Brewhaha
Saturday was a great day for the Annual WQPT Brewhaha in LeClaire park in Davenport. It was sunny and warm with a gentle breeze coming across the Mississippi River. Last year had a big turnout of over 2000 people, and this year was no different. What was different was that we brought more beer! Our beers were very popular, and we were busy serving Oktoberfest, Rootbeer, Wheat, John’s Generations White Ale, Warsh Pail Ale, and Schild Brau Amber. That was about the order of their popularity. By the end of the fest all we had left was Oktoberfest, and that was because we brought more of that than anything else!
It was good to see our friends in Mugz the local homebrew club. They brought 95 gallons of homebrew to serve! They reminded me that they would like us to help judge their land of the muddy waters competition, which is two weeks after the Thirsty Classic Competition that we hold here at the brewery (on Nov 4th). So mark your calendars and get your homebrew ready!
We also got visit with our just-over-the-border breweries Blue Cat brewing and Bent River Brewing. Dan and Bernie from Blue Cat had a very nice Trippel on tap, and they reminded me that they are still having beer dinners at their pub every month. Bent River had their famous Uncommon Stout, which has an amazing coffee flavor…. I don’t think Rich will reveal his secret to getting so much coffee in a beer like that, its awesome!
We were right next to the Budweiser crew. They seemed more focused on bottles than last year, and didn’t have their fancy tap system out. They were really pushing their new Chinese imports, plus their new ‘organic’ lineup. Pretty interesting, a sign of the times I suppose.
This weekend we will be serving beer at Brewnost in Cedar Rapids, The Independence Brew BBQ in Independence IA, and at the Des Moines Oktoberfest (inside the 101 lounge).
Oktoberfest is less than two weeks away!