I was recently given a free Draftmark Tap System from BzzAgent for my evaluation. It didn’t come with any beer in it, but I finally got around to buying a refill bottle of Goose Island Honker’s Ale today. The store I went to had that along with Budweiser and Michelob Amber Bock refills available. Other varieties can also be found such as Shock Top, Shock Top Wheat IPA, and Bass Pale Ale.

Honker’s Ale

The sales clerk at the store commented that not many of the Draftmark systems or refills have been sold. I had to agree with her judging from the dust that was collected on top of each box. That left me wondering about the freshness of the beer, and I could not find a born on date or expiration on the box. All it said was that the beer would stay fresh for 30 days once installed in the system. I would really like it if there were born on dates available that way you know how fresh the beer is.

Draftmark

The Draftmark operates using a rechargeable battery pack and uses air to keep the right pressure for the flow-rate. The pressurizing is a noisy process that you can hear even through the closed refrigerator door, but at least you know it is working. It was a little deep to fit on some of my refrigerator shelves, and I found it worked best on the top shelf of mine.

In The Fridge

Pouring the beer should be just as you would do with any draft beer. Start with a tilted glass, pour the beer so it falls a short distance on to the side of glass, and straighten the glass as you pour. Unfortunately I found it impossible to not get at least three fingers of head, most of the time I wound up with even more than that. Using a very bad pour form would result in nearly an entire glass of foam. It does settle quickly, but definitely not the ideal way to pour a beer.

Lots Of Head

The beer itself was nothing extraordinary, but it goes down easy. Honestly it reminded me a lot of one of my homebrews. Each refill has one gallon of beer in it, or around 8 pints. At around $15, the refills are a great deal considering what the equivalent amount would cost in a bar. I’m curious to see if the beer truly does stay fresh for a month, or could it even go longer, even though I doubt it will last that long anyway.

Yum!

Overall the Draftmark system is a neat idea. However it doesn’t seem to have caught on with the general public. And I have a couple of issues with the design and functionality. If more styles of beer were available, I could see myself using it, but with the current lineup I don’t think I will be refilling it again anytime soon.

Today I had a great day in beer acquisition. This week Founder’s released their KBS, which is basically Breakfast Stout cave-aged in oak bourbon barrels for an entire year. After a couple of near misses earlier in the week, I finally was able to buy a bottle at the Dilly Café. I would have liked to get more than one, but rules are rules and they are trying to spread the very limited supply to others. So if you are quick, there still might be some there this evening, though it was going fast.

What A Shelf

While there I also noticed that they had a pretty nice selection of Three Floyds beer available. Since their beers are still hard to find in Ohio, even though we are directly next to their home state of Indiana, these were also limited to one bottle per person. I was able to snag one each of Zombie Dust pale ale, Jinx Proof pilsener, and finally their Behemoth barley wine. I’ve had Zombie Dust a handful of times and it is a must buy when available.

My Purchases

Word on the street is that Dutch’s will be getting a case of KBS tomorrow. So I’m hoping I can score another bottle. For even more availability and a nice review check out Queen City Drinks.

Before skipping town for the majority of the weekend, I made a quick afternoon stop at the first ever Cincinnati Craft Brewer’s StarkBier Fest that took place this past Saturday at Listermann Brewing Company. This festival featured beers from local Cincinnati breweries only and most were 7.5% or higher. Fortunately small samples were available so I could try a few beers and still be able to drive out-of-town.

Beer Trucks

Among my favorites that I sampled were Mt. Carmel Brewing Company’s latest Snapshot Series, Ardennes Belgian Quad, and Blank Slate Brewing Company’s Shroominous, which is a brown ale brewed with shiitake mushrooms. There were also some barrel aged beers on hand such as Quaff Bros.’ Corn on the Knob and a very boozy Bourbon Barrel Aged Brown Ale from Rock Bottom.

Live Entertainment

The festival had a nice little crowd during my early afternoon visit, but from pictures that I’ve seen online it got much more crowded. Though I missed the Cincinnati Craft Beer Oktoberfest completely, I’ve also read very favorable reviews. It too was held at Listermann’s and I hope that they continue with these mini beer festivals. They not only are pouring some great beer, there is also live entertainment, food trucks on site, and it is all family friendly. It makes for a great way to spend your Saturday.

