this love for beers.. I bet you are wondering, did I love them all? No, of course not. There were some beers that just didn't cut it for me. One sip and the rest ended in beer blasphemy by hitting the rocks of the "floor" of the Woolery Mill.  I'm not one for knocking a brewery's beer down cause it could be an amazing beer for someone else, but I will say there was a new brewery's IPA that I was just not a fan of at all, it was flat and flavorless.  Another brewery's wheat ale was just about the same.   It could have been the location or the beer travel. I had a sample of a black ale that I had tried in the pub recently and it didn't taste nearly the same chocolately, slight tilt of sour that it did when I a pint of it a few weeks back.

Overall, the BCBF was a lovely festival. I hope that the 5th year sees an expansion of the layout so people can walk around easily without almost crowd surfing for beer. I also hope more breweries from the north come back down. I missed seeing Iechyd Da Brewing and Bare Hands Brewery.  I hope they either come down and join the southern fun or that centralized northern festival is in the works. Until then, I look forward to the Microbrewer's Festival in July and other great times come forward as the great weather festival events start off.

Hope to see you around!

Cheers,
Kathleen

Upland's Midwest Sour Wild Funk Fest

Upland Brewing organized the second annual Sour Wild Funk Fest, the Midwest’s premier wild ale festival, on Saturday, May 11, at Developer Town in the Broad Ripple area of Indianapolis. Approximately twenty breweries were represented including many Hoosier breweries, brewers from Ohio, from Illinois, from Michigan and some national powerhouses like New Belgium and Sam Adams. This years attenance was reported to be up substantially from last year but the crowd never felt like a 'throng.' Here's our take from the two of us who attended:


from Jake: .....

When I first heard about Upland’s Sour Beer Fest last year, I had already been interested in sours for about a year, and been enjoying being able to get a hold of some good sours from around the country and occasionally the world. I loved last year’s festival. With such a small number of tickets compared to the microbrewers festival in Opti park the lines are much shorter and you get to try more beer!

This year I was lucky enough to snag a pair of VIP tickets, which apparently sold out in minutes. I enjoyed the VIP lecture style presentation from Caleb Staton, Upland’s Head Brewer. The presentation consisted of an overview sour brewing process, but the most interesting part in my opinion was Upland’s specific techniques. It is impressive how much trouble Upland goes through to create their spectacular sours. The list includes a vigorous cleaning each of their 141 barrels, a modified mash tun (capable of a turbid mash typical for Flemish style sours), as well as a 24 Hectoliter Foudre. The fruited lambics only use real fruit, no extracts, and none of their sours are artificially sweetened like the occasional Belgian brewery. Caleb is nobly focused on the exceptionally high quality of their sour program. The VIP portion ended with a sampling of Sour Reserve Batch #2, Raspberry Lambic (2011), and Cherry Lambic (2010).

The festival began and those of us in the VIP walked right in, while all the general admission ticket holders had to submit to getting the horrible re-entry stamp of a brown mustache. Anyway, on to the beers. As expected all of the Upland Sours were spectacular, including Sour Reserve Batch #1, and Batch #3, and a few Fruit Lambics I was able to try. Sun King’s All Brett Wee Mac was particularly tasty with some great characteristics from the different strains of brett used. Next up for me was Black Acre, a young brewery that had a tasty Raisin Sour, while their other option may have been lacking a little bit of complexity. Flat 12’s offerings were strong as always, and it was great seeing some of the other classic Indiana breweries, Barley Island, Mad Anthony embracing the sour tradition/trend. Some people may believe there are new trends in craft beer, which we’ll talk about later this week, but this beer fest shows me that there is still a growing audience for the complex traditional Belgian sour beers and the new American sours that are pushing the limits of what beer can be. I loved this festival again this year, and hope to see you at it next year.

Crowd shot and Mad Anthony description


Black Acre and Flat 12 descriptions




from Greg.....


This is likely the true craft beer lovers' fest. Brewers and staff alike commented that this is one of their favorite events because attendees like to chat about beers, spend time at each table, and sip rather than slam. The attendance proved there are plenty of beer lovers who appreciate tart beer.

Perhaps the most interesting samplings were from Destihl brewery of Normal and Champaign, Illinois. Their 5,000 square foot beer cellar contains over 300 oak barrels, both California wine barrels and bourbon barrels. In addition, they have imported French foudres, large oak casks for storage. They follow a traditional Belgian sour aging process of exposing the fermented beer in casks and barrels to the open air to pick up wild yeast. the Destihl four-and-a-half year old framboise was complex and impressively light at the same time. Their Saint Dekerra plain lambic had been barrel aging nearly two years and delivered a nice vanilla and wonderful sour notes. While Destihl brews or has brewed over 60 beers since opening in 2007, and have a wide variety of beer styles, clearly their focus on barrel aging is providing truly interesting and tasty results.

New Belgium Brewery has a fondness for this festival and provided a "Peach Felix Love" ale on tap that was aged first in the barrels used for their LaFolie and then in peach whiskey barrels. As one participant noted this provided the wonderful type of tartness that gives you a tug at the back and side of the tongue while delivering great flavor. This was one of those beers you could never get elsewhere unless you travel to New Belgium in Colorado and know the brewers.

I was particularly pleased that the beer I had agreed to help pour, Bloomington Brewing Company Cranberry Saison, was so well accepted and so many people made it to the end table of the fest specifically asking for this ale brewed with French Saison yeast and finished with fresh and concentrated cranberries! This was a delightful sample from the saison I've much appreciated before gaining very nice fruit flavor! Several noted beer judges came by because they had heard this one-off beer, not even available at the brew pub, was so good.

Steve of Crown Brewing (Home of the Crown Beer fest this next weekend from 2-6 on Sat., May 18) of Crown Point, IN, poured a Cherry Dunkel Weizen Bock, that gave a nice hint of cherry in the unusual setting of a dunkel weizen. This blending of cherry, banana esters, and spice was quite a nice delight!

SunKing's Stupid Sexy Flanders (did you see that episode of the Simpson's?) was a very nice base oud bruin with wild yeast, brettanomyces, and lacto!

Thirsty Dog from Dayton poured Cerasus Dog Flanders Red that was very smooth and a grest treat. As hard as I tried to recall the exact brewing process which on Saturday I recounted to others, alas, my notes started to fade - but I enjoyed this brew!

Another very interesting beer was Jon's Triton Pink Ribbon Saison, obviously a saison but with pink and white peppercorns delivering a nice but not overpowering spice.

If you wanted a beer lighter in alcohol, Bell's Oarsman is a very refreshing and full-of-flavor tart sessionable beer at 4% abv.

Thanks to Global Beer Network importers for serving Petrus pale, Petrus Oud Bruin, and Monk's Cafe Flemish Sour. These Belgian beers (in bottles) give fest attendees a barometer for what these styles taste like when brewed in Belgium.

And thanks to Avery for shipping in bottles of Odio Equum which is brewed with red raspberries and aged in cabernet sauvignon barrels. Another beer I would not have wanted to miss!

Upland did not have much Dantillion, but a lucky few got a taste just as Starlight distributors from Southern Indiana also broke out a bottle of Cantillion from Brussels -- but alas I was not in the right spot to taste and report which Cantillion.

The list could go on and on but we tried to show some restraint. Truly this is an event for those of us who appreciate tart and tasty ales!

Cheers, from Jake and GregKitz

Pics with Katie (and Mark in the background) from Destihl,
Mark from BBC, and Andrew from Upland