The 4th Annual Boulder SourFest at Avery Brewing has come and gone. For the lucky 400 or so attendees, it was a day highlighted by beautiful weather, amazing beer and great people.
Here’s the entire Beer Menu and Map.
The Avery tasting room was rocking with the first 20 offerings on the menu. There were some truly amazing beers from AC Golden like Troy’s Blend (also known as Colorambic) and a Plum Sour. Other highlights included Avery’s Eremita II, III and IV (part of their tap room-only series), Bad Apple and Dry Dock’s Ambassador Sour.
Heading back through the Barrel Room, there was a palate cleansing station pouring the standard Avery lineup. There were also plenty of tables and chairs for the tickers to make notes and write reviews. This is a new layout compared to previous festivals and gave attendees the opportunity to pass between the front and back of the building with ease, but also gave everyone a spot to cool off and get out of the sun.
Past the Barrel Room was the Back Yard, which had the remaining 60+ beers on the menu, including the entire bottle lineup.
The bottled lineup was pretty insane and was actually our first stop of the day. I had Crooked Stave’s WaelzBlood at the top of my list, but sadly missed it by a few minutes. Some of the Crooked Stave staff said it sold out in just 22 minutes! (Cellar Reserve Members that were in the club in 2012 and 2013 will receive this beer as a gift.) Oh well, with other Crooked Stave offerings like Origins Grand Cru, Nightmare on Brett Grand Cru & Brandy and Petite Sour w/ Hibiscus and Cinnamon, my sorrows were quickly washed away.
Oregon’s Cascade Barrelhouse once again proved to be an immensely popular brewery at the festival. This year they were pouring 4 beers: Manhattan, Noyaux, Vlad the Imp Aler and The Vine. Although Cascade drew a line for much of the afternoon, volunteers were walking the line with bottles offering samples to relieve some of the pressure up front.
Somebody get the King a beer!
Trinity was another popular brewery in the bottle tents. Their newly released Ten Minutes of Pleasure (collab brew with New Belgium’s Peter Bouckaert; brewed with soursop fruit and aged in Chardonnay barrels) and Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta (brewed w/ honey, golden raisins and mustard seed) were getting positive reviews throughout the crowd. I had to grab a few sips of the trusty Red Swingline and Oh Face. Trinity continues to impress with each and every new offering.
Other breweries in the bottle area included Avery, Boulevard, Funkwerks, Jester King, NOLA, Odell and Sierra Nevada.
Also out in the back yard, was a funky live band and some very tasty local eats, plus multiples tables, chairs and tents for relaxing and sipping on a few funky brews.
This year we made it a point to seek out and try as many new beers as we could. Odell Brewing was one of my personal favorites with their Pina Agria. This refreshingly tart beer was aged for 9 months with pineapple, lactobacillus and brettanomyces. New Belgium Brewing also impressed with Oscar-Worthy Coffee. This was a blend of their Sour Oscar and cold-pressed Costa Rican coffee. The nose was freshly brewed coffee and it was heavenly.
It’s interesting to see the progression of the American Sour / Wild Ale. In the four short years that Avery’s hosted SourFest, the beer list has grown from 64 beers to 82 beers and has gone from selling out in a few days to selling out in a few seconds. The style continues to win over beer drinkers and shows no signs of slowing down.
With a solid team of volunteers pouring the beers, many of the brewers were free to answer questions, share techniques and geek out on beer talk with attendees all afternoon. A great day indeed and one that we’ll not soon forget. Oh how we’ll miss you SourFest, but we look forward to doing it again next year. Special Thanks to Avery Brewing, the great team of volunteers and all of the breweries that made this years event possible. You guys rock!
Cheers!
