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Saturday, Sep. 22, June and I attended the Nashville Flying Saucer’s BeerFeast. We didn’t stay long but had a good time. June had just run her first half marathon a few hours earlier and I dragged her to yet another beer fest. On top of that, we were heading out the next day for a vacation to Spokane, WA (more about that trip in later posts). All that to say, the day was kind of a blur.
The event was well attended and there were a lot of good beers and ciders to be sampled. There were about 60 different craft beers and 4 taps reserved only for VIP ticket holders. Thankfully there was no macrobrew, or even better, no Mike’s Hard Lemonade. FYI, Nashville has two types of festivals, cool beer people enjoying good craft beer or the general public trying to sample a lot of beer and get drunk (that’s the kind where you find the hard lemonade). This was a craft beer fest. The Flying Saucer was smart to get help from Rhizome Productions, they know how to throw a beer fest.
Local brewers brought some good stuff and there was good brew from regional and national brands too. Calfkiller Brewing always brings interesting, tasty beers. Fat Bottom made a festival debut of their Ruby Red American Ale. And the fine folks from Blackstone, Yazoo, Jackalope and Turtle Anarchy brought their great beers too. But for us, the best local surprise was the newest Nashville brewery, Little Harpeth. Little Harpeth is unique in the market because all their beers are lagers. Yazoo’s making some good lagers, but lagers are still a rarity from Nashville brewers. We really enjoyed their beers and think they’ll carve a good niche in the market. While not from Nashville, it was great seeing Good People from Birmingham, AL. Good stuff, Nashville’s been waiting!
We got the VIP tickets for the promise of extra benefits like early admission, food vouchers, a 2012 BeerFeast T-shirt and a VIP brew caddy lanyard. If you count on a t-shirt being $20 bucks and a $5 food voucher, the VIP ticket kind of paid for itself. The best part of the VIP ticket was the four special taps reserved for VIPs. We tried several Sierra Nevada Beer Camp brews, Ommegang’s Art of Darkness 2011, Smaltz’s Heb’rew Messiah Bold 2010 and Rogue’s Dad’s Little Helper Black IPA. Yeah, now that I think about it, the VIP was worth it.
This was our second Flying Saucer BeerFeast and it was more fun than last year’s. We can’t wait for next year’s. If you’re in town next time, don’t miss it.