Fans of Firkins Flock to Fest
Local breweries help pour record number of cask ales at RAF
A new location and new brewers helped make this year's Real Ale Festival one of the best we've attended. After years of cramped conditions, the generous amount of floor space in the Jarrow Building at Finkl Foundry made this year's RAF much more enjoyable than some previous outings. We looked forward to attending the fest at its new location, but the increased square footage wasn't the only thing new at the party -- the newcomers to the party included several locals I've mentioned here -- Glen Ellyn Sports Brew (formerly Glen Ellyn Brewing Co., Founders Hill Brewery, Firehouse Restaurant and Brewery and Two Brothers Brewing Co. By the end of the fest, one of these brewers would walk away with a gold medal.One of our favorite breweries, Firehouse Restaurant and Brewery in Morris, Ill., took the gold for its Spotted Dog Ale. This well-balanced yet hoppy pale ale must have struck a chord with the brewer/judges that descended upon Finkl Foundry from all over the world. How touching that a little brewery from an unassuming Illinois River town could be granted such an honor amid hip brewpubs from the West Coast and the well-established breweries up the interstate in the Windy City.
Other local breweries such as Goose
Island, Flossmoor Station, Piece,
and Rock Bottom poured beers of distinction.
Goose Island encouraged a little playfulness with their Naughty Goose dark
ale and took home a gold medal for its category. Piece proved that Goose
Island isn't the only brewer to have an outstanding beer named after a
fastener. Their Wingnut, an extra hoppy barleywine, 
had
spicy hops forged with a solid malt backbone and an equally solid bitter
finish. Flossmoor Station brought some bewildering beers from his south
side brewpub including a Framboise de Flossmoor and Train Wreck of Flavor.
The Framboise stepped away from being overwhelming fruity and not-so-wild,
but a beefed up body and oak-aging kept it interesting. The Train Wreck
of Flavor stole the spotlight from the Flossmoor's other beers and earned
a gold medal for specialty beer. As a blend of brown ale and and barleywine
the complex ale drew a crowd. Toasted oats and molasses, not to mention
oak-aging in a Jack Daniels barrel, made this the most interesting beer
of the fest. Rock Bottom of Warrenville impressed the judges enough to
earn a silver medal for its Frostbite Trippel Ale. Other brews included
two bourbon-aged ales Sub-Zero barleywine and Terminal Stout.
At this point you may be noticing a commonality among many of the beers we found to be tasty at the fest. It seems that many brewers adopted the centuries old tradition of aging their ales in wooden barrels. I've noticed this trend in the last couple years, but the zenith of this phenomena occurred at this year's festival. At a least dozen brewers advertised some sort of aging on either oak chips or in an oak barrel that may have contained some sort of bourbon. The best of these bourbon beers are those that are done by those brewers who make more of an effort to drain the barrel of bourbon before racking the beer. Among the better examples of this technique was the Train Wreck of Flavor as the liquor remained in the background of the brew. I blame the trend towards bourbon barrel aging on the British. Why the Brits? Last year they brought a wooden firking of J.W. Lee's primed with single malt. The flavor of the whiskey was very evident and the first firkin was dry in about an hour.
One of the other great new parts
of this year's festival was the Boscos
bar. At this table participants could submit their name to be selected
for tapping a real ale cask. This can be a very wet experience, but that's
what makes it good entertainment, too. The Boscos people really had the
crowd going (wearing hop sacks) and with each tapping there would be cheers
from the crowd, "WE WANT BEER!" And, jeers, for when too much beer hit
the floor or someone's shirt.
This was the fourth RAF we've attended.
Reflecting on this year's fest and comparing with the previous ones gets
me thinking about extra hoppy pale ales. Some of these beers get the moniker
"Imperial" and others "Double IPA." These are the ales that got our blood
going at previous fests. I think my attraction to these beers is starting
to fade. A backlash against hoppy beer? Never! I just went to this fest
with a bit of different mindset. I tried to seek out the other flavors.
The stouts, the brown ales (Train Wreck could qualify), the spiced beers,
the Belgian styles. A change in the format of the program for the fest
-- the listing of breweries and then their beers -- instead of the beer
styles and the beers and breweries, kept me from browsing the bars by beer
style and forced to try my ales based on what brewery made them. I couldn't seem to scare up many
stouts compared to previous years, but I did manage to find some interesting
Belgian styles and spiced beers. I counted Nicie Spicie, from Short's Brewing
Co. from the tiny Northern Michigan town of Bellaire, among these unique
ales. The Nicie Spice included "citrus", coriander and black pepper as
its spices. By far the most dominant flavor among these fancy adjuncts
was the black pepper, which hit you right at the finish, and left you with
a spicy hot sensation combined with dryness of hops. Different? Certainly.
Weird. Kinda...but I liked it, at least in small doses. I could drink this
beer with boiled crawfish and probably use it as the stock, too.
Bars and Pubs | Brewpubs | Breweries | Belgian Beer Send comments and suggestions
to: marc@marcobrau.com
Here's a list of the beers we tasted...
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