I wrote a more complete description of the festival on HopPress today, so you can check that out to get a good idea of my thoughts on the event if you’d like.

The Thomas Creek Crew

One thing I didn’t talk about on HopPress that I wish I had mentioned, and perhaps this is a good topic for debate, is that Brewvival actually paid breweries for their beer. Most beer festivals require the breweries donate their beer. That’s a primary reason why Brewvival was able to get these breweries to bring out their best.

It’s also one reason why the tickets were $50 and did not include food. It’s a steep ticket for these parts, but in my opinion it’s worthwhile. Even the other really good festivals in the region like Brewgrass and Hickory Hops, which have great local and regional representation, don’t pull in this caliber of beer from around the country.

I’m glad to see the festival was well-attended and supported. If $50 is steep for you, you’ve been given sufficient notice. Save up for next year. It’s worth it.

As an added bonus, I was able to video Grady Hull, Assistant Brewmaster at New Belgium, talking about how they make Love and La Folie. Unless you are also a homebrewer and/or beer geek, this will probably bore you to death. I found it fascinating.

It also happened to be National Bacon Day, so we had legendary BLTs for lunch. It was a fun day.

It’s funny to looking back at my brewing process from just five months ago. It’s amazing how much more I’ve learned since then and how a few new toys have made brewing much easier. Namely, getting a 10-gallon water cooler which I use for a real mash tun. It makes a huge difference.

I do think this is a pretty good overview and illustration of the all-grain brewing process, but it was never intended to be an instructional video. It was just to show how I did things, the Untamed Way. In fact, there were several points in the video where I just shook my head and muttered, “Oh, September Brian, what are you doing?”

So if you disagree with my methods or what I’m saying, or if what I’ve said is completely wrong, I’m not surprised. I never claimed to be perfect, especially not back in September!

PS, if you don’t want to sit through all 3 parts, fast forward to about the 8:30 mark of part 3. We get a little silly.

– David Crosby

Jimmy C (aka Jim Ciallella) from OrangeCoat shows us his 400+ beer bottle cap collection. It’s about 20 minutes long, so you may be asking yourself, “How can they talk about bottle caps for 20 minutes?” I don’t know, but we did, and I find it to be a fascinating look at beer history and the evolution of different beer brands, such as Miller and Budweiser.

As a special bonus, Jimmy also shows us his trick for popping bottle caps without bending them. (That’s around the 3:00 mark.)

Watch the video (about 9 minutes)

I am currently reading Tasting Beer, and I have found it to be a very informative and entertaining read. I’ve already learned a lot of new vocabulary to describe beer, as well as useful information on how to present beer, including serving temperature and glassware. I’m about to start the section on pairing food and beer and I am particularly excited about that topic. That’s one area I definitely want to learn more about.

For the Untamed Beer Cinco de Mayo celebration, I donned my sombrero and popped open three selections of Mexican beer. The first is Bahia (which is actually from Guatemala. I guess I should have looked a little more closely at the label.), followed by Bohemia Clasica and Dos Equis Amber.

In the video, I was entirely too kind to Bahia. It wasn’t until the beer slightly warmed that I realized how horrible this beer was. I had to put ice cubes in it to get it cold enough to stomach. It may be the worst beer I’ve ever had.

On the other hand, Bohemia Clasica may be one of the best Mexican lagers I’ve had. I enjoyed drinking it. Slight hop character, and it almost seemed a little peachy to me. Quite nice.

Dos Equis fell somewhere in between. It wasn’t nearly as bad as Bahia, but was still a bit metallic and skunky compared to the Bohemia.

Have a great Cinco de Mayo!

In part two of our Asheville Brewery Tour, we had the opportunity to meet Dave Quinn from Pisgah Brewing Company after our interview with Julie from Bruisin’ Ales. We sample Pisgah’s new amber spring seasonal, which was created in support of the LEAF Festival.

I have got to make it to the Pisgah tap room soon in Black Mountain. 18 different beers on tap! I hope they have cots out back.

We also talk about the big beer event coming up in Asheville, Dogfish Head Mountain Weekend, when Sam Calagione will be in town for several events from May 15-17. There are several events going on that weekend, so you definitely need to check it out.

Julie busted out some rare and delicious samples from her store for us to taste while we chatted: Baird Shizuoka Natsumikan Ale, Pisgah Vortex I Triple IPA, and De Stuise Black Albert. Amazing stuff.

The video is about 34 minutes, so grab a beer and sit back. We had a lot of fun, and I hope you do too.

Stay tuned later this week. After our interview and sampling at the store, Julie was kind enough to take us on a little brewery tour of Asheville. We were able to talk to Dave Quinn from Pisgah Brewing, then we stopped in at Green Man, French Broad and The Wedge. I’m going to put us separate posts for each stop.

What an awesome day. Thanks again, Julie!