Better Beer Blog

For once, Sammy and I were able to make it to a festival at its early stages. The goal every time is to get to a beer festival early enough to get a seat and to sample some (hopefully!) good beers before they’re all gone. The Hop Rhizome Festival at the Bistro is different from other beer festivals in that the star of the show isn’t a beer or series of beers but a key ingredient: hops.

Hops, in case you weren’t aware, is one of the four principle ingredients of beer. Hops are used in beer as a bittering agent to balance out the sweetness of the malted barley. In addition, they give some beers a wonderful floral, citrus, piney aroma and contribute greatly to a beer’s flavor profile. In addition, hops have mild, antibacterial properties that allow its use as a preservative.

The Bistro had four varieties of hops for sale: cascade, centennial, Chinook and nugget. By far, cascade is one of the more popular hops used in brewing today. It’s floral and citrus characteristics are highly prized by brewers and if you’ve ever had a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, then you my friend have tasted cascade hops. I already have a cascade growing in my backyard but I picked up another cascade rhizome as well as centennial (I think). We’ll be putting these into the dirt this weekend and I’ll take some pics to share with everyone.

Easily finding a seat, Sammy and I settled into the festival to enjoy ourselves the brief time we were going to be there. I ordered Russian River Brewing Company’s (RRBC) Pliny the Elder and Sammy ordered Green Flash’s Imperial IPA. I spent many minutes looking over the board of beers at the Bistro thinking if I should have ordered another beer other than Pliny. It’s not the Pliny is a bad beer, quite the opposite really, it’s just that I should make an effort to always try something new and then go back to my favorites.

Sammy, on the other hand, looked a bit overwhelmed by the Green Flash Imperial IPA. My wife is not a hoppy beer loving person but she tends to gravitate toward Imperial (or double) IPAs because of their increased sweetness. In what I would consider a good Imperial IPA, the beer should have balance. The hop flavors are aggressive but not overpowering and there should be a strong, malt backbone to support all those hops. Having that strong, malt backbone gives this style a surprising sweetness one would not necessarily expect. This is what Sammy was expecting but instead she found a beer with aggressive hop flavors but not enough malt backbone for her liking. I tried this beer and found it very enjoyable but the hop bitterness clings to your tongue and doesn’t let go. I mean, wow, it really sticks.

Sammy and I also tried Phat Quail from EJ Phair and a barley wine as well. Unfortunately, we didn’t take any tasting notes so I don’t remember too well the Phat Quail and I don’t think I even tried Sammy’s barley wine. It was about this time that Steve and Gail from Beer by Bart showed up and we got to talking with them. I met Steve and Gail from the BJCP classes I was taking. Their website is chalk full of information about good craft breweries all accessible by public transportation. From what Sammy tells me, they are really into quality and only list bars, brew pubs and breweries that care about beer. The beers have to be good and the staff has to be knowledgeable. Basically, if Steve and Gail walk into a bar and they know more about beer than the bartender, the joint is not getting on their list. With such lofty standards one can expect the establishments they’ve listed to be top-notch.

Unfortunately for Sammy and me, we had to leave the Hop Rhizome Festival just as it was picking up. We had a prior engagement that afternoon and needed to head back to San Jose to get ready. Overall, it was a very pleasant and relaxing festival to have gone to. We talked to some good people, sampled some good beers and picked up some hop rhizomes that I hope I’ll be able to harvest and brew into a BetterBeerBlog Harvest Ale. We’ll definitely come back to this event next year but with more time to spend.

It’s spring and the beer festival season is in full swing. There are a lot of good festivals coming up, but unfortunately, they’re nowhere near San Jose. Hopefully that’ll change soon. Until then, here’s what’s coming up.

5th Annual Firkin Gravity Festival - This is coming up this weekend! This festival is interesting in a number of ways but the most interesting is that all the beers are cask-conditioned. In addition, this festival will benefit the Alisa Anne Rusch Burn Foundation which supports burn victims and their families. So feel good about all the beer you’ll be drinking because it’ll help a good cause. Here are the details:

• $20 Admission (Tasting glass, 5 drink tickets, 1 wooden ticket for a full pour)
• April 5, 2008, 11am - 6pm-ish
• Triple Rock Brewery and Alehouse, 1920 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA

Hop Rhizome Beer Festival - This festival will be at The Bistro in Hayward. Hop rhizomes are basically hop roots. They’ll have a bunch for sale as well as hoppy beers on tap and BBQ all day. Can’t complain too much about that. This is one I’ll definitely be at just to pick up a few more rhizomes to plant in my backyard. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to brew a “harvest ale” this fall. Here are the details:

• As far as I know, free
• April 12, 2008, starts 11am
• The Bistro, 1001 B Avenue, Hayward, CA 94541

Five Guys and a Barrel - Beer and Food event featuring Russian River, Port Brewing, Avery, Allagash and Dogfish Head, hosted by the beer chef Bruce Patton. The wife and I really wanted to go to this but as far as beer events go, this one is very pricey. Here are the detaisl:

• $95/person, SOLD OUT
• April 20, 2008, 6:30pm reception, 7:30pm dinner
• The Cathedral Hill Hotel, 1101 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94109

San Francisco International Beer Festival - This a huge event. There are over 300 beers from all over the world as well as approximately 19 local food providers. It’s a bit pricey but it’s all-you-can-drink. Also, it’s a relatively short time frame. Here are the details:

• $60, unlimited beer tastings SOLD OUT
• April 26, 2008, 7pm to 10pm
• Fort Mason Center, you can get directions here.

12th Annual Boonville Beer Festival - San Jose should take a page out of Boonville’s book (and Fairfax’s as well). In my opinion, one of the best ways to bring tourism to your city or town is to hold a kick-ass beer festival. It’s year 12 and they’re still going on strong! One admission price, unlimited beer tastings and camping available.

• $35 advanced sale, $50 at the gate, unlimited tastings
• May 10, 2008, 1pm to 5pm
• Mendocino County Fairgrounds, 14400 Hwy. 128, Boonville, CA

Westcoast Brewfest 2008 - Thanks to BetterBeerBlog friend Brandon for this tip. If you’re from or close to Sacramento, this is the beer festival for you. I just checked their list of participating breweries from last year and it is quite the impressive list with many brewers from out of state and a number from Germany, Czech Republic, Poland and England. I wasn’t planning on going to this one because of how far Sacramento is but if the same brewers are going to show up, I think I’ll make the effort.

• $30 available starting April 15. 3000 tickets available for sale only
• May 17, 2008, 1pm to 5pm
• Miller Park, 2790 Marina View Drive, Sacramento, CA

These are the beer festival and events that I know of. If you know of any more, don’t hesitate to shoot me an email and I’ll gladly put it on the list. It’s hard to keep track of them all, let alone find them all.