Boonville Beer Festival 2008: The perfect Saturday, until the sun goes down…

Though I still owe the world a write up on the Bar Crudo beer dinner from a couple weeks ago (short version: awesome beer [La Roja is a new fave], and awesome food [first time I've ever loved oysters], awesome people [I always make new friends there]), I want to write about the Boonville Beer Festival while it’s still fresh in my mind.

Unlike many of the pourers and tasters who drive in on Friday and camp overnight at the fairgrounds, I had the benefit of sleeping in my own bed the night before and getting a ride in on Saturday morning.  I had gone to the Presidio Brewing Club event (review coming soon!) at Brewcraft on Friday evening and then turned in early to get a jump start on the drive up to Boonville. 

Jordan, Nick, Sarah, and I hit a few roadblocks on our way up there, the first being our inability to procure breakfast burritos, which we decided were an essential start to our morning.  But, we were on the road before 9am and up at the fairgrounds by 11am.  Once in Boonville, we almost accidentally parked at the brewers’ campground before some helpful hangabouts informed us that “civilians” belonged a half mile further down the road.  Man… it was a bummer to be separated from the brewers, but understandable.  And by this time next year, barring a disaster, I’ll be one of gang and won’t have to resort to tactics described later in the post in order to camp in the brewers’ section. 

First, we strolled in to town.  You may note Justin’s “B is for Brewski” shirt, the same shirt that later prompted a festival-goer to tell to him, “Hey, awesome shirt, dude.  Last year, I saw this guy who had a shirt that said ‘tell your boobs to stop staring at my eyes.’” Um, ok, thanks for sharing that with us. 

We had some lunch at the general store, which was mostly just a deli, but a pretty good deli at that.  And then it was time to go stand in line.  The line must have been over a mile long, easily.  And we were about 5 storefronts away from the entrance when we lined up 45 minutes prior to the opening of the gates. 

Once inside, it was the usual mad free for all, as everyone scrambled to see what was on offer.  But before I stopped to taste, I had to check out this musical duo.  It was a father-son team of minstrels playing railroad songs, in which the father played guitar and the son played the flute.  I really just loved the son’s hat, and actually if I’m being completely honest, his whole outfit. 

I have notes from my first 8 tastes (roughly the first hour’s worth of beer), but after that both my drinking and note taking ran at a significantly reduced rate.  Here are my thoughts on the first batch, listed in the order I tried them:

