Great Taste of the Midwest - Madison, WI

Who's going to this tomorrow? It's pretty much my favorite day of the year.

I am!

I'm handing in my Great Taste v-card tomorrow and I couldn't be more excited.

Have fun you bastages! One of these years I'm going to make it to this thing. Though with my wedding coming up in 3 weeks...it wasn't in the card this time.

I'm in...................

Well, that was a fun time as usual. Any favorites this year? I tried one beer from each brewery in only two tents. 5 hours isn't enough time.

Two whole days would not even be enough time.

I was surprised at the large number of wood aged beers. Although this was my first year, so I don't know how common they were in the past.

I think my favorite was Founder's Backwoods Bastard, which is a barrel-aged version of their Dirty Bastard.

I had a few Scotch ales in the Real Beer tent that tasted like band aids. I was not expecting that, yuck.

I definitely got to a point where all beers of a style tasted exactly the same: either hoppy and bitter (pale ales) or sweet and creamy (imperial stouts). Stupid palate fatigue.

So more than praising some beers, I have to express disappointment in having tried Dark Lord. I also tried it with vanilla and from bourbon barrels. With all the hype it receives, I thought it would be more... special. Instead, it reminded me of a hoppier version of, say, Central Waters' imperial stout. Good beer to be sure, but it didn't match my expectations for it.

I really liked Smokey the Beer and Rendezvous (from Lakefront).

One beer I thought was interesting was South Shore's Bourbon Barrel Coffee Mint Stout. JT Whitney's had a Sour Brown Ale that was good too. Otherwise I drank a lot of Belgians and porters from what I remember.
I had a couple beers that were terrible too. One was a place call 3rd Base I think. It was a bourbon stout or porter with way too much bourbon.