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I planned ahead for the 2012 Parkville Microbrew Festival
and purchased online tickets. This
seemed to be what everyone else had in mind so FatCat didn’t get too far ahead
on that strategy. The line to enter the
event was tremendously large. By dumb
luck we got out of line to check out the little tent to the left of the main
tent and scored. We only waited behind
about 10 people and we were in. My
friend who came later advised that strategy was no longer viable and he had to
wait quite a while to get inside the festival.
Not wanting to miss out, I used the mobile website to make a list of all
the brews I wanted to try beforehand.
Once we got in, I tried to hit as many of the chosen tents as I could
before the crowd fully engulfed us. In
fairly short ordered I was in full beer festival mode!
The beer I was most excited to taste was the No. 50 Liberty
Stout from Gella’s Diner and Liquid Bread Brewing Company out of Hays, KS. This stout won Great American Beer Festival
Gold in 2009 and 2010. I had been salivating
over this brew all week and I think the anticipation got the best of me. I made my way to the tent and acquired my
pour of this gold medal brew. It was a
solid brew but was not a knock out. It
was more of a dry stout with good roasted malt character. In an attempt to coax out some additional
malt character I let the brew warm up. It improved but still not what I was
dreaming of. There was nothing wrong
with the brew, I think I was expecting way too much for it to live up to.
My second most anticipated brew of the festival was the Blind
Tiger Top Gun IPA. This brew did live up
to expectations. This was a brilliantly
complex hop concoction of greatness. The
smooth citrus character up front clears the way for some delicate floral notes. Then the citrus comes back dancing with the
flowers providing an amazing finish. Awesome!
The other beer I was “looking forward” to was the brisket
beer. I didn’t really expect anything
outstanding about it, I was just interested.
The first taste of this brew was almost enjoyable. The brew was decent through the middle of the
palate and finished with a very briskety smokey flavor. It went down hill from there as subsequent
tastes allowed you to catch up with the almost slimy consistency of the
brew. It was definitely interesting but
I think I’ll keep my BBQ and my beer in separate containers.
My favorites of the festival were the Top Gun IPA (of
course), Nebraska Brewing Barrel Aged Hop God, Broadway Brewery Oak Aged
Imperial Stout, Buffalo Rye IPA, and Lucky Bucket Certified Evil.
This year at the festival I didn’t think the lines were too
bad. We went through Broadway’s line to
get the Imperial Stout at 3pm and were about 5 minutes early. We went to the back of the line and made it
up to the front again in less than 10 minutes.
The layout was poorly planned and was not at all conducive for travel
inside the “ring” of tents. Hopefully at
future events they will spread the tents out better and not make a circle of
madness. My other gripe was the tasting
notes booklet. They were very nice
quality but whoever puts them together should really learn to use the SORT
function. Is it too much to ask to put
the damn breweries in alphabetical order?
Overall I liked this year better than last. I personally didn’t think the lines were as
bad as last year but I arrived earlier this year. I was in “festival mode” earlier as well so
maybe that’s why it didn’t bother me as bad this year. The variety of special releases was a big
plus over last year. If the organizers
can figure out a better layout and expedite the entry process, this festival could
be absolutely positively awesome.
Cheers!
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