Year 9 of my family’s beer festival is in the books and it was another great year of tasting some excellent brews. The cool thing about our beer festival is that there are many different palates and finding one beer that satisfies all of them can be really tough. Most of the guys prefer IPAs/Saisons/Sours and many of the ladies prefer stouts, porters, and fruit beers.
THE SCORING
Every year it’s a blind tasting. We usually try to break it up throughout the day. Along with it being blind, here’s how we score it:
Appearance /5
Aroma /5
Taste /15
Drinkability /5
So the total is out of 30 with the highest obviously being crowned the champion. Now, I’ve never won, my wife has won 3 times, my brother twice, and even my brother-in-law has a gold medal. What beer could I bring to this beer fest that everyone would enjoy? Nothing says Merry Christmas like a 12% imperial IPA, so at the very least, if I didn’t win I can drown my sorrows and get drunk. Onto the results:
8th Place – Exile Chill Clinton Double Hemp Amber – I liked the taste of this beer, I think for most, the aroma was what got this a low score which led to people automatically not enjoying it. My brother-in-laws entry.
7th Place – Toppling Goliath Rover Truck Stout – This is an ok stout. I didn’t score it terribly low but out of the two stouts we had this one was missing something. My sister-in-law’s entry.
6th Place – Peace Tree Blonde Fatale – I
really enjoy this beer and scored it well. I don’t think anyone really disliked it, but I don’t think anyone was in love with it either. My mom’s entry.
5th Place – Stone Saison – a good saison, I enjoyed it, but missing a few things for a top 3 finish. My brother’s entry.
4th Place – Backpocket Wake Up Iowa Stout – a 
very good showing for Backpocket with this beer. Between the 2 stouts I thought this one had more roasty malts and good coffee flavor compared to the TG stout. My dad’s entry.
3rd Place – Alpine Nelson – loved this brew! This was my 2nd place winner and it just missed out on 2nd place. Lovely addition to our ever-expanding beer options in Iowa. My wife’s entry.
2nd Place – Ballast Point Sculpin – a fresh bottle of 
Sculpin is tough to beat and this beer was fresh! Apparently right off the truck and into our glasses and an excellent 1st showing for Ballast Point, this was my brother’s entry and he almost won, except………….THE BARON BROUGHT HIS GAME!
1st Place – Big Grove Brewery Trident XII – not only am I thrilled I actually won for once and I didn’t have to sit in the shadow of others for the 9th straight year but I won with an Iowa brewery and a place I pretty much visit every other day. Trident is on point. An excellent brew, and dangerously drinkable. My favorite moment is when tasting this, knowing it was mine, my brother looks down the table and mouths the words: “holy shit” Big Grove has won many awards since they’ve opened, but this has to be one of the better awards they’ve won 🙂 A lovely beer. I have pictures of my celebration but this is a PG site. A win for the Baron!
The wheels are already turning for next year’s beer fest. We’ve decided it will be an all Iowa brewery beer festival which will be great, so the question is, what should I bring next year?
Some new beers should be gracing our shelves in the near future, some we’ve seen before and some with a slight twist. Let’s get on with the update:
*Boulevard Chocolate Ale w/Raspberries
*Stone Americano Stout
The following was passed along to me by @bdattilo on Twitter and makes it sound like Iowa will be seeing Odell on the shelf soon:
The following informations comes courtesy of Tallgrass Brewing’s newsletter. Some changes to their core lineup and the addition of 3 new beers and the subtraction of 3 as well. There will be no more Ethos IPA, Velvet Rooster, 16-Bit, as well as 2 seasonals Halcyon Wheat and Ginger-Peach Saison. Here’s more from Tallgrass:
A visit to a familiar area of Iowa City was in store for my wife and I as we were on our way to visit 
Walking into the restaurant you are greeted with an inviting pub feel. Dark wood tables and a bar area that highlights the booze and taps. Very cozy, a place that I could spend hours in and feel right at home. I of course noticed the 40 tap handles on the back wall and was excited to dig into a few beers.
pub fare, but Hudson’s gives you more than that. An upscale pub fare if you will. When checking out new places I like to order multiple items, or I’m a fat ass who overeats, could be either of those…but anyway, I started with some basic chicken wings.
I’m a big fan of great chicken wings…not breaded (except for the Wig and Pen, love those), fried until crisp, with the perfect amount of sauce, and I must say, Hudson’s has some of the best wings I’ve had in some time. Their homemade blue cheese dressing and ranch where icing on the cake. Would go back to try their other sauces, but I would have no problem ordering the basic Frank’s sauce wings again.
There are also some slider options on the menu and I went with the pulled pork slider. Perfect amount of sauce, excellent pork with a touch of smokiness, very good slider. My wife had a short rib philly cheese steak with jalapeno cream 
cheese. It was excellent, albeit a bit messy, but something we would order again. My main dish was the shrimp po’ boy. I’m a po’ boy junky, would eat them everyday and this one added it’s own touches to a traditional sandwich. A creole spiced may addition added to this sandwich. The shrimp were huge and cooked perfect and the bread was crunchy on the outside but nice and chewy in the middle.
All of these items, (I finished everything) were washed down with a 
The following review comes from Meat, excellent review that leaves your mouth watering. I NEED SOME FRIED CHICKEN!! Here it is, thanks again Meat!
For the first course we ordered a crab cake. I have not had great experience with crab cakes recently (I wanted duck tacos but she insisted). As per usual, she made the right call. The crab cake was tender and full of jumbo lump crab meat with very little binder. It sat on a carrot romesco sauce and topped with a cranberry fermented fennel. The combination of the sweet crab meat, earthy and spicy romesco, and tangy/pungest fennel made this a home run. I only got two bites!
