2012 Washington Brewers Festival

By Brandon, on July 9th, 2012

Presented by the Washington Beer Commission, the 2012 Washington Brewers Festival was the 7th annual ?Mother of all Father?s Day Festivals.? This year the festival moved to a new location, setting up shop at Redmond?s Marymoor Park. This year?s WBF featured over 60 different Washington breweries offering over 200 different brews over the course of three days during Father?s Day weekend.?

The Washington Brewers Festival was held on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Friday was restricted to 21+ while Saturday and Sunday was all ages. Friday admission was $15 and included a 5.5 oz plastic tasting ?glass? and five tokens. Saturday and Sunday admission was $20 for the same tasting glass and six tokens.WABL members received a 6.5 oz tasting glass made of actual glass, and eight tokens. Additional tokens were available for four for $5.

The previous venue, Saint Edward State Park, was arguably a more scenic venue, but that?s more of a testament to how beautiful that park is than anything else. The new venue seemed to offer the benefits such as better freeway accessibility, more space and drastically improved parking. One issue I had with the space at Marymoor Park was that it had a lot of unevenness in the grounds. Navigating crowds with a glass of beer requires enough focus without worrying about the next mole hill or dip in the ground.

Much like last year, I attended the Saturday session, but I waited until the festival was in full-swing to arrive which ensured that I would experience the peak of the crowd. What I found was definitely in full-swing status. I will take the optimist?s point of view and be proud that craft beer has such a strong appeal that a festival like this could flirt with ?oversold? status. I can handle crowds just fine, but I started to get disappointed when nearly every brewery had a substantial line. Black Raven Brewing deserves particular mention for their massive popularity at the festival. When I made my way to their counter I found a line that could have easily been 1/8 to 1/4 mile long. While I can say plenty of good things about Black Raven I can?t say I felt compelled to wait that long when many other great Washington beers were available nearby.

My sampling took me to a wide range of beer styles but the two that stick with me most are both IPAs. Yeah, I?m a bona fide hophead. ?Airways Brewing of Kent, WA had an IPA they aged on oak chips and dubbed it the ?Ol Wooden Hag? (a reference to the IPA used being their standard ?Sky Hag IPA?). It?s not often I come across IPAs aged on oak and I really enjoyed their hop-heavy IPA being infused with the oak flavors. Sound Brewery of Poulsbo, WA had my favorite beer of the day. Naturally it was an imperial IPA they call ?Humulo Nimbus.? I call it a great beer for a hop lover like me.

I was surprised by the number of other non-brewery booths at this festival. When I think to the other Washington Brewers Festivals I have attended I can only recall food, merchandise and craft tents. At this event there were many of those, but there were others. Some were beer related, such as Growler on Board, while unrelated booths like a credit union and a contact lenses vendor were also there causing me to scratch my head.

The crowd at this event struck me as pretty relaxed, perhaps slowed by the lines and uneven grounds. As I mentioned, I attended a family-friendly day and there were definitely many families in attendance so that probably contributed to the mild mannered nature. In truth, all Washington Beer Commission events tend to be attended by crowds of responsible and informed beer lovers. I am interested to see in 2013 brings even bigger things for the Washington Brewers Festival.

Source: http://www.brewedforthought.com/?p=5503

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