1st Annual Belgian Beer Experience 2005
Saturday May 21st was the day of the big event. I arrived at 11am at the Old Capitol Pub and Brewery in Iowa City, and started to setup my tap box. On my four tapper box we put my new Mystery Saison, our John’s Generations Belgian White Ale, Duchesse de Bourgogne, and Brasserie Des Rocs Imperial Triple.
The Mystery Saison, so named because it kept changing on me day to day during the conditioning phase, was very well received. I actually had not tasted it properly cool and chilled before the event, and I must say I was pretty impressed myself. It had a real spicey, estery kick to it, that developed some serious fruity flavors as it warmed up. It will soon be on tap at the Red Monk in Des Moines, and here at the brewery (as soon as we run out of Maifest). The Johns Generations White Ale was well recieved as usual, The latter two beers on my tap box were actually from belgium, not anything new here from Millstream. The Duchess was a wood aged double, that a nice sourness to it, and was very popular! Lastly the Imperial Triple was strong stuff, more like a belgian barley wine than anything else I have had before. I tried to warn everyone that it was strong stuff, but that just seemed to make them want to try it even more!
And of course that was just what I was serving. There were many more belgian beers on the brewpub tappers, and even more being served out of bottles by a special table in the restaurant. Paul, the brewer from old capitol, made his a belgian dubble, a cherry infused version called Et Trois, and a firkin aged belgian golden ale. He is a pretty resouceful guy!
All in all, i’d say we had a pretty good turnout for a first time event. I’d say there were over 200 people over the course of the day, and they were mostly of the serious beer geek type, which is the people we need to get in the door in the first place. Hopefully they will tell all their friends and next year we can have an even bigger event. Maybe someday it will even be like the Great Taste, which I heard sold out in three hours this year.
Now some pictures:
First here I am, all setup and ready to start serving!
Here is Kevin Roberts, who helped me brew and design the Saison, standing next to Paul Kruztfeldt, the brewer and host at Old Capitol.
Doug Alberhasky, the mastermind of the event, hidden behind a mountain of authentic glassware from belgium.
DJ, one of John’s Grocery’s many dedicated employees, carefully pouring a rare belgian beer.
