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February 17th to 24th
is the Toronado Barley Wine Festival! Work up those tolerances and
get ready for some great Barley Wines. Judging is done Saturday, so
get there early and sample the winners!
Last year's winners: 1.Anderson Valley 2.Russian River 3.Potrero Brewing Company This year's fest was inundated with awesome barley wines. There were so many that the staff had to pour a few out of the cooler since there was no more room on the taps. The winners this year were: 1. Rogue 2. Triple Rock 3. Russian River The tastings are blind tastings, so the judges have no idea who they are judging. The problem is that they are judging barley wine, which is extremely difficult to differentiate after 3 or 4. But three very good barley wines did take the top three spots. The festival was bigger than ever, more popular among everyone, and an enormous success. Many of the barley wines were gone by 5:00 or so. I got there at about 11:00, and missed out on about 5 of the beers. Luckily I was able to double up on a few, and visit Mad Dog in the Fog for a few pints of IPA to ground my taste buds in between tastings. The fest wasn't supposed to start until 11:30, but they opened early to accommodate all the people. When we got there at 11, there were no tables or bar seats available. There were sure a lot of die-hards there. The beers were all over the board this year - from the Avery Hog Heaven, which was the most bitter and hoppy beer there, to The Alameda Brewhouse Old Unkies Monckle, which was very heavy and almost syrupy, to Drakes Jolly Roger, which was kind of light and very well balanced. I wrote some comments on all the beers I had, but since I tasted almost 40, I don't think the comments can possible be accurate. We were also tasting in blocks of 4 at a time, so the comments seem to compare the 4 to each other, rather than against the whole field, or independently. So I won't put the comments up here. But here is a list of the breweries and beers:
Saturday is definitely the day to go to the fest. Many of the beers empty on Saturday, so you have to get there early. Unfortunately it is extremely crowded, and those that have been to Toronado before know it is not a very big place. But the staff was awesome! They poured thousands of samples to thirsty fest-goers, and they did a great job of keeping the glasses full. So a big thanks goes out to the Toronado staff! ***Here are the pictures!
Seeing all the pictures allowed all of us to retrace our steps. It was a lot of fun seeing all these things that we pretty much all forgot. Unfortunately the film ran out by 9pm. I didn't get home until midnight, so there are 3 missing hours (from film and from my memory).
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