arizona strong ale festival
 

today is the kickoff to az beer week, and to celebrate is the 12th annual strong ale festival...

headed out from 1-5pm...will report back what i got to try...

here is a list of breweries that will be represented...

Abita
Alaskan
Anchor
Anderson Valley
Ballast Point
Barrio
Beer Valley
Bells
Big Dog’s
Big Sky
BJ’s
Blue Moon
Borderlands
Boston Beer
Brasserie Caracole
Breckenridge
Bridgeport
College Street
Crispin Cider
Dave’s Electric
Deschutes
Eel River
Epic
Firestone Walker
Four Peaks
Global Beer Network
Gordon Biersch
Grand Canyon
Great Divide
Green Flash
Left Hand
Lost Coast
Lumberyard
Mother Road
Moylan’s
Mudshark
New Belgium
Noble Ale
North Coast
Oak Creek
O’Dell
Old World
Oskar Blues
Papago
Phoenix Ale
Pizza Port
Prescott
Pyramid
Red Hook
Redstone Mead
Rock Bottom
Rogue
SanTan
Shipyard
Shmaltz
Sierra Nevada
SKA
Sleepy Dog
Sonoran
St. Feuillien
Stone
SunUp
Tenth & Blake
The Bruery
The Great Beer Co.
Thunder Canyon
Wasatch
Weinenstephen
Widmer

I remember thinking 16 tasting tickets wasn't going to be near enough as I walked through the gate into the festival...

I was right...

beer tents stretched as far as the eye can see...it was heaven...
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._2859026_n.jpg

general admission gates opened at 1pm, we made it in by 1:05...
this was the line to get in...
http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...85573448_n.jpg

as my buddy went to use the restroom, me and another friend went to check out lumberyard brewery from flagstaff, az for a taster...

he got their barleywine and i tried their scotch ale...
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...01911929_n.jpg

two tents down from them was another flagstaff brewery, Mother Road, which just happens to be my friend's friend from college who opened it this past year...

they had four of their standard beers and The Baconator - nice and smokey...
this is what their custom tap handles look like...
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...02538571_n.jpg
Also, their Black IPA is incredible...I could've stopped their and used the rest of my tickets...but I am glad I continued on...

right over to the Four Peaks tent!

they had many different cask-aged offereings to pour, my friends got the Sirius Black (bourbon barrel aged russian imperial stout) and I got the Hopsquatch 2007 (american barleywine)

the other highlights of my day (that i can recall)

New Belgium - Cocoa Mole (finalist for my best beer of the day)
Sonoran Brewing (Scottsdale, AZ) - Inebriator Stout cask conditioned on fresh rasberries
Odell - They had a sour beer, I cannot remember the name...probably my favorite of the day
Mudshark Brewing (Lake Havasu City, AZ) - a saison that I can't remember what it was called
Thunder Canyon Brewing (Tucson, AZ) - Quad The Impaler... a belgian quad that was INSANE but this is probably the only time i'll ever get to taste it...to think i used to live 2 miles from this brewery and never knew about it!
Borderlands (Tucson, AZ) - Noche Dulce Midnight Vanilla Porter - so creamy, so good...sweet nose but not too sweet of a finish...
http://www.beervalleybrewing.com/ima...ness_large.jpg
Beer Valley Brewing Company's Leader Madness - Imperial IPA
Oak Creek Brewing (Sedona, AZ)- Knickerknocker barleywine...i bought a shirt from them!
Redstone Meadery - A Blueberry Mead....looked like water, hit you like a small car in the face! very good, very drinkable, very dangerous!


there were more...i'm sure of it...but i'm sure you're bored of reading about my drinking so i'll finish it up...

in closing, i can't wait til next year and will definitely be attending again!

cheers!
dan

Agreed, and thats why I'm not attending this year. Only 15 tickets with a boatload of breweries? More torturous than anything

No one was under-served. Lots of people had extra tickets.