Notes on a brewfest

This past Friday was the Flour City Brewfest over at Frontier Field (the baseball field where the Red Wings play). I drove Sean, Angela, and Jeff to it as the... *ahem*... "designated driver". Holy shit, the place had even more people than last year! The counterbalance to that is that they had more breweries there than last year. Let's see, I believe I started the night with a Beamish sample (you get a 2 or 3 ounce sample glass at the door that the breweries will pour your samples into), and it was way uphill from there. There was some weird La Chouffe Tripel IPA that I hadn't remembered hearing of, which was the Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel and that was quite tasty. Great Lakes Brewing was there, a brewery I really hadn't tried before. I drank their Oktoberfest because Jeff and I were talking about wanting to visit Germany for Oktoberfest one of these days, and I just got in the mood for one. This was very good for the style. I remember it being a bit maltier than I expected, which worked pretty well. A lot of the other stuff I had was stuff that we've all had plenty of, like Ommegang Witte, Victory Hop Devil, Rohrbach's Southwedge Summer Ale, etc.

Two other beers of note must be mentioned. I discovered a new brewery (or re-discovered is probably more accurate), Erie Brewing, out of Erie PA. I had their Railbender Ale which was pretty damn good. I'll have to see if they have some stuff at Beers of the World one of these days. I love finding small breweries in northeast region. The other beer of note was Old Howling Bastard by Blue Point Brewing. Now, I've always been a fan of Blue Point, but this beer was phenomenal. Jeff and I were both blown away by this one. It's their version of a barleywine, and boy did they get it right. I could see aging one of these beers for a few years and having it be magnificent. That was very pleasing.

The rest of the night involved eating and then drinking more at Jeremiah's Tavern in the South Wedge area. A good night all around.