Fifty West Logo

To kick off my birthday weekend I finally made it to Fifty West Brewing Company, which has been operating out of the old Heritage Restaurant space on Route 50 since late last year. The historic building that now houses the brewery was built in 1827 and while it still has some of its original charm a lot of work has been put into modernizing the structure. It is really beautiful both inside and out.

Outside

My parents, my brother, and his girlfriend would all be joining my wife, son, and I for the evening. We asked about a table for the seven of us and were shown to a side room where two large tables take up the majority of the space. It is a little disconnected from the rest of the bar and restaurant, but it would work perfect for our rather large group. I grabbed a snifter of their bourbon barrel aged Horse and Buggy scotch ale from the bar while the staff worked to prepare our table. My first beer at the brewery was excellent and the evening was off to a great start!

Tap Wall

Once our table was set we all moved back to the side room for some additional beer sampling. Thanks to a sampling tray I was able to quickly get a taste of a handful of their 14 different beers available. Other favorites of mine included Gaddy’s Irish Red, Alternate Route German style brown ale, the Loneliest Road stout, and finally the Punch You in the EyePA.

Sampler Tray

While enjoying the beers we were treated to complimentary dough pretzels while we looked over the newly added food menu, which features mostly tapas style small plates that are meant for sharing. My favorite of what we ordered was easily the roasted poblano pepper ($8) that is stuffed with house chicken chorizo queso fresco and topped with citrus crema. The red sauce that blanketed the pepper had a nice kick to it that really spiced up the dish.

Roasted Poblano

We also shared smoked salmon guacamole ($7) and an order of their “potato skins” ($6), which features twice baked Yukon Gold potatoes filled with house boursin cheese, parsnips, house bacon, and roasted garlic before being finished with a balsamic fig reduction. The skins were tasty, but the serving size was very small and hard to share with our larger group.

“Potato Skins”

Other items of note that I observed during our stay. The music being played throughout the bar and restaurant spaces is all on vinyl and comes from a record player near the bar. There is a shuffle board table hidden between the bar and the bathrooms. A window into the brewery can also be viewed on the same walk toward the bathrooms. The beer list is constantly changing and appears on large chalk boards with descriptions of each.

Brewery

Beer List

It is still hard for me to believe that it took me this long to check out Fifty West. It easily met my expectations and I honestly hope it doesn’t take me as long to make a repeat appearance.

I had quite a weekend as far as sampling IPA’s goes. My dad came over on Saturday to help with a home improvement project that I will likely be spending a ton of my free time on before our new baby comes in the next month or so. But that is a topic for another time. During a break in the action we cracked open a couple of bottles of my remaining stash of Bell’s Hopslam. I will admit now that the 10% beer probably isn’t the best beer to have before doing any work with power tools, but the only real damaged items were a couple of broken drill bits.

Once our work for the day was complete we sampled Great Lakes new double IPA, Alchemy Hour. Though I didn’t like it as much as my bottle of Hopslam I had earlier, there is a noticeable sweetness that both beers share. And even though it doesn’t live up to Hopslam, this is still a very solid beer and is one that you can still buy in stores today, unlike Hopslam which hasn’t been available for at least a month.

Alchemy Hour

From there I opened a bottle of the very fresh Enjoy By 04.01.13 from Stone. This was my second time trying the Enjoy By series and I have to admit that the novelty has worn off a bit for me. It felt more unique when the 11.09.12 batch only went to two states. This batch went out to nearly twenty states! With that said, it is still an excellent IPA with a very fresh hop flavor. I bet there are still a few bottles of this around Cincinnati and it is available on tap too. In fact I’m heading out in a few minutes to get a some from the Cock and Bull in Hyde Park.

