A Long Hiatus...

I have been on a self-imposed hiatus from drinking any beer thanks to a low-carb diet that my wife and I have been on for a month or so. It has been worth the sacrifice since I have shed over ten pounds that I needed to lose. I have more pounds to lose, but enough is enough!! I had to have some beer and attending the Beer, Bourbon & BBQ Festival in downtown Nashville this weekend was just the thing. This is a traveling festival that visits a lot of large cities and this was its second annual stop here. My friend and mutual real beer lover, Nate, attended last year and said it was pretty good, so I agreed to go with him and his new girlfriend, Ginny, this year as well as my wife, Ashlee.

As Nate had said, it is a pretty good little festival with 60 beers to taste (not all microbrews, but you take what you can get), 40 different bourbons and several choices of local BBQ. They had tasting stations set up in the bottom floor of Nashville Municipal Auditorium and the $25 entry price got you a tasting glass, a T-shirt and all the hooch you could down in a 6-hour span (the BBQ was extra). Most of the beer samples were poured from bottles although a few brewers had kegs on site for draught pours. There was also a tasting class offered by New Belgium Brewing out of Colorado that included three of their newer concoctions. These three, plus any new ones I tried at the tasting stations, are listed below in no certain order along with a quick judgement:

- Leinenkugel's Amber Lager- decent but not worth a second taste

-Brooklyn Winter Ale - pretty good with a nice finish
-McSorley's Irish Black Lager - OK, but not great especially compared to some of the great Irish brews I had recently on The Emerald Isle.

-New Belgium Bierre de Mars - nice color and finish to this fragrant ale

-New Belgium La Folie - a wood-aged sour brown ale (it was definitely brown and it was most definitely sour)

-New Belgium Blue Paddle - their first attempt at a lager. Not bad, but not as smooth as the Bierre de Mars

- Schafly # 15 Oatmeal Stout - actually a bit watery and fairly disappointing

- Mike's Apple Spice - OK, not technically a beer but this stuff was great - they warmed it and it was a great fall treat - and yes I like Mike's Hard Lemonade as well

- Kona Pipelane Pale Ale - decent brew with a nice color

- Stone Mill Organic Ale - Yuck! The big boys strike again with a faux-microbrew that's just a soapy-tasting mess. Stick with what you know, Michelob.

The rest of the festival was spent visiting with old, familiar friends like Sweetwater 420, Rogue Dead Guy Ale, Dogfish Head 60-Minute IPA and Magic Hat #9.