Recently in Beer Festivals Category

On Saturday I attended Brew-UICA 2002. It was the urban institute for contemporary arts' attempt to provide southwest Michigan with a beer tasting event. Thanks to a good friend of mine I got in free. Except for one brewer all the beer was in bottles. That states a lot if you ask me. This was a bunch of contemporary art people's attempt at a beer fest. Frankly, contemporary art people suck. My apologies to all those contemporary art people visiting my site. You may go to uica.org now, come back when you know what a mash tun is. Ok so enough with dissing people of culture. About the beer. There were seventeen tables with no less than four styles of beer per table. Not bad indeed. My favorite was an import, Flag Porter. Flag Porter is brewed from a traditional 19th century British recipe, fermented with original 1825 yeast salvaged from a sunken vessel in the English Channel. Good stuff very English, it had the sour thing going on. Try it if you ever get the chance.

Kalamazoo Brewing Co was there. Their Stout was terrible. I will give them the benefit of the doubt maybe it was just that bottle. Founder's had a nice Porter, very hoppy, good stuff. Roffey Brewing Co. knows how to make good beer. Their Lake Effect Stout rocks the boat. Their Forecaster Pale Ale is also an excellent pale ale. Motor City brought their Amber Wheat. It tasted like crap. Sorry Motor City maybe you should take up contemporary art or something.

Butte Creek from Chico, CA came with their Organic Porter. It was good but it tasted pretty organic if you ask me. Could we please give up on Organic Beer! Who's idea was it anyhow? Organic granola bars; great idea. Organic beer??? Don't we have anything better to do folks? Why not experiment with organic contemporary art or something.

Well today I am headed off the the eighth annual Billings Brewfest, in Billings, MT. More info will be coming soon. Last weekend I visited Montana Brewing. I had their 'Custer's Last Stout' it was a very good Dry Irish Stout, not too dry. It's head rivaled Guinness, I would love to see what it would be like on nitro. I also sampled their Amber, also very good. Last I tried their Wheat Beer, VERY dissapointing. It was all watered down. Now here is where I go off on watered down beer.

Watered down beer has NO PLACE IN THE WORLD. Here is why. If you want Bud or some crap American horse wizz beer, that's what you want. Let's face it no Bud drinker is happy with some other watered down beer. They want the original Bud strait from the Clydesdales stable. If you drink Real Beer, you want it true to style not watered down. No one likes a Real Beer, that has been watered down to try and fit in. If you want to do something to convert the American beer drinker over to the real thing you make a Vienna Style Lager. Anything else falls flat on it's face. Ok so there are some other good 'conversion' beers. But NEVER is a watered down beer the solution. Montana Brewing should have enough guts to drop the wheat beer or do it right!

I just finished typing a five page epilogue about the Billings Brewfest only to lose the whole thing due to the fact that this is the worst computer I have ever used. So here goes, I'll see what I can remember. Just two weekends ago I attended the 8th Annual Billings Brew Festival, in Billings Montana. Their live music was terrible, but since this site is about good beer I will skip that part. Seventeen Breweries were represented, nine of which were from Montana. My hat goes off to Overland Express Brewing Co. of Billings MT. If you are a hophead you will love their Overland Express IPA. Missoula Montana is not only my birthplace, it is the birthplace of great German Beer. Bayern brewing has a genuine German Brewmaster, and it is very evident through their distinctive German Brews. Harvest Moon was there with their Pigs Ass Porter. I should just stop their since I am definitely biased about any good Porter. Let's just suffice it to say that next to Anchor's it is some of the best Porter I have ever had.

I was a little disappointed (ok a lot) that one whole wall was bottled beers served by volunteers who didn't know beer from Sprite. Pyramid Brewing was one that did not send a rep or or even a tap for that matter. In general Pyramid Brewing is a great company and think this was really an exception to the rule. So I'll forgive them this once. The other wall was corrupted by malt alternatives as they call them. Let me just say this once. THEY HAVE NO PLACE AT A BREWFEST. Yes I love Martini and Rossi just like everyone else, but they better not show up at any beer event I'm hosting. That said the trip was worthwhile. I may just show up next year at the ninth annual Brewfest in Billings, MT.