Enjoy By 04.01.13

On Sunday we were celebrating my grandmother’s 87th birthday. The party was at my grandparents’ house, which always means BYOB. This finally gave me the chance to crack open one of my cans of Heady Topper from The Alchemist. This is one of the highest rated IPA’s out there. In order for me to get my hands on it I had to trade some beer with a friend who lives in the northeast. I received four cans of Heady Topper, four cans of Gandhi Bot, and four cans of 668 Neighbor Of The Beast in exchange for a couple six packs of Hopslam, which he cannot get in his state.

Beer Trade

The Heady Topper was my first beer at the party on Sunday evening and it was delicious! I don’t know for sure that I can say it is my favorite IPA of all time, but it is definitely up there. Picking just one favorite is something that I’ve never been able to do and I don’t see that changing even with such an amazing beer. After a can of Heady I decided to mix it up and try one of the cans of Gandhi-Bot, a double IPA from New England Brewing. This was nearly just as good as the Heady and another example of an excellent double IPA.

I still have extra cans and bottles of all these beers which I will probably start putting a dent in this coming weekend. It is always a good idea to drink IPA’s fresh and often.

This past weekend was Bockfest, the annual celebration of historic Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati’s brewing heritage, and the coming of spring. As we did last year, we took in the parade on Friday from outside Mayberry. At first the staff tried to stop us from taking our plastic cups of Bell’s Consecrator Doppelbock out on the sidewalk, but as the parade approached they gave in and let us go outside.

Schnitzel, The Goat

Arnold’s Bathtub

The Trojan Goat

Bockfest Turns 21

OTR Brewery District

MOTR Pub

The Empire Strikes Bock

Pedal Wagon

We had a great time down at the parade and enjoyed our annual bock beer. The bock beer style is not my favorite, but I’m always up for drinking the correct style at events like this. Once again I didn’t make it to Bockfest Hall, but there is always next year.

In a bit of ridiculous beer news, Elevator Brewing Co. in Columbus, Ohio has re-released their Ghost Scorpion Lager, a beer made with Trinidad Moruga Scorpion and ghost chili peppers. It is regarded as the hottest beer on the planet, according to the Ohio Breweries Beer Blog. In a quote from the previously mentioned blog:

“It’s not quite as dangerous as it was last year,” Elevator owner Dick Stevens said about the new version. “But we still tell people not to drink the stuff.”

You don’t have to tell me twice! I definitely will not be drinking any of this, and this comes from someone who will try nearly any beer out there.

After an awesome Friday night of the Cincy Winter Beerfest with so many friends and family, I was really looking forward to Saturday’s second annual 5B: Believers in Better Beer, Bites and Blogging Conference. You may recall that I attended the inaugural conference last year and had nothing but positive things to say about it.

The lineup for this year was a little different from last but the basic idea was the same, three sessions at a time with one of each focusing on beer, bites, and blogging. We had a little extra time at the beginning this year for the coffee and conversation opening, which was nice as I was able to catch up with people who I had met the year prior and also meet some of the newcomers for this year.

Once we broke out into the hourly sessions, I focused my attention once again on the beer blogging track. The first session featured social media stories (successes and failures) from three local brewery representatives, Jason Brewer of Listermann Brewing, Patrick Clark of Mt. Carmel Brewing and Carla Gesell-Streeter of Rivertown Brewing. Turns out that Jason and Patrick both had stories similar to what Troika Brodsky of Schlafly Beer had last year. They all are performing the social media operations of their breweries in addition to other job functions within their breweries. Carla has recently helped Rivertown with their social media operations and I can attest to what a difference she is making.

Lunch was next and I promise to give a full review tomorrow of a food truck offering that I sampled. New this year was a private beer tasting we had thanks to Heidelberg Distributing, Stagnaro Distributing, Premium Distributing and Lexington Brewing. And once the beers became available many brought their tastings along with them to the afternoon sessions. I feel that this helped loosen the crowd and led to even better conversations.

Richard Dubé

The first session after lunch for the beer track was presented by Richard Dubé, Head Brewer at the Moerlein Lager House, and was titled, “And you say you don’t like beer!” It turns out that Richard gives weekly tours through the brewery at the Lager House and he almost always runs into someone who tells him that they don’t like beer. He then sees this as his personal mission to find a beer that they will in fact like. He says that it is impossible to dislike every beer, so they just haven’t had the beer that is right for them. I often feel the same way about beer and try my hardest to give suggestions to others based on their own personal tastes.