• Russian River Brewing Company’s La Fleurette: A Belgian-style pale ale brewed with rose and violet petals, black pepper, honey, and elderberries. The flavor of the flowers really came through in the taste, but it was a ‘perfume-y’ floral smell. I don’t know if this will mean anything to anyone else, but it was much more of a “Persian rosewater ice cream” rose flavor than a “my grandma’s after-shower rose talcum powder” rose flavor. And yes, as a kid I used to douse myself in that rose powder at my grandma’s house, mostly because it came a big poofy puff for application. But back to the La Fleurette…it was light on the hops and alcohol, and very refreshing, a great choice for the fabulously sunny festival day.
• Elysian’s Avatar Jasmine IPA: Flowers must be the new hops! The Avatar had a much more noticeable floral aroma, with the jasmine just wafting out of the glass. It was very different from the La Fleurette, given that it was a whole different style of beer with a whole different type of flower added. I enjoyed it and would order it again, but didn’t prefer it for a festival beer as much because it had a creamy mouthfeel that made it feel moderately heavy, despite the light color and low-moderate malt profile.
• Pizza Port’s Attenuation: A Belgian-style strong pale ale. I tasted sweet pears and honey cider-like flavors. Can’t say how I’d compare it to comparable brews without tasting it head to head, but I think it was just a touch sweeter than I like my strong pales. Also, I’m not a fan of servers who think they’ve got your number before they’ve even spoken to you. I asked what he recommended at the table, and he said the Attenuation. I asked why and he said “because you’re a girl.” Ughh. First of all, the correct answer of any bartender worth his or her malt to the request for a recommendation is, “well, what kind of beers do you normally like?” This way they can figure out your tastes, preferences, and familiarity with beer in general and their beer in particular, and use this information in making a targeted recommendation. An alternative answer is, “my favorite is…” But don’t pour me your sweet, light, fruity stuff just because I have no nuts, and certainly don’t tell me that’s why. Especially since the beer I ended up liking better at the table was…
• Pizza Port’s Black IPA: I really liked the floral/citric hop taste of this one, and it hits you several seconds after you take a sip. It’s like a mash-up of a porter and an IPA, and I think it does better for it. But then, we know I’m not the biggest fan of porters on their own.
• Sacramento Brewing Company’s Red Horse Ale: I thought this was a very solid, classic ale. Nothing fancy or special, no flowers or high alcohol or mixed up styling, but fun to drink all the same. I thought there was plenty of fresh hop bitterness with a good, but not great, amber malt profile.
• Six Rivers’ Kona Moon Porter: This is not a beer. End of story. I’m not sure what it could be besides a coffee-flavored alcopop and not a beer. Where was the malt? The hops? I tasted coffee, lots of it, and carbonation. I could hook a CO2 tank up to a vat of coffee, admittedly pretty good coffee, and this is what you would get. I’m all for flavored beer, but this was so overpowering it killed the beer.
• Firestone Walker’s Lil Opal Saison: This was quite possibly the most delicious session beer ever created. I’m sure that will get some hackles up since ‘session’ is often thrown around as an insult, or with confusing intent. As in, my friends sent me to the grocery store to buy post-festival beers to drink back at the campsite and asked for “some session beers, you know, like PBR.” Sorry, I’m not going to chase a glorious beer festival with PBR. I came back with BridgePort IPA, Deschutes Mirror Pond, and Lost Coast’s Great White for non-hop fans. Still, the Lil Opal was better than these three combined. It had great fruity esters in a light body and was like drinking sunshine. It was also the only beer I had twice yesterday. I can’t say what the actual ABV was since Firestone only ever lists their year-round beers on their website (BTW - what’s up with that? Your fans want to know more…), but I’m hoping it was low enough that I can stand by my session designation. It felt low enough.
• Rubicon’s Monkey Knife Fight Pale Ale: I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I went and did it anyway. The pale ales are never my faves, and probably never going to stand out in a festival full of great beer, but with the name ‘Monkey Knife Fight,’ how could I not? It was decent, not bad, with a slight bitter kick at the end that wasn’t the aftertaste I would have hoped for.

At this point, I was half-way to sloshed and just about due at the Blogtastic Meet-Up, so I made my way over to the gazebo.  I was met by Peter from BetterBeerBlog (to my left), Jay from Hedonist Beer Jive (far right), and Jay from the Brookston Beer Bulletin (to my immediate right).  Add in myself, JJ, and that’s a lot of J’s.  We managed to get past the confusion and get down to some beer talk.  Peter had just taken the BJCP test and had some pointers on studying.  Jay from HBJ had just gotten into the festival but was eager to catch up, and Jay from BBB told us some stories about his upcoming trip to New Zealand.  We took a quick picture to commemorate the moment and I hope this is just the first of many more to come.  With that in mind, the blogging crew will definitely be invited to my next tasting event. 

The time at the festival post-meet up was much less focused than pre-meet up.  Between waiting for bathrooms and waiting for food, I must have wasted over half an hour. 

I dodged a dude trying to pick up women in line for the restroom.  I guess he figured (correctly) that he had a captive audience.  He had the uniquely bad strategy of trying to work two women at once and after the woman in front of me flashed her wedding ring at the guy, and I wasn’t quick enough to spin up a story about a 6′8″ biker boyfriend, I became the primary target.  Luckily, the bathroom lines weren’t too bad, and I escaped.  However, the food lines were out of control! 

Note to festival organizers: You want people to be able to order food.  (A) It is not included in the ticket price, so that’s extra money for you.  (B) It keeps your customers happy and this side of blackout.  I managed to keep an even keel all day, but suspect the dearth of food led to some of the incidents described further along in this post.

The one stand-out beer post-meet up that’s worth a mention is the Moonlight Working For Tips.  The other bloggers wanted me to taste it and guess what was in it, but someone spilled the secret before I could get there: redwood tips, no hops.  I’ve heard of spruce tips, and the traditional gruit combo, but never redwood tips before.  It definitely had an herbal bent that made sense once the secret was out, but it was relatively subtle and not the spice packed punch of exotic herbs that I’ve tasted in gruits.  I liked it better this way, more like regular beer.  This could be the beginning of the wave of low-hop beers that I bet is coming our way. 

