The inaugural Iowa Craft Brew Festival, pulled together by the good folks at the Iowa Brewers Guild, launched May 21 with a sold out crowd, great weather and loads of tasty beer.
As I spent most of my time pouring (my beer!) at the Rock Bottom booth, I wouldn’t be in the perfect position to offer a critique from a festival-goer’s perspective. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, and I know that the brewers were enjoying fraternizing with their kin–and sampling each others’ wares.
My guess is that the space was maxed out and that we could have used a few more portapotties, and that there is nothing but a bright and growing future for both this event and the Iowa brewing scene.
Many of the 20-ish Iowa brewers participated in a joint aging of beers in Templeton Rye barrels, and several of the beers I tried were phenomenal (honestly, I didn’t get around to trying many). Other standouts from my limited tasting perspective were Backpocket Brewing’s lager-licious-ness and Rock Bottom’s Matador, an (if I remember this right) impy schwarz with chilis, cocoa nibs, piconcillo sugar and cinnamon aged in a Buffalo Trace barrel.
Good times, good times. I’ll let a few photos speak the other thousands of words. Hope to see you there next year…
Eric pouring at the Rock Bottom booth.
Jacob from Backpocket (use to be Einfach).
The calm before the storm at Peace Tree's funkadelic pouring station.
