2008 Brewers Heritage Festival Thoughts
May 13, 2008 9:16 am Beer MusingsNow that I’ve finally got the last bit of mud off of my caked shoes, I’m finally able to sit down and pen my thoughts about this year’s festival. Long story short, I had a lot of fun. Yes, it was crowded in the tents because people couldn’t mingle in the mud, but you could still easily get a beer after you shoved your way past the people just standing in front of the servers (something I was even guilty of at times.) I’ve read some other thoughts at BeerAdvocate and even in the comments in this forum and everyone has some very good suggestions. Now here’s a couple of my thoughts:
Grass vs As(phalt)
My biggest complaint, which seems to be the majority opinion, was the complete destruction and mess of the festival field. It made getting around terrible, it made everything and everyone messy and it crowded the tents as people had no place else to go. A few people have suggested that for the sake of festivals to come maybe it should be moved to a parking lot. The argument for the asphalt is that no mess, no fuss and people less likely to trip and fall. The argument against the lot is that it would change the feel of the festival and to a certain extent I agree. I personally enjoy the natural aspect of the festival, but I don’t enjoy being crowded and messy. A better option may be to move the festival to Mid-May rather than early May to avoid some of the late spring rain.
Three Tents Are Better Than Two
I thought the addition of the third beer tent was a welcome addition to the festival as it allowed more beers to be showcased in a large environment. I found that the beers were pretty well spread out and provided a bit more elbow room. I will say I was thrown for a bit when I went into the Ale tent and didn’t see some of the Belgian Style beers, but saw Schlafly’s Imperial Stout and Barleywine in the Ale tent. But I guess “Specialty Beer” is in the eye of the beholder.
From what I’ve been told the homebrewers were supposed to be featured in the third tent as well, but unfortunately got relegated to B-Team status due to the weather. Hopefully next year the weather will let up and people will find out just how amazing some of the homebrewers around this area are.
More Cask Beers!
The best beer of the entire festival was the cask Rye Pale Ale. So floral and wonderful, I had two or three glasses of it. I know it’s a complete pain to bring these firkins out to the festival, but I think it would be nice to showcase more Real Ale at the festival next year. It would be a nice addition to the “Specialty Beer” tent.
New Festival Beer
It’s time for a new beer. I don’t have the taste memory to remember last year’s Dark Lager so it personally doesn’t make much sense to me to see the same beer year after year. It’s time to have the breweries try something different and then see just how different the take on the beer is.
More Education
This festival, in my mind, is first and foremost about showing St. Louis’ brewing talent, but one of the first things I heard walking into the festival was “I’m going to get your sister loaded too!” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some beer drinking prude that doesn’t believe beer should get you drunk. I was feeling just fine after the festival, but that wasn’t why I walked into the festival. I’d like to think there are more people interested in learning about beer and the differences in styles. Maybe included in the Friday Afternoon session (which sounded a bit light) should be a “tour guide” who walks people around talking about beer and sampling them.
Overall it’s a great event and I think it’s only going to get better as adjustments are made after years of tweaking. I look forward to seeing how different it is in the years to come.
Tags: breweries, brewers heritage festival, education, suggestions
Sam H :
Date: May 13, 2008 @ 9:38 am
I don’t think the date is going to be moved, then ti would be too close to the Microfest and would almost snuff it out.
I think a compromise could be made regarding the grounds. If a large storm is in the forecast for the festival, then maybe another large tent could be brought in and set up in the middle of the grounds. This would give people a place to go a get our of the beer tents and be able to sit and enjoy their beer and company.
As for cask beers. I love me some cask 5 day, but is there that much around to be able to do this? I’d actually like to see a small “Cask fest”. Right now Schlafly and O’Fallon are the only ones who cask (as far as I know), but the limited number of casks available is what holds them back right now.
Eric Burnley :
Date: May 13, 2008 @ 9:39 am
The notion of setting aside a particular session to be more beer education-focused is really interesting. That’d be a prime time for doing a full homebrew demonstration, giving talks about the brewing process in general as well as specialty topics (dry hopping, barrel aging, etc). Friday sessions have seemed to be a lot more laid back as well, so I agree they’d be a good time for that.
Dave :
Date: May 13, 2008 @ 10:48 am
Square One uses casks too.
BMock :
Date: May 13, 2008 @ 11:13 am
I think the idea of using a separate tent for the “beer hall” would work well. The smaller serving/brewing tents could be adjacent to a larger main tent. I’m not sure if it would keep people from crowding the smaller tents, but at least all the seating would be in the main.