I went back for my second tasting of Lil Opal around the end of the festival and ended up talking to several of the guys from Firestone.  They were really friendly and started pouring some of the ‘behind the table’ beers like Abacus that they had been saving up.  When closing time rolled around, I can’t say I was much help packing up, but I guess enough so to earn an invite back to the brewers’ compound. 

After a detour for hot dogs, during which time we saw police break up a fight between drunken locals, we headed back to the AVBC fields to eat, drink, and chat.  However, since I lacked the ‘elite’ orange brewers’ wristband, this involved a small act of subterfuge.  Propped up on either side by Dustin and Brandon, I hung my head and pretended to be on the verge of vomiting.  As we stumbled past I heard the security guards say, “If she pukes on the trail, it’s a party foul!”  Luckily, I was not even drunk, much less in the neighborhood of puking, so after we rounded the corner I could amble along under my own firepower again.  We cooked some hot dogs and drank some DBA, but unfortunately I couldn’t stay past sundown because (A) while my shorts and tank might have been appropriate festivalwear, the temperature was dropping quickly, and (B) I had to be able to find my way back through tent town to my friends. 

Before leaving though, my favorite moment was finding out that Brandon and I had crossed paths once before at City Beer Store.  They day I had gone to pick up my sour ales, Brandon had been there talking to Craig, the owner.  Craig had helped suggest some beers and ring me up, and apparently had repeated to Brandon that I was hosting a sour ale tasting.  I had noticed guys in Firestone shirts that looked more like employees than fans, but had been driving and so I didn’t stick around to have a beer and find out what was going on.  So, upon mentioning yesterday that I had hosted a sour ale night, Brandon asked, “was that you that Craig was talking about?”  I can’t tell you how cool it still is when I meet someone who knows about my blog or my events that’s not someone I know personally on some level.  I love hearing that it’s appreciated by people who know beer and don’t have to have any obligation to me to pretend to like it. 

Unfortunately, every great day must end and this one went downhill pretty fast.  Going from the quiet, calm brewers’ campground back to the drinkers’ campground was somewhat like gradually descending to the ninth circle of hell.  At first, all seemed good.  Benson the Volvo was full of enthusiastic friends having an in-car dance party.  The cornhole boards were up.  And, the neighboring campers had an abundance of glowsticks that I aimed to get in on.  However, it quickly became apparent that one of our friends was not in good shape.  Very not good shape.  And it was only 7:00pm.  And it only got worse over the course of the night and eventually involved: coaxing him to please drink some Vitamin Water, please don’t vom so close to the camp circle, no, no, please don’t vom inside the tent, ok, you already did, good thing only nine of us are sleeping in that tent tonight.  At 3:00am after the 3^rd round of being woken up by heaving in the tent and begging paper towels off strangers to clean up the mess, I was exhausted and at a loss for what to do.  I hadn’t had a drink since 6:00pm and was thus the one of the few capable of addressing this disaster.  This was when the shouter started up.  She must have been a football field away but her every thought was broadcast at full volume and mostly just consisted of endlessly repeating “Where’s my f*ing beer?!?!?!” which she alternated every once in a while with “Where’s my f*ing boytoy?!?!?!”  I don’t know, and I don’t care.  It’s 3:00am, time for you to call it quits.

When we all woke up at 6:30am as the first car had to leave, the rest of us decided to hightail it out of there too, to escape what became known as the vomitorium (my 9-person tent) and to beat the caravan of cars that would inevitably back up down route 128. 

The morning was capped off by breakfast at a diner in Healdsburg where I was greeted by the hostess with a white carnation and a “Happy Mother’s Day!”  Really?!?!?  I’m 24, and here with two hungover 24 year old guys, do I look like their mother??  I’m 5 days younger than one of them and two months older than the other, I hope not.  Also, I’m mildly hungover, got less than 3 hours of sleep, have bags under my eyes the size of pillowcases and smell not-so-mildly of stale beer and other people’s vomit.  Do I look like a suitable mother?  I think the angry look I gave her said all this and she backed away and led us to our table.