Beer-Fest 2011

I had the pleasure of attending Atlantic City's annual Beer-Fest last Friday night, April 1st.

The beer vendors could both be described as voluminous and varied.  It was mostly represented by American craft breweries, though there were some foreign brewers there (Unibroue, Spaten) and some of the bigger boys were also there (Sam Adams, Yeungling).

I was looking forward to Dogfishhead's offering, as they have often released very experimental beers (experiments which often go right), and are always pushing new stuff out.  Sad to say, they only had 2 beers there, one of which I already had (raison d'etre).  The beer I had was extremely thick and flavorful, though I forget its title.  We were beckoned there by the man who had offered to be my host for the night, and he is an even bigger Dogfishhead fan than I, so it made for a satisfactory first beer.

I was also looking forward to Unibroue's offerings.  They brought 4 kinds of beers, and I periodically kept stopping by to try more and more of them.  I've already had their most famous beer "La fin du monde" (the end of the world), so I skipped that, but they also had "Trois Pistoles" (three guns) and a whitbeer whose name escapes me currently.

Flying Dog also had some excellent brews available.  They perhaps are more known for their "gonzo" imagery, but it's all backed up.  They had a coffee stout and a rauchbier available.  Both of these beers were perfectly balanced -- the coffee stout not tasting too much like either coffee or beer, and the rauchbier not tasting like a cloud of smoke.

Of course I feel compelled to mention Yards' and Victory's excellent offerings as well, but I don't feel much need to go further than that.  I did go back for a second sample in both though.

In the "ok, I'll go with it" category, I was kinda shocked to see displays of both Four Loko and Colt 45 (who wasn't showing their classic malt liquor, but rather a four loko kind of beverage).  Technically they are both malted beverages, so i cannot say they couldn't be there.  It was just interesting to see.  I couldn't really get a straight answer from either of them about the caffeine content though.  Worth mentioning is the replacement of Billy Dee "goes down smooth" Williams with Snoop Dogg as the spokesman of Colt 45.

Besides that, most of the booths were offering I guess what I'd call "an IPA plus 1".  The American IPA has simply dominated the American craft brewing scene -- it's so simple yet so complicated, mess with the hops.  Imperial Stouts and various Belgian styles are also starting to cut their way into the scene.  What do the three have in common?  They all can have really strong flavors and really high gravities (of course this doesn't apply to all the beers of Belgium, but you get my point).

I wish every day were Beer Fest
-- Knuttel