2008 Woodie Awards
Local beer finds a fan
Reid Stratton
Issue date: 4/7/06 Section: Features
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On Saturday the Northeast Wisconsin Beer Festival was held here in Appleton. The event featured over 250 beers and over 50 wines.
While the bulk of the beers came from the Midwest, there was also a selection of beer from around the country and the world. I attended the event in search of finding some good craft beers.
Craft beers, also known as microbrews, include familiar names like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and New Glarus Spotted Cow, as well as some hard-to-find but well respected beers like Dogfish Head ApriHop or Full Sail ESB. These are the exact opposite of macro-brewed beers like Miller Lite, Coors, or Budweiser.
After being dropped off by my designated driver, I went into the festival, surprised to see the massive crowd within. There were two floors open at this event - the top floor was just beer, and the bottom floor was beer and wine.
Booths had been set up and manned by representatives from local breweries. There were also a few booths manned by distributors dispensing different imports.
The large crowd made it difficult to even make it up to the booths, but after working my way to the front I would peruse the selection - most breweries had five or six beers to choose from - and select a beer to taste.
I got a few ounces in the bottom of the glass, then retreated to a quieter corner of the room to sample my beer. I followed the three-step tasting approach the beer nuts at BeerAdvocate.com use: look, smell, and taste.
The star of this beer festival was Samuel Adams Utopias, a beer that retails for over $100 a bottle. This beer is fermented very carefully for a very long time to reach an alcohol level of 25 percent by volume, about five times as strong as most craft beers. The beer is also aged in barrels that once held cognac, sherry, and whiskey.
While I was too late to get a taste of Utopias - it ran out very quickly - I heard from those who snagged a little that it tastes strongly of whiskey and maple syrup. Most the people I talked to agreed it was good, but not worth a hundred bucks.
While the bulk of the beers came from the Midwest, there was also a selection of beer from around the country and the world. I attended the event in search of finding some good craft beers.
Craft beers, also known as microbrews, include familiar names like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and New Glarus Spotted Cow, as well as some hard-to-find but well respected beers like Dogfish Head ApriHop or Full Sail ESB. These are the exact opposite of macro-brewed beers like Miller Lite, Coors, or Budweiser.
After being dropped off by my designated driver, I went into the festival, surprised to see the massive crowd within. There were two floors open at this event - the top floor was just beer, and the bottom floor was beer and wine.
Booths had been set up and manned by representatives from local breweries. There were also a few booths manned by distributors dispensing different imports.
The large crowd made it difficult to even make it up to the booths, but after working my way to the front I would peruse the selection - most breweries had five or six beers to choose from - and select a beer to taste.
I got a few ounces in the bottom of the glass, then retreated to a quieter corner of the room to sample my beer. I followed the three-step tasting approach the beer nuts at BeerAdvocate.com use: look, smell, and taste.
The star of this beer festival was Samuel Adams Utopias, a beer that retails for over $100 a bottle. This beer is fermented very carefully for a very long time to reach an alcohol level of 25 percent by volume, about five times as strong as most craft beers. The beer is also aged in barrels that once held cognac, sherry, and whiskey.
While I was too late to get a taste of Utopias - it ran out very quickly - I heard from those who snagged a little that it tastes strongly of whiskey and maple syrup. Most the people I talked to agreed it was good, but not worth a hundred bucks.