By Lee B. Roberts
Journal Times | Posted: Monday, September 8, 2008 12:00 am
Don't be in a hurry. Breathe in the aroma. Savor the sensation of the bubbly liquid as it fills your mouth. And notice the aftertaste left on your tongue once you've swallowed.
By doing so, you are not just drinking beer, but actively tasting it - something a lot of folks will be doing in Racine on Saturday when the Great Lakes Brew Fest takes over Downtown's Festival Park with more than 85 brewers from around the country offering more than 250 craft beers and sodas for the tasting.
"It is really a matter of taking your time," said Paul Moebius, sales representative for Bell's Brewery, a regional brewer out of Comstock, Mich., which will be bringing four of its beers to the fest.
Timing is especially important when it comes to having such a variety of tasting options at your fingertips, Moebius said. With nearly 100 brewers, each of which may be offering several beers, even if you only taste a quarter of them, the amount of beer consumed adds up quickly. Therefore, one of the first considerations in making your way through a beer-tasting event is the amount of beer you taste.
"You really only need about a half-ounce to an ounce of beer to taste it," he said. "A lot of people want a full glass of each beer because they think that's the way to get their money's worth. But, for a real beer tasting, you only need a small amount to experience the aroma and the flavor."
Start crisp
Keeping your palate in good tasting condition is also important. While you may not be able to cleanse your palate between each brew, you can help your taste buds to do their job by starting with lighter beers and working your way up to heavier brews.
"Even if you have to jump around from brewery to brewery to do so, it is best to start out with lagers (Oktoberfests, bocks, pilsners), which are very crisp, and work your way up to the ales (porters, stouts, weiss beers). If you start out with something like an India Pale Ale, which has lots of hops in it, you are not going to be able to taste as much after that," Moebius said.
This game plan will also help you to stay sober, he explained, as lighter style beers have less alcohol.
Going from brewery to brewery at Brew Fest will be easier this year, thanks to a new organization of the festival grounds, according to Curt Foreman, Brew Fest founder.
"We decided to move the large tent in order to open up the center portion of grounds," Foreman said.
While making your way through a tasting event, it is also important to open your senses to many kinds of flavors.
"You can get a huge spectrum of tastes in beer from chocolate and coffee flavors to cherries and raspberries," Moebius said. "And unless it is a fruit beer, in which that particular flavor has been added, those flavors are actually coming from the beer itself."
With so many things to consider when tasting beer, it is a good idea to take notes as you go along, he said. That way, you will remember which brews you enjoyed the most, and why, for future reference.
Keep in mind, too, that everyone's taste buds are a little different, and therefore you may taste something in one beer that the person standing next to you does not.
Far and wide
Tasters at this year's Brew Fest will find a cornucopia of flavors offered by breweries ranging from those closest to home, such as Racine's Belle City Home Brewers and Vintners, to others such as California's Eel River Brewing Company, which specializes in organic beers. Since the festival's first year, which drew about 1,200 attendees, news of the event has spread like wildfire through the Internet and word of mouth, according to Foreman. And each of its five years has drawn new brewers and more tasters, with attendance passing the 3,000 mark last year.
"We are really excited to have about a dozen new brewers this year, many of them offering beer you won't find in local stores," Foreman said. "By the time we are done, we'll have brewers from 14 states and three countries."
Along with the all the beverages, this year's Brew Fest will feature food from three area restaurants and vendors: The Charcoal Grill, Danny's Meats and Catering, and Dino's Italian Village. Menu items will range from turkey legs and hamburgers to a pig roast plate, home made beef jerky, lasagna, meatball bombers and more.
While beer drinkers far and wide are paying more attention to how to pair their brewed beverages with food these days, that wasn't a strong consideration in choosing the edibles for this year's fest, Foreman said. The offerings still lean more toward traditional festival food, but Brew Fest organizers are looking into more specific beer and food pairing options for the future, he said.
Entertainment for the day will include the R&B sounds of Group Therapy, with Roy Edwards, from 3 to 5 p.m., as well as drum and bugle corps music from Racine's Kilties. The Kilties drum line will play at various times throughout the day and the entire group will perform on the green at the east side of the Festival Park at 5:45 p.m. Members of the Kilties also staff this event, and proceeds from the Great Lakes Brew Fest support the Kilties organization.
All together, the Great Lakes Brew Fest is geared toward people who want to become more familiar with beer and learn about each product, said Foreman.
"There are more and more enlightened consumers out there who want choices," he said.
Brew Fest is also a nice social event where you can meet people anywhere from 21 to 81 years of age from a number of different states, Foreman said.
This year organizers have sold a record number of designated driver tickets and they are encouraging attendees to use public transportation to and from the event. Foreman also suggests that people get to the Festival site at least a half hour in advance of the festival's opening.
Once there, Moebius says beer fans should "Drink responsibly and have fun."