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Saturday, July 28, 2007

OBF Hot Tips

If you're waffling about whether to brave the crowds to go to this year's fest, waffle while you quaff: this is the best OBF I can remember. The beers are uniformly good and there's a fair number that are fantastic. I'll update my earlier report with a few more observations from yesterday.

Four to Try
Green Flash IPA (hopolicious)
Fifty Fifty Donner Party IPA (silky and rich)
Old Market Midsummers White (exceptional Belgian wit)
Elysian Prometheus IPA (I don't remember this beer exactly, save that it impressed me)

A Couple to Skip
The Bison Chocolate Stout was thin and astringent, the Stone Vertical Epic was cloying and unnuanced (it was an imperial wit, which I think is a style we should relegate to the dustbin), and BJ's C'est Bon Blonde which although not bad, was not great, either (bon?--c'est médiocre).

I had hoped to run a series of beerlebrities on phone cam, but somehow the regulars I often see (which in the past has included Charlie Papazian, Fred Bowman, John Harris, Art Larrance, Alan Sprints, David Zuckerman, and so on) were absent or cleverly avoiding my prying eyes. But I did manage one, the estimable Fred Eckhardt:



If you have still not headed down, don't miss it: go!

5 comments:

  1. Hey, I just did my writeup on what I tried this year: http://www.lambmartini.com/?p=75

    It's interesting to see how different our views on several of the beers were.

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  2. Green Flash's West Coast IPA is incredible! It was my favorite at the festival last year and this. You can pick it up in bottle form from Belmont Station (on Stark) and at Whole Foods. Anyone know if it's on tap anywhere in town?

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  3. Jeff - Interesting, at least to me, that Chuck Silva of Green Flash and Christian Ettinger were in the same ABG class.

    (Along with a brewer here in New Mexico, Ted Rice of Chama River, who also makes great hoppy beers.)

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  4. Sorry I missed you, I was there early on Saturday. One of my favorite Beers was from Utah, 4+, not a big Beer but very tasty.

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  5. Thank you! I was getting discouraged about my wit from a bad review I just read...

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