AZ Beer Week 2016: Part the First
Like last year, we’ve been participating in several events
over the past 10 days or so to celebrate AZ Beer Week 2016. Here’s a recap of the shenanigans so far!
As in 2015 (thanks to Facebook for reminding me of this), we
started out Beer Week with dinner and a special tapping at one of our west-side breweries, Dubina Brewing Company.
Dubina’s been open for a few years now, and they continue improving
their beer and food offerings; it’s become one of our favorite local spots to
grab a solid pint and meal and hang out with friendly people in a laid-back
setting while not breaking the bank.
This year, the first special tapping was the Arrowhead IPA aged in
wooden barrels; it was also slightly sour, having been infused with
brettanomyces (aka Brett), a yeast that gives beer this particular
quality. Chris actually ordered the beer
as I was in charge of transportation, but I had a small sip, and it was quite
good. We split a buffalo chicken salad
and Philly cheese steak sandwich, and both were delicious as well. Of course, we’ll be back!
While we were waiting for food at Dubina, we plotted out our
plan of attack for Strong Ale Fest, to be held in a few days. This was our 4th year at Strong Ale
Fest, and our 3rd year purchasing VIP tickets which allow access to
the event 90 minutes earlier than the general opening. In past years, we’ve just wandered from booth
to booth, thoroughly enjoying ourselves; however, this time, since we’ve now
been trying unique beers for several years, we wanted to focus in on the really
special stuff at certain, key booths.
Essentially, we wanted to get all beer snobby up in this hizzy (also, I
really, really, really like to plan things).
We took a look through the comprehensive list of which breweries were
coming and which beers they were bringing, the special tapping timetable, and
the event map, planning which were our top priorities and where we would be
roughly every hour, so we could avoid random wandering as in past years. I took our notes home and came up with a
spreadsheet to go with the map, marking key areas to hit up. Heck yeah, I did.
On the day of Strong Ale Fest, I first had to do a long run;
I mean, I am training for another marathon, and I’ve learned from experience
that no physical fitness happens the day after the Fest.
While that meant I had to wake up early, I figured it was good to start
the day with a significant calorie deficit, seeing as how I’d be imbibing quite
a bit throughout the day.
The activity counter
on my Suunto.
This whole day would be rather intense.
We drove to the park and ride at the Light Rail station at
Montebello and 19th Avenue, currently the northern terminus for the
line. We hopped on the rail which
dropped us off directly outside the festival venue, at Indian Steele Park,
about 15 minutes before the VIP admission was set to open. We joined the lines already building in front
of the entrance, soon finding a few other buddies coming from the Tempe area.
Storm the gates!
They can’t stop us all!
It seemed that there was some sort of issue with the
wristbands for the event (either the entrance officials weren’t quick enough in
putting them on people or they were misplaced), because we didn’t actually make
it inside the venue until noon, about 30 minutes after we should have. While this may not seem like a huge issue,
this significantly cut into our 90 minute head start on the GA masses, and
since we paid significantly more for VIP tickets, there was some justifiable
grumbling.
Anywhoo, we eventually made it inside to officially start
our day. Jake was doing a solid for the
Arizona Society of Homebrewers (ASH) and volunteering to pour beer for one of
the breweries visiting from out of town.
Part of the perks for this gig was a free pass for someone else to come
to the festival, and Matt was Jake’s lucky recipient; once we were inside the
gates, we happily joined Matt, as he’d already begun his tasting for the
day. We also said a quick “hello” to
Jake, pouring at the Mother Earth stand:
“Hi, Jake!”
Okay, back to beer tasting!
We started out following the plan Chris and I constructed,
but as sometimes happens (particularly when the folks involved are drinking
strong beer), eventually the plan went out the window and we just tasted
whatever we felt like as we wandered along.
This was totally fine, and all of us ended up having a great time. We ran into more friends (hi, Murph and
Molly!) and after his shift was over, Jake ended up joining us, along with
another Gore buddy, John, who also volunteered.
Also as normal, we tasted some really great stuff (most of the things at
the Four Peaks tent), some things that were disappointing (Grand Canyon’s
“Scotchy Scotch Scotch”), and some cool surprises (also Grand Canyon, but their
“Pistachi-Yo!”).
Before the event, I thought it might be fun to see how far
we ended up walking, so I remembered to wear my Suunto to record our
wanderings. We ended up covering around
1.7 miles, but the best part of the data consolidated was the map that occurred. Strong Ale Fest, in graphic from:
See how we started out
all orderly,
near the bottom right of the map,
and then everything dissolved into madness?
Yup, that’