BonnaBREW '09

My wife and I attended our second annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in nearby Manchester, TN, this past weekend. It's a world-class 4-day festival with upwards of 100,000 people in attendance. We stayed in our pop-up camper during the festival, and one of the rules is that no glass containers can be brought in to the area. So that limits your selection of decent beer to take. I opted to go with a couple different "draught-style" pint can options for the cooler. The first was Tetley's English Ale (I thought they only made tea!!). The second was Belhaven Scottish Ale which I had recently in a sample size at an Irish Festival. Belhaven is not quite as smooth as the Tetley, but not too bad. Definitely smooth enough to start your day with at Bonnaroo (photo below - note the time on the cell phone..yep, that A.M.).

One of the centerpieces of the Bonnaroo festival grounds is the "Broo'ers Tent", a circus-size tent chock full of microbrewers from all over the country hocking their wares at individual tasting booths (photo below). There weren't too many that I hadn't tried already, but I did find a few new ones to add to the collection. The first was a brown ale sample from Pisgah Brewing which produces certified organic beer in Black Mountain, NC. Very smooth with a nice body and finish. My wife liked it enough to buy a full glass. I chose to move on before making any full-pour decisions. Next I ordered a sample of Rogue Brewing's Shakespeare Stout which was uber-smokey in taste. Rogue's out of Oregon and is famous for its top-notch Dead Guy Ale. This stout was a little too robust for my taste, but it did leave quite an impression on your taste buds and showed me once agian that the folks at Rogue take their brewing very seriously. The only one left I hadn't tried was the American Pale Ale from Good People Brewing in Birmingham, Alabama. Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner!! This is the hoppiest, tastiest APA I have ever had. I quickly ordered up a full pint after my sample and enjoyed its smooth freshness as I waded back out into the June heat and humidity for some more great live music.