The Virginia Beer Festival and beyond

It was a beautiful sunny Saturday in the Hampton Roads area, and by coincidence, The Virginia Beer Festival was in town, and what could be a better setting for a BC4M meeting than that. Bim, Fred, Johnny W. and D-Rail along with their better halves (except of course D-Rail who wasn't allowed to bring his pet Gaboon monkey to the festival) arrived at the gorgeously re-done Town Point Park along the banks of the kepone infested Elizabeth River in Norfolk. The echoes of the beer swilling throng were our beacon as we marched towards the festival entrance. We had seen the festival literature that promised upwards of 80 different brewers, so our goal was to sample at least 40 0f them. As we entered the park we saw that the crowd was fairly thick and we then knew we would be lucky to sample even a fraction of the beers represented. The beer tents were arranged into two semi-circles, so we started at the line that was the shortest. Straub Brewing (one of the oldest brewers in America) was first with their Straub Light (3.2%) which was nothing short of so-so as it had little taste and no alchohol followed by Straub Special Dark (4.1%) which was promised by the keg tender to be "the best beer at this festival, you will be back for more". After we all tasted this shit in a glass, we decided that the old man had obviously been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder suffered during the Crimean War campaign of 1853. This crap was awful and once again, just because you put the word "special" on a beer doesn't make it good. Next up was a BC4M favorite brewer Dogfish Head with their Shelter Pale Ale (5.0%) which was smooth and easy to drink and rated a very good. The lines were long as fuck and the time allotted was short so we decided the best way to sample as many beers as possible was to split the group up so we could get in multiple lines at a single time. Another favorite, Stone IPA (6.9%) was next and it too rated a very good. We continued our success with Terrapin Brewing's Hopsecutioner (7.3%) which was so good it was as close to RFG as we could get. This was easily the best beer of the day for the group. Hoppy and citrusy, this beer is ultra smooth and tasty. We also tried Terrapin's Rye P.A. (5.3%) which was also tasty, but not quite up to the standards of the Hopsecutioner. As we made our way through the lines, we were also showing off the latest fashions from the upcoming Summer 2015 line from the BC4M design emporium. Our latest creation from the diabolically creative staff at J.Wilder's Forever Searching Studios was a hotline blue tech t-shirt that proudly showed off the BC4M website. If it wasn't for the industrial strength fibers used in the making of these shirts, it is highly doubtful any member would have come home with a shirt on. Countless ladies were grabbing at the shirt to see if it really stated what their eyes had seen. Beer club for men they asked, what about women? To which each member dutifully replied, you can follow us on the web and give us suggestions, but voting rights are strictly male only (take that Gloria Steinem). Amazingly enough, most of the women we talked to thought it was ok to have a club like this (or maybe they were too drunk to protest, or perhaps Fred's charm had won them over, nah they were drunk). We then tried New Holland Golden Cap (6.25%), a saison style ale. Fred wondered if the label should have said Golden Crap because this was utterly undrinkable. Sucks, horrible and many other unmentionable words came out after tasting this byproduct of a pig sty. Dear readers, if you ever see the words farmhouse style on a beer, run away as fast as you can. Generally, the farmhouse term comes from the beer makers use of the runoff from cleaning the horse stalls in making this swill. We moved on to Hofbrau Munchen (5.1%) which was a German wheat beer that tasted just like its bottled counterparts, full of clove and spices. Not our favorite and it got a so-so. We then saw a little slice of tree hugger heaven when we saddled up to the Nectar Ales booth. We tried Red Nectar Ale (5.5%) which was refreshingly good and tasty and the Humbolt Brown "Hemp" Ale (5.2%). Brewed with hemp (Woody Harrelson must be so proud), all of the members sans Fred liked the hemp flavored ale, as he said only dope smoking snail darter lovers would subject their taste buds to this garbage. We then somehow got in the line that served Crispin Cider (6.9%) which tasted much that same as any other apple juice with some grain alcohol in it. It only rated an o.k. as it didn't seem to have a clothes dropping affect on any of the ladies at the festival drinking it. Moving along, we came upon a tent that featured Olde Richmond #11 (5.5%) and Olde Richmond #4 (5.0%). We had never heard of this local brewer so we were anxious to try their wares. Interestingly enough, the beers are made by the lads from St George's in Hampton. The #11 was a Virginia style IPA, sort of a cross between English and American styles. It was decent, but not hoppy enough for