Draft Magazine Craft Brewing Festival 2009 [6/20/2009]

My first ever brewfest was totally awesome. The only disappointment was that I didn't get to try as many different beers as I would have liked. Apparently 4 hours isn't enough sampling time for someone who is a very slow drinker and lightweight like me. They practically had to kick us out and I wished I had kept better track of the time.

Everything tasted pretty good, although once inebriated I think it's harder to be a good judge. I took a few sporadic notes, not really rating anything thoroughly.

Stone - Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout - very syrupy, better than their smoked porter or imperial
Dupont - Farmhouse Ale - interesting
Sun Up - Hefeweizen - grapefruity
Sun Up - Red Ale - citrus tones
Dogfish - Sah'tea - curious
Dogfish - Palo Santo Marron - nice and dark
San Tan - Strawberry Wit - not at all subtle strawberry flavor
Papago - Coconut Joe - coffee overpowered any coconut in there

One of the highlights was a quick chat with the brewer for Sun Up Brewing/Sonora Brewhouse one of my favorite local eats. We were able to complement him on the recent excellent small batch Triple Blonde, and his consistently good Midnight Porter.

Thanks so much to Draft Magazine for creating the best PBS benefit I've heard of, and thanks to PBS for providing well researched science and political coverage like Nova, the News Hour, and Frontline.