World Beer Festival-Columbia, SC-Jan. 22

Event: All About Beer Magazine sponsors several Word Beer Festivals each year and this was the Columbia stop. 250+ World Class beers plus educational seminars from the nation’s leading beer experts. And of course the best in local cuisine, music & entertainment.

Where: Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center, 1101 Lincoln Street, Columbia, SC 29201.

803-545-0001 or 800-264-4884

When: January 22, 2011. Two sessions: 12-4 pm, 6-10 pm.

Cost: General admission tickets were $40 per session plus fees ($50 at the door if not sold out). VIP tickets were $85 per session plus fees.

What Happened? When I was a kid Halloween was not about the volume of candy but how good it was. Me and Tommy Brown would map out the blocks around Third Ward School in Griffin, GA, and with military precision come back with the better candy that any other kids in the neighborhood.

When arriving at this year’s Columbia stop for the World Beer Festival I realized it was not about the volume (there was a couple hundred beers to choose from) but the vast variety of brews I don’t normally get to try.

I stopped Mark (Columbia) and Rob (Charlotte) who had their map out and picking where to go next. They told me they were only tasting the Belgian Abbey Ales to the start. “So, you really like Belgian Abbey Ales?”, I asked. “Not necessarily,” said Mark. “To be honest we’ve stuck with Belgians so far because they are very expensive we won’t buy them at the store.” Now that is a strategy. In their explorations they said the Konigshoeven Belgian Dubbel was a great brew.

Speaking of strategy, after mentally skipping through the old days back in Griffin, I read Daniel Bradford‘s welcome in the Beer Guide that the attendees received. Bradford is the Producer of the World Beer Festival and Publisher of All About Beer Magazine, the main sponsor of the festival. We were on the same mental track. He said “With a festival this ecumenical you really you really can’t lose in your selection of a strategy. The only way you can lose is by sticking with your favorites for the night. Safe, but missing the whole point of the fest. You need a strategy.”

He’s the high priest of this ecumenical gathering and right on target.

This year BottleReport came prepared. I brought Mark and Brett, my beer brethren critics (we have our Backyard and Carport Tastings from time to time) and Dad-in-law Dave. Dave and I interviewed and photographed our way around the two floors of brews, while Mark, an excellent professional videographer, and Brett (Brett the Beer Boy) shot quite the video.

We attended the first session that started at 12 noon. We thought about attending the second session at 6 as well but maintaining domestic tranquility at home had us rethink that. We started out at Thomas Creek Brewing where Katie Barnes, their Sales and Marketing Director, had agreed to try out our new “PitcherCam.” Mark mounted a small video camera in the bottom of a pitcher. She played along and did a great job pouring some of the Dockside Pilsner (she admitted in the video interview that beer was her life. Cool). After we finished with the PitcherCam shots I said I typically go for darker brews so she steered me to their Deep Water Dopplebock a silver medal winner for German Style Strong Bock from Great America Beer Festival in 2008. “Nutty roasty chocolately coffee tones with this beer. The predominate flavor is a dry almost bricky toasted chocolate flavor. The best part is that toasty chocolate tone hangs at the roof of your mouth for a minute then as the beer clears you get a nice little toffee toasty chocolate flavor then finishes away nicely.” Her description was right on. That is one nice brew.

I asked what their best selling brew is. She said the River Falls Red Ale, which won a silver medal at this year’s Great American Beer Festival. “More color and complexity that standard domestic beers. Many people are afraid of dark or colored beer. This is a nice gateway beer for people to step out and try.” So, what’s next for Thomas Creek? She said they have a new series coming out called the Atypical Series. “This part of our big bottle cork and cage series. We will start with a brew called “Conduplico Immundus Monachus“. It will be followed up with a Banana Split Chocolate Stout. Since I love a Irish style red ale I shamelessly asked for a second taste of the Red Ale.

Fred Block is living something of a dream that’s been 8 long years in the making. He’s from Tryon, NC, where he is employee No. 1 for BottleTree Beer Company. There is no employee No. 2 ( or 3 or 4). He is at his first big festival featuring his one brew, Belgian Blonde, which launched in Summer of 2010. He hopes to release his second brew, a “Wee Heavy” Scottish Ale, in the Winter of 2012.

“I entered the Piqgah Open Pro/Am Homebrew contest and won first place with a Wee Heavy. Gary Glancy, of the Spartanburg Herald, wanted to run a story on my hobby. He said ‘Wow. this is a very extravagant system.’ I had t-shirts, a logo and the bottles had labels.” The article commented that Block’s hobby had commercial possibilities.

They asked him what he wanted out his brewing experience at the end “and I said I wanted to partner up with a brewery like Thomas Creek and produce some beer. At Octoberfest I met Bill Davis of Thomas Creek and he said thanks for the shout out and, by the way, he said, they were interested. Then I spent the most intense 6 months of my life. I have a full time job so I worked until 2am for 6 months to pull it off. Pawley’s Front Porch in Columbia has it as does Harvard‘s in Aiken. He’s all around Columbia and moving into Charleston.

So how about the name? “Bottletrees attract evil spirits so and people put them in their yards. When the sun shines through the bottles and attracts the spirits they get entrapped. You can hear them whistling in the breeze.”

“I went on a trip to Savannah and had a carriage tour. They were talking about all the architecture and all the folklore and culture and talked about the bottletree. Even though I didn’t actually see a bottletree I was intrigued and did some research. I always wanted to do beer and had been doing home brew and so it inspired the bottletree name.” That also inspired his motto “Drink No Evil.”

 

 

There were three brews that people kept telling me I need to check out. The Brooklyn Brewery’s IPA, R.J. Rockers Black Perle, and Palmetto Brewing’s Espresso Porter. Michael, from Columbia grabbed my arm and made sure I heard. “I hate coffee and hands down the best beer here is the Espresso Porter. How could I pass up trying it with that recommendation. Being married to a Michigan Lutheran, coffee is the happiness fluid in the morning. Not for me but for her. I don’t like coffee either.

I met Clint, an apprentice brewer from Palmetto Brewing, who was holding down the fort so to speak. He was quick to point out they were the first brewery in South Carolina after prohibition (quite a few years afterwards since they only opened in 1993). Today they were featuring in addition to the Espresso Porter a Hop Harvest IPA and Amber Ale. The Hop Harvest IPA was a good hoppy brew. Some of Palmetto‘s brews sport very unique tap handles with no two alike. They are painted palmetto blades taken from around a palmetto tree. A local Charleston artist custom makes each one. The Hop Harvest IPA is aptly named. According to Clint, “The hops are imported overnight from Washington state and we brew them right away. We got a shipping container full of hops in and the smell was so powerful it dominated everything. There is a coffee roaster located in the building and the hop smell … just knocked [the coffee smell] back.” That comment led to how the Espresso Porter came to be. “We are in a building with three businesses, a sign shop, the brewery and … a coffee roaster. In the morning we go over there and drink their coffee while they are roasting and in the afternoon the coffee roasters come over and drink our beer. Like the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. ‘Hey someone dropped their chocolate in my peanut butter.’ We added some coffee to a porter we making and that’s how it started.