the group. The #4, an amber colored ale was much better as it got a good and had subtle chocolate notes to go along with its rich red color. Definitely a very good session ale. We then waited in line for a beer that the KrazyItalianIrish girl had suggested we try, the Ommegang Hennepin (even though it is a Farmhouse saison), but as we chatted up some prospective followers to the blog, the line seemed to get very short. No wonder, the one keg of Ommegang that was at the festival had gone empty. We were pissed that we had wasted 15 minutes of valuable drinking time on a floated keg but moved on with the speed and agility of a Marine Battalion. Hoping to get a pitcher of one of our favorite beers, we soon found out that even the pitchers had sold out. Luckily, Fred's much better half charmed a table full of guys that probably argue over what the better beer is between Bud Select and Miller Chill to give up a pitcher for use by the BC4M. As we looked at the clock, we were fast running out of time, so we tried a 21st Amendment IPA (7.0%) which rated a very good, probably the second best beer of the day. We then made our way over to a new local brewer from Norfolk, O'Connors Brewing. We tried three of their beers, the Norfolk Canyon Pale Ale (5.0%) which tasted like they used actual Norfolk Canyon seawater to make it, the Red Nun Red Ale (5.0%) which tasted like they used the remains of the can of turpentine used to clean the red bouy (or red nun) in the mix and finally the Green Can Golden Ale (5.0%), which was easily the best of the bunch. We actually filled our pitcher with the Green Can and throughly enjoyed the rest of our time at the festival finishing it off. As we gathered our chairs to leave, we had several homebrewers come up and ask us if they could bring their beers over for us to rate. Of course, we are always on the lookout for new beers, so anyone that has a good homebrew for us to try is more than welcome to contact our public relations department for further information. We then departed the gates for the short ride back to our home base when J Wilder decided we should continue the festivities at his house. We arrived in time to order some pizzas and sit around the fire pit with the olympic sized pool in the background providing a tranquil setting for another session of tasting. Wilder had found a new group of beers at Total Wine from Pikes Brewing in Seattle. We had a 6 pack of samplers including Pike Kilt Lifter (6.5%) that 3 of the 4 thought was decent but Fred said "this tastes like 40 mule team borax". It was more malty than hoppy, and none of the wives with us lifted their kilts after drinking it so the group gave it a so-so. Next was Pike Heirloom Amber Ale (5.0%) which is labeled an amber ale, a pale ale and Pike ale on the label. Obviously they didn't know what they put in the bottle, but it was decent and drinkable, although D-Rail said he liked Bud Light better than this. (For that flagrant technical foul he was ejected from the voting for the night). We then opened a Pike Tandem Double Ale (7.0%) which boasted the claim that the brewery was "family owned" to which Bim said "what family is that, the Manson's?" This belgian ale boasted flavors of bread and treacle (which we thought must be some sort of European saltwater mollusk, only to find it is it syrup derived from sugar cane refining). This is an awful beer and we noticed on Beer Advocate that this beer is now retired. No shit, I guess even the Pike guys realized they had mass marketed a home brew version of concrete cleaner. After eating some pizza to cleanse our palettes, we opened a Pike Monks Uncle Tripel Ale (9.0%). A typical belgian grape juice flavored wheatsicle, this one left no one desiring more than what was in their glass and we were thinking Pike's would be out of business before too long. But to the amazement of all hands, we found a couple of winners to round out the night. Pike IPA (6.3%) was a so-so to good IPA that wouldn't have made the trip from England to India, and instead have made it to perhaps Bermuda, but it was easily the best of the beers we had tried so far. Fred was nodding off by now and his normally elegant (some have even said it is almost female like) penmanship was dissolving into a writing style that only a one-eyed chimpanzee with arthritis could emulate. After downing a Red Bull to revive him, we opened the last beer of the night, Pike XXXXX Extra Stout (7.0%) that was excellent. This is a classic stout, and we could drink this all night. Finally a beer worth tasting again and again. The taste was more chocolatey than coffeeish, but it went down smoothly. With the final beer downed, the group departed reminiscing on the day. Thousands of BC4M business cards had been handed out (special thanks to our gorgeous wives for performing that task), new friendships made, and multiple beers tasted. We look forward to perhaps seeing some of you in June when we storm the banks of Brown's Island in Richmond for the World Beer Festival. Until then....Erst mach' dein' Sach dann trink' und lach!