The Rare Barrel Brewery: No tasters!

I was recently in California and was eager to visit The Rare Barrel Brewery in Berkeley. I first encountered the brewery at the 2014 Great American Brew Fest in Denver and I was amazed by the sour ales from such a young brewery.

It took awhile to find the place, the brewery is in a receded kind of alley way between two other buildings.

The taproom reminds me of Oskar Blues Brewery, where it's part of the brewery not a separate room. You can drink your beer with a view of the barrels in the back. There were many many barrels, I had to remind myself that I wasn't at Avery Brewing with barrels going up towards the ceiling.

We approached the bar that was full, but there's a space for ordering beers by the cash register. The bartender asked what we wanted to order and when I asked for a taster set, we were told that on the back of the menu it's stated they don't do tasters. Okay, so I order a beer and went to a barrel table and stood there while drinking my beer. Low and behold, at the bar another bartender was giving a couple tasters of the beers.

What, I thought they didn't do that! So my husband asked another staff member about it and she said it was up us to ask for tasters, what!

So my dilemma is, what constitutes a taster? I get a confused look by waitstaff who don't understand what I want, a full 4-5 ounce of beer or a splash of beer. What is the right vernacular for ordering a taster?

On a positive note, the beer was excellent. I had the Keen Observation of the Echo Series, a golden sour aged in unrinsed Map of the Sun, their golden sour aged with apricots. It was really tart and very flavorful. i would recommend going there but just be warned, NO TASTERS!

Great American Beer Fest: Day 1

I hadn't been to the Great American Beer Fest in over 10 years and this time around I was more prepared for the hours of tasting beer.

I write for Barley's Angels Colorado and for my blog, the colorado beer scribe so with this in mind I have to be careful not to get inebriated. I was here ton assignment o get the female perspective on GABF and on the craft beer explosion.  It was awesome this time around because of the media pass that let me enter to the fest with the brewers and entourage entrance. The next thing was that the line was a fraction amount compared to the one that stretched down the block for the consumer entrance. And entering with the brewery industry, I was in the building 15 minutes early!

The convention hall was so enormous in the space, it seemed to go on for miles. This was especially true for that small amount of time that the hall wasn't yet filled with people. The large space was mind boggling with your head turning left then right looking at all the breweries set up in rows. But I had to remember one of the reasons I was at the fest, to interview Lynne Weaver and Alexandra Nowell from the Three Weavers Brewing Co.

It should have been easy to locate them since they're in the Pacific section, they're brewery is located in Los Angeles. So here I am searching for this brewery in the Pacific region but not finding it. Walked for my 15 minutes looking for it, finally I looked it up on the brewery directory. I know, I should have done that first but anyway, I found them. Three Weavers Brewing was located in the featured breweries section. Lynne Weavers was there and Alexandra Nowell arrived a few minutes later. It was such an inspiration meeting them, two women living their dream. 

Lynne Weaver owner of Three Weavers Brewing Co.

After the interview while waiting for my husband who had the bad luck to be one of thousands of regular consumers that forged through to the GABF hall, I interviewed three women attending the fest. I catch them before they even had one taste of beer which gaurenteed a good interview.  Desiree Duzich, who is videographer/photograher for a community blog called Porchdrinking.com.  She was also waiting for someone at the entrance when I asked for a quick interview. The other ladies, Theresa Williams and Jane Del Carlo who are two friends that have been attending the GABF for the last four years. 

Fest goers coming in after waiting in line.

Theresa Williams and Jane Del Carlo.

The rest of the night was dodging others while I tried to find those diamond in the rough breweries and I found a few. Rare Barrels from Berkely, California, brewed some really nice sour ales. I especially liked the Forces Unseen, a 5.3% ABV that was a blend of three golden sour ales.

There was also Belching Beaver Brewing Co and Beach City Brewing, both these breweries were at the Beer Bloggers Conference in San Diego where I first tasted their beers. The Peanut Butter Stout was really delicious from Belching Beaver.  Beach City Brewing had Triquilo, a Belgian Triple that was aged in Tequila barrels. 

I left the fest with anticipation for the next day, more interviews and more beer tasting.