Up next we had the do’s and don’ts of beer blogging as presented by Tom Aguero of Queen City Drinks and Scott LaFollette of Blank Slate Brewing. Tom is a beer blogger and Scott is a new brewery owner, so the two put together a great list of guidelines to follow when doing beer blogging, or any blogging for that matter. Tom had kindly posted the list on his website for reference.

Demystifying The Three-Tier Beer Distribution System

The final session on beer blogging was demystifying the three-tier beer distribution system with Lindsey Bonadonna Roeper of Heidelberg Distributing, Eddie Anderson of the Craft Beer Alliance, Pnut Kahles of Dilly Café and Travis Childs of Everything’s d’Vine. While some may view the three-tier distribution system as pure evil, the panel helped to prove how it is actually beneficial to all the small craft breweries that I love. It may not be a perfect system, but it does help allocate space to the small guys, which probably would not happen if the big guys owned all the stores and distribution systems.

What was originally supposed to follow all the presentations was entry into the Industry Trade Show and Locals Tasting Session, but that was canceled by the Beerfest. Instead we had our own bottle share, glassware swap, and general networking for the next couple of hours. This was an awesome addition to the conference! I was able to sample some rare and hard to find beers thanks to the generosity of other bloggers in attendance. As Tom from Queen City Drinks tweeted, “When founders breakfast stout is the least drank beer you know your somewhere special.”

Just as I said at the end of my post on the Beerfest itself, as long as the conference is held I will definitely be a participant. Thanks Hoperatives.

Welcome!

The majority of this past weekend I spent down at the Duke Energy Convention Center for both nights of the sixth annual Cincy Winter Beerfest as well as the second annual 5B: Believers in Better Beer, Bites and Blogging Conference. This may sound like a similar post from the same events last year, and in some ways it was. Once again the crowds on Friday night were much lighter than the nearly packed house on Saturday night. The added hour of VIP early entry is well worth the extra $10, even on Friday. And despite your best efforts, you will likely still have somewhat of a hangover the following day.

Fifty West

There were also a couple of differences that I noticed throughout the weekend. It actually seemed like crowds were down slightly. Either that or some changes were made to the floor to better spread the crowd. I didn’t see too many excessive lines even during the peak of Saturday’s session, when last year everything was a 10 minute wait or more. Regardless of how it was accomplished it was much appreciated as that was my biggest complaint from last  year.

Listermann

Plus there were even more local breweries available this year. Their booths seemed to get the majority of my attention, at least early on. It is nice to have an ever-growing list of local options when choosing what to drink. Hopefully they all will start appearing in local stores soon, making it even easier to sample their products without having to go into a bar or restaurant.

The Turkeys

On the opposite end I know some people who skipped this year due to an unimpressive lineup of beers. I did notice a few area where it seemed that there were more harder to find beers last year, but that’s what the connoisseur area is for anyway. This year’s connoisseur area was easily twice the size of last year and it offered private restrooms, plenty of harder to find beer, and tables full of finger foods. If that’s your thing it is easily worth the $75 price tag.

Beer Truck

The best part for me is that while doing all the above I was able to enjoy a wide offering of beer with both new and old friends alike. As long as this event is held I will likely be a participant in one way or another.

Credentials

Tonight is the last night for the second annual Cincinnati Beer Week. Just like last year I didn’t make it to nearly as many events as I had originally hoped due to a very busy schedule. Fortunately I can try to make up for it this weekend with tickets to both nights of the Cincy Beerfest.

The one event I did make it to was a draft tapping of Goose Island’s famed Bourbon County Brand Stout, which took place this past Tuesday at The Party Source. This beer is ranked 100 on both BeerAdvocate and RateBeer, truly a world-class beer. This was my first time tasting this delicious beer and man was it good! The 15% stout is aged on bourbon barrels giving it a ton of oak and bourbon flavors, but the base stout is so creamy and full flavored that it is almost too easy to drink. I could have had another serving but there was a one glass limit per person, and the glass was free for me to take home.