Phil :
Date: May 13, 2008 @ 11:47 am
I would also like to add that there should be brew lines. There needs to be more efficient ways to get up to and away from the serving lines. whether that means putting in those rope lines like you see at six flags or some other way. I got sick of hip-checking frat boys and girls to get to the line. Granted they didn’t seem to mind and it was fun for me to remind them that this wasn’t a frat party but my smaller petite fiancee couldn’t make her way around without someone clearing the way. Allowing people to actually get to the beer and making sure they can get away from the lines should be first priority for the festival next year. Just my $0.02.
dan g :
Date: May 13, 2008 @ 5:53 pm
Rain sucks. I’m sure AB can arange something with the creator for next year.
Seriously, There was a lot of educational oppurtunities out there for those that wanted to dig deeper. It was awesome to have access to the brewers wandering around and the tons of homebrewers (which were labeled). I fielded a ton of great beer questions, not just from the crowd, but from many of the servers (at least in the lager tent on Friday night).
The brewing demos were a little messed up, but that can be easily fixed and even enhanced next year.
The cask of Augie’s rye pale was bangin no doubt.
Schlafly’s Confucious(sp?) was an awesome attraction…almost like a ride. First time, timid event goers stood terrified as they approached the beast. “What is it? I’m not going to try that! It looks too strong! What’s that green stuff?” Then they’d try a sip, faces would cringe, lips would pucker, then they’d have this funny surprised look…”Hmmm…that’s an interesting flavor. It smells neat too! So that’s what hops are…”
Dave J :
Date: May 13, 2008 @ 10:30 pm
I think the cask beer thing would be an Awsome addition next year. I filled it at the last min. and it turned out great. A lot of people that tried it have never had cask beer before and loved it. A few said it was WARM? If we could get a few beer engines and a couple of brewery’s (O’Fallon, Schalfly, Square One and even Buffalo) I think it should be added. A lot of people in STL have never had cask beer. In the old days that is how beer was served so it would fit in with the “Heritage ” theme.
I agree with having a big tent in the middle with the tables. If you move the tables out of the beer tents people won’t be standing in the way of the lines.
Jim Zavist :
Date: May 14, 2008 @ 5:47 am
OK, as a beer lover and a park lover, the “parking lot in front of K-Mart” was a bit of a toungue-in-cheek suggestion. Still, there’s gotta be a better place to do this. This is Missouri - it rains. You have a lot of people showing up, all looking for a place to park. Go back this weekend and in a month and in three months and look at the site - it’s going to be out of commission all summer - that’s simply wrong.
Schlafly does a great job with their parking lot and tent and occasional street closures. A-B has multiple similar opportunities, as likely will the new/old Lemp complex. Or, what about renting out the Boathouse or moving to the pavillion on top of the hill or using the facilities at the tennis center? The park vibe is at its best when the weather’s perfect. The worse the weather gets (wet, hot, cold and/or windy), the worse the vibe becomes. We sure can’t count on the weather here, so we should just find someplace that works better . . .
scotty p :
Date: May 14, 2008 @ 7:45 am
I was unable to attend this year but after reading a lot of the suggestions above, next year could be amazing. I agree that there needs to be more emphasis on education and less “here, try this”. I love the cask idea.
Dave :
Date: May 14, 2008 @ 9:23 am
No need to haul out the beer engines for the cask beer. The CAMRA beerfests I’ve been to in England just serve everything on gravity. I know Schlafly has some gravity taps, and they’re not particularly spendy if a few more need to be acquired.
I personally much prefer gravity dispense, especially since there is no evil sparkler to strip hop aroma.
Matt T :
Date: May 15, 2008 @ 7:50 am
I second the gravity taps. OOH what about next year’s fest beer being a cask ale? THAT would separate the men from the boys tout suite!
Dave J :
Date: May 15, 2008 @ 6:03 pm
I think you hit the nail on the head.
Derek Bean :
Date: May 16, 2008 @ 8:19 am
As far as weather/ rain, you actually can count on certain patterns. You can actually look back at certain weekends over the past several years and see that some weekends are normally nice and some weekends are normally rainy, some cold, etc. Having been involved in the planning of the initial Hop In the City and the original St. Louis Scottish Games, I know that this is always a consideration when organizers pick a date for a new event. And, if you think about it, Hop In the City has usually had nice weather; as did Microfest when it used to be on the same weekend in May that the SLBH Fest is now on (I believe).
As far as the conditions of that field, I agree with the guy from A-B (presumably, who on the BA Forum contended that that field was in terrible condition before the tents went up. Again, relating back to playing soccer for years in Forest Park, I think some may be over-estimating the condition of fields in Forest Park.
Regarding cask ale being the Festival Beer next year, most of the participating breweries don’t currently produce any cask ale, and also may not wish to. I love cask ale. But, the problem with making it the Fest Beer is that each brewery has to send 8 kegs of each style they submit to the festival. This means each brewery would need to have 8 extra firkins, plus all the other parts needed just to send to the festival. This would be an incredible strain on resources for even our brewery who currently does produce cask ale, as we normally only have 3 or 4 firkins on hand at any one time.