Seattle's Cask Beer Festival

[malarkey]

OK, so I met a few fellow eGer's at Seattle Center and we descended on the annual Cask Beer Festival put on by the kind folks at the Washington Brewer's Guild. There were 2 tasting sessions, 4 hours each. We managed to get tickets for the early session, (12-4pm) because we bought them back when they first went on sale. This thing sells out every year, and there are always people clamoring at the door saying "sell your ticket?! PLEASE???"

I blew my tastebuds out first thing by choosing to start with a pour of Maritime Pacific's XPA Hop Harvest. Just the name should tell you what this one was all about. Intensely hoppy, grassy marijuana like flavor and aroma. I love beers like this but it was extreme and I had to have some water and pretzels just to come back to earth. For a radical difference, I then had Diamond Knot's Oktoberfest. Malt malt and more malt. To me this didn't have any hops but I'm not sure that's a fair assessment considering the beer I started with. It was a lovely beer though, and a favorite amongst our group. Next came the Elysian Jasmine IPA, and this was a mellow beer not strong in any one direction or another. I couldn't taste any jasmine but my co-tasters could so I was still probably having some hop burnout.

Now, here's the confusing part. This was a cask beer fest, and who do we see here? Unibroue. With bottles. OK, so they are bottle-conditioned. But still. They had the usual suspects, Le Fin du Monde, Terrible, etc. They told me Sleeman has no intention of radically altering the line. They will drop the lagers (I didn't know Unibroue made lagers) but everything else will stay. He also informed me that they are soon releasing a cranberry Ephemere which I should be able to find on tap at several area pubs. He assured me that the apple Ephemere and the cassis Ephemere would be staying in the seasonal lineup. AND the Blanche de Chambley. This was good news to me. Unless they change the recipes...

Next: Silver City's Fat Woody. Heh. Clever name. This was a scotch ale aged for 6 months in american white oak. This was an awesome beer, and one of my favorites of the day. Smooth, complex, it sits at 9%, but wasn't alcohol-y at all. very well balanced, I loved this one. Next came Old Sol from Big Time. This was a wheat barley wine, almost a year old, it had been brewed in January. I heard someone say they thought it needed more time but I thought this was a lovely beer. They told me they usually tap it at the solstice and it sells out then, so they sell it even younger than this. It had a very slight spicey wit thing going in the background, didn't have that strong alcohol hit most barley wines do, although I do believe the level was up there. Gorgeous. Had Deschutes Black Butte Porter, lovely roasty toasty fresh flavor, I've had this one many times on cask. Had Harmon Brewing's ESB, a nice hoppy typical NW ale, very quaffable, and the Festi'ale from Far West Brewing, also a fairly standard NW ale, with a slight hint of spice and a lovely roundness in the flavor that I can't quite describe adequately. The Far West guys are doing some nice things. I've had a couple of their offerings this past summer I really liked.

THEN came the controversial beer of the Fest. Anacortes Brewing had what they called a Belgian Ale, that was brewed in a belgian manner according to the brewer who was there pouring. He'd used an abbey 2 yeast and a hefeweizen yeast and put a whole ginseng root in the cask. Whoa. Immediate aroma hit was how a chile pepper smells when you pick it off the vine and its been sitting in the summer sun. Flavor was also chile pepper like, but without the heat. Some floral stuff going on too. Now, a couple of my co-tasters were getting a very metallic hit off this beer, some said it tasted like tea, and didn't like it at all. But I had one other person back up my peppery assessment and we both liked it, although I'm not sure about calling it a Belgian. Daring effort from this guy. I'd be interested in tasting that one alone and not after drinking a bunch of other stuff.

so, only 11 out of ~35 beers got tasted. *sigh* so many beers so little time...

[Susan in FL]

M., that sounds like an awesome beer event, and what a great write-up! Thanks for taking the time from your busy schedule to post (I bet attending was an enjoyable respite from that schedule of yours). I was drooling at the idea of Maritime Pacific's XPA Hop Harvest, as you might imagine.

[Rich Pawlak]

M., that sounds like an awesome beer event, and what a great write-up!  Thanks for taking the time from your busy schedule to post (I bet attending was an enjoyable respite from that schedule of yours).  I was drooling at the idea of Maritime Pacific's XPA Hop Harvest, as you might imagine.

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Yeah, sorry to behind on this, but an excellent write up of what sounds like a great beer event! But tell us, WEER most of the beers hoppy?