I almost missed Ithaca’s Brute, having forgotten about it and skipped it on my first circuit, but thankfully a friend reminded me and I ran back to get a taste. Get psyched for this one, people! The next bottling in Ithaca’s wholly amazing Excelsior series, Ithaca calls it an “American Golden Sour Ale,” and it marks an awesome entry into the expanding American market for sour beers. It pours cloudy and has a fully barnyardy and acetic funk to it with some mild fruit to back it up. It was one of the last beers I had after decimating my mouth with hops all day and it’s puckering sourness did a great job in helping to get that bitterness off my mind. This is a tight tight brew with everthing going right for it, and I am super psyched to be able to get a sour beer of this caliber out here on the east coast once they start bottling in August. It’s getting too expensive having Russian River bottles shipped from Cali in trade!

Lagunitas is a super-reliable purveyor of heavily hopped IPAs, DIPAs, red ales, and pretty much anything they can run across a hop-back. Their Hop Stoopid, which I had from the bottle while on the west coast in the spring, can be considered their ultimate paean to the hop flower. We try to keep drug references at bay here at the BDB, or at least keep them subtle, but the smell of this brew poured from the tap at the beer festival was straight-up dank weed. It was uncanny, and intoxicating, so much so that it was one of the few samples I felt compelled to try more than once all day. The flavor was heavy on the grapefruit, which is how I like my DIPAs, with the bitterness perfectly balanced by the malt and a finish that leans back towards tight and piney leaving you wanting another sip. I love, love, love this beer and love the freshness it had on draft, now if only I could find it on cask somewhere…

The final brew I want to bring to everyone’s attention is Bear Republic’s Crazy Ivan, a beer which makes no fucking sense, but tastes so fucking good. Bear Republic is another west coast brewer that is heavy-handed with the hops. Their Racer 5 is another of my favorite day-to-day IPAs and I am still waiting to get a taste of the legendary Racer X. This brew is a blend of their Racer 5 and Red Rocket worts fermented with Belgian yeast. I know, right? The smell has some nuttiness and banana to it, owing to the estery Belgian yeast used, with some hops detectable as well. The flavor is like an American-Hopped Belgian Ale, just so totally out there and different from anything I have ever tried that it really threw me for a loop. I’d highly recommend checking it out if you ever come across it.

And there you have it, notes from my first ever beer event! And lest I leave you wanting for more beers to seek out, here are some honorable mentions:

Avery 15 – Awesome in the bottle, was even better on draft here.
Sixpoint Hop Obama – Indefinable ale, Scottish yeast, Pacific NW hops, change you can believe in.
The Livery Carvacious – DIPA/Sour blend, actually everything from this Michigan brewpub was great, can’t wait to get out that way to check it out.

Now I may be biased by the positively idyllic environment in which this beer was consumed, but I really enjoyed it. 7% ABV is totally obscured by a mild flavor, sweet and “flowery” as bro-dog put it, but not extreme in flavor at all. A hint of bitterness mixed with the rest of the flavor profiles made it truly enjoyable, smooth drinking, and awesome. A great Brown Ale that was probably a bit sweeter and less bitter than most beers I typically reach for, but for certain, I’d definitely hit it again. Lagunitas offers so many quality brews that it’s a real shame how many of them we can’t get up in NYC. In this case, it’s a great thing that I have my regular family, and my Zappa family, who always do right by me when I come to visit. Now if I could only get into the tunes as much as I could his namesake beers…