The Barrel Aged Beer Festival
The Barrel Aged Beer festival was a great time! It was held at the Wrigleyville Goose Island pub, on Chicago’s northside. We (being Paul and Adam from Old Capitol and I) got there early, and had a couple of pints of Goose Island’s Kolsch to warm things up. Their Kolsch is a great beer, reminiscent of our wheat beer, but drier and with a stylistic sulfur note. Great stuff.
The festival started at noon, and there was a long line to get in. When we finally got inside, we were bewildered by the more than 60+ barrel aged beers to try. There were so many good beers, and they were all very strong, so it was pretty much impossible to try them all! I found myself standing in the crowd and reading the program menu.. most of the beers had names that were a full sentence long! Some of my favorites were Old No. 23 aged in a Port barrel from Bristol Brewing, and Angry Mike’s Stoudt Kriek from Flossmoor Station. These were both very different than the ‘average’ Imperial Stout or Barleywine in a Jack Daniels Barrel.
Even more different was a section of “wild” beers. These are beers that are fermented or aged with Brettyomyces and other wild yeasts, resulting in a funky acidic profile ( like a Lambic). I especially enjoyed these sort of beers.. the real stand outs were the Le Woody by Pizza Port Brewing, and New Belgium’s Le Terroir. I’d love to do a serious belgian lambic.. but would anyone in Iowa drink it? …maybe we’ll have to find out someday!
We finished off the night with dinner at Lashet’s Inn. I cannot recommend this place enough, the German food was excellent! The lady who owns the place was even hovering about, making sure that nothing was left undone at our table…. Some really great service!
All and all a great time I look forward to attending next year, hopefully with some barrels of our own! But for right now if you want some barrel aged beer, be sure to try the Bourbon Brown down at Old Capitol in Iowa City.