Ken (K. M.) Weaver

Tipsy Coverage of The Bistro’s Barrel Aged Festival 2009

The Bistro, Hayward, CA (© Anneliese Schmidt)

As someone with a mild fixation on rare beers (see here and here for examples) that even eight months in Nicaragua couldn’t properly efface, it’s still rare for me to find myself making wishlists, trailing off mid-sentence into thoughts of obscure tap handles, and sleeping as unsoundly as a child on Christmas Eve. I will refrain from recounting here my dreams from the night before the Bistro Fest.

Keep walking, sweetie. (© Anneliese Schmidt)

Honestly, here’s how I’d like this to go down: I will try to regale you with tales of barrel-aged offerings that will make your mouth water and your eyes wet, and you’ll swear to venture out to Hayward next November. And then (this is the important part!) you will forget all about it by the time next November rolls around (you’ll then revisit this article that December, vowing revenge!) and the locals and us beer geeks in the know will owe you our debt of gratitude.

Because the Bistro’s annual Barrel Aged Festival is one of craft beer’s youngest, best-organized, and better-kept secrets. This past Saturday, the 14th, Ali and I left our crunchy little enclave in Sebastopol for their 4th annual Barrel Aged Festival, ready to sample some of the 65 different beers on tap. Upon arrival, ten minutes before the event started at 11AM, we were astonished to see a line had formed outside this year. It was seven people long, and it was the only wait of the day.

Real glasses this year! (© Anneliese Schmidt)

With an event that attracts heavyweights from both coasts  (Allagash, Dogfish Head, Drakes, Firestone Walker, Port Brewing, Russian River, Sierra Nevada, and Stone, to name only an illustrious handful), The Bistro’s owners Vic and Cynthia Kralj have created what can only be appropriately viewed as one of the finest examples of what I will here forth term “The Divine Fraction,” i.e., the ratio of insane, exceptional beers at an event to the overall difficulty of actually getting to enjoy them. Pitchers and attentive servers eliminate any long beer lines (the brewers are in the crowd if you want to chat with them, not pouring); there were port-a-johns aplenty, music in the afternoon, and entire elephants being barbecued out front.

$40 paid for a commemorative tulip glass (a nice step up from those mini-snifters) and 10 pours, which ranged anywhere from 2 ounces and up, depending on how adorable you were. Extra pours could be purchased for $2. In hindsight, I might recall the day slightly more vividly if only I could’ve turned down the adorable.

Trivia: I received a wedgie shortly after this photo was taken. (© Anneliese Schmidt)

Also, I was lying about the elephants. They weren’t barbecuing elephants (not that I know of). There will always be that one person who will show up next year and raise a stink once he or she finds out that there are no barbecued elephants, as promised, and then my name will come up, and it will all be very awkward.

Inside the Bistro. (© Anneliese Schmidt)

Right. The beer. Bourbon barrels, brandy barrels, syrah barrels, cognac barrels, cab sauv, Ukrainian oak, chardonnay, Scotch, pinot, oak chips, grenache. You name it, somebody put something into a barrel of it.

On the less-rare side of things this year were the wonderful go-tos from Allagash (Curieux, Odyssey, Interlude), Deschutes (Mirror Mirror, The Abyss, Black Butte XXI), New Belgium (La Folie), Port Brewing (Older Viscosity), and Russian River (Consecration, Supplication, Temptation). For most beer geeks, that’s a whole weekend of barrel-aged loveliness right there.

Outdoor seating area. (© Anneliese Schmidt)

But for some of us, the greatest draw of the Bistro’s Barrel Aged Festival is the one-offs, the rarities, the what-on-god’s-green-earth-have-you-done-to-this-beer?-ities. So, first question: who really stepped up this year?

Well, Avery brought out their Platypus (aka Vogelbekdieren; there’s presumably a very weird story behind this beer) and Voltron(!). Bear Republic pulled out a keg of Trebuchet, a Belgian tripel aged for 2 1/2 years in a 100-year-old Cognac barrel. Maui Brewing brought the Black Pearl, a nicely barreled version of their already delicious CoCoNuT Porter. Sierra Nevada brought down two beers aged in Glengoyne Scotch barrels, Scotch on Scotch and Porter on Scotch (thought they might want to talk to Avery about their nomenclature).

Pouring stations. (© Anneliese Schmidt)

Of all the breweries, though, Valley Brew supplied the greatest riches of rarities from the barrel. Aside from Cuvee de Evil and Bourbon Evil (descendants of the Collaborative Evil project), and bourbon-aged Stray Cat Schwarzbier and NotOberfest ReinheitsgeNot Bock, two major highlights (for me) were Decadent Darkness and Bourbon Barrel Old Inventory.

This year’s festival didn’t include the professional judging aspect of previous years (a little bird told me this was because of the inevitable effects of sampling 60+ barrel-aged beers). But the People’s Choice awards went ahead as usual, minus a few votes from those of us outside not paying attention. The results:

• Winner: Fifty Fifty Imperial Eclipse Stout (2008)
• 2nd: Drakes George Brett Triple
• 3rd: Sierra Nevada Scotch on Scotch
• 4th: Bear Republic Blackberry Grizz

(Having just opened a bottle of the 2008 Imperial Eclipse Stout with friends the weekend before, I can only add that it deserves every bit of acclaim it gets.)

As the evening wore on, certain things became apparent, not the least of which was the fact that there was way more than enough beer for everyone (and by “everyone” I mean all of Hayward). So I’d like to rather emphatically negate what I joked about earlier, regarding the relatively relaxed status of this event, and how we’d like to keep it that way. There still won’t be any barbecued elephants, but I really do hope you make it down to the Bistro’s Barrel Aged Festival next year.

Seriously.

Just, you know. Try to keep it under your hat.

Stick a fork in me, I'm done. (Ken Weaver, Vic Kralj) (© Anneliese Schmidt)

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