Twin City Taps

So I know my experience with festivals is very limited but I would say that this is the best one I have been to thus far. When I first heard of Twin City Taps North Carolina Beer Festival, the thing that got me excited was the fact that it was being held in a baseball stadium. What could be better than that? Well, it was sad news to hear that nearly last minute the festival may have to be cancelled due to various issues at BT&T. One of the sponsors, Ziggy’s, stepped up and decided that the even could be held at their venue. They were already involved in setting up the musical acts, and that is what the place was known for, so why not combine the two? I think it was a good call.

Being new to North Carolina, Twin City Taps gave me the opportunity to find out what this state has to offer. Coming from Los Angeles, Seattle, & Portland, I guess you can say I am kind of spoiled when it comes to beer but there is still so much out there that I have not had. I really appreciated the fact that the festival was North Carolina beer exclusive. It is too easy to call up a distributor and ask for what is big, rare, and popular but this was a change to let the locals shine. I know people always say drink local and others say that not all local beer is good beer but this event was seriously like a showcase for why North Carolina is heading the direction that it is. Asheville is being called “Beer City USA”, but the state as a whole deserves recognition.

While talking to the people behind the various breweries, I found out that the majority of them were brand new breweries. The ones pouring were from their respective breweries as well. They were not just random servers they pulled off the street so you could actually get into a decent conversation about the beer and the brewery. Some were there that have been around for a while, like The Carolina Brewery and The Duck Rabbit Brewery but I was talking to the head brewer of NoDa Brewing and found out that they have only been around for about 7 months. The youngest brewery that I can remember said they have only been around for 3 months. Just the range of experience and what was being presented was amazing. One of the coolest things there was the fact that a homebrew club, The WortHawgs, was pouring as well.

I really need to learn to play this game. It’s at every festival ever… why is that?

One thing I did not really care for at the festival was the ticket prices. I am not saying I thought it was over priced or anything. For the time I had and what was there, it was totally worth it. They offered 2 ticket prices, Regular Admission and VIP. The prices were $35 and $60 respectively. I purchased the VIP ticket. The difference between the two was The VIP ticket got you access to a room with food and cask ale. Cask ale is what made my decision immediately. I guess maybe I got caught up in the whole CAMRA movement and as a Craft Beer Enthusiast, things like this are supposed to excite me. I was not expecting too much, but when I found out there were only 4 cask, I was kind of disappointed. The food was decent, but again, if that were the only difference I would not have went with it. Don’t get me wrong, I had no issue paying the price. Especially since it went to benefit the NC Brewers Guild and I for sure ate my fair share of food, which if I purchased it, would have more than made up for the cost with vendor prices. But I was still just expecting more in the way of Cask Ale.

All in all though, it was a great event. Really introduced me to the beer of North Carolina and I met a lot of cool people. I guess I don’t have to worry about finding local favorites being that there is so much good beer around me. Though, there is still so much here for me to discover.

Cheers!

L’s Ales: Summer Starlifter

So, I have a little bit of a back log of post I need to get out due to my work schedule, but I am taking a break to get a few out there. I am still working on my visit to a few breweries, including New Belgium & The Duck Rabbit Brewery. New Belgium was the most heavenly of trips, but you will hear about that soon. I recently got to take a part in Iron Brewer. A few of my tweeps have taken part in it before and I was jealous that they got to take part and I missed out. I was pretty disappointed when I found out that I missed Round 1 sign up for Batch 3 but was ecstatic as soon as I found out Round 2 sign ups were going out! This really excited me because it would be my first brew in about a year. I have missed so much about it and this is a great opportunity to get some feedback from complete strangers.

Iron Brewer is really just an opportunity to challenge yourself to make a beer using ingredients that you might not normally use. They give you 3 ingredients and that is about it… they let you decide on your style and recipe on your own. The point is to be creative and make something that you think will stand out and compliment the given ingredients. I thought the ingredients for my round were a little uninspired but that is where the challenge comes from. I was to use Crystal 120, White Wheat Malt, and Faulkners Flight Hops. I thought the other rounds had a better set up but I was not going to let this put me down. My initial reaction was, “I always wanted to brew a hefe”, so I got started on writing that recipe. It was after I went to bed and woke up that I realized that sure, I could do something interesting with the style but that kind of goes against what the competition was about. Originality. Given my list, nothing was original about that. Then I got to thinking and this is where it all starts again. The obsession picks back up and the madness goes completely out of control… I love it… I decided to brew a session ale for the summer. The Saison is always a style I wanted to brew but have never done so. I thought this would work out perfectly. I wrote up the recipe and quickly started getting everything together in order to do it… I also quickly remembered why I wanted to upgrade my equipment.

I am tired of my corona mill. It gets the job done but I am glad this was a fairly small batch. This is one of the most annoying tools in my arsenal. I totally works and I get great efficiency from my crush but the amount of time and energy it takes to do so is questionable at some points. Like back when I brewed my Fat Bastard Barley Wine. About 25lbs of grain in this beer, all crushed with the corona. It sucked. I had made my starter a few days before and once I got the brew going I decided to sample the beer it produced. I figured this would give me an idea of what this yeast is capable of, even though the ingredients going into the beer are nothing like that of just a base malt. Granted it was not carbonated but it was quite a treat. I ended up drinking a whole glass of it just because it was that good. Who would have thought that a starter would be something that I would want several bottles of.

I actually did 2 brew days for this beer. The first was a pilot batch of the same recipe just because I was worried about not having had used my equipment in a while and possible infection. I brewed them 3 days apart and both brew days went surprisingly well. The first had a few issues, but nothing too major. Just problems hitting my first few mash temps. I just had to adjust and move on. I should not have done such a complicated schedule. I usually do a single step mash and have great results and always hit the temp. I guess I was worried about nothing. The wort came up a little short but in my second batch, that was not an issue at all. Then again, what could be bad about having 10 gallons of a Sessionable Saison around your house? Again, this was my first attempt at one so that was kind of scary all in its own.

The final product. I cannot wait to taste it out of the fermenter and get everyone elses feed back as well. I’ll throw some notes up here soon enough. Really excited to be brewing again. Though, I had a major problem with flys on both brew days. I wonder if that an east coast thing because I have never seen so many in all of my days of brewing. Anyway, take a look at that.

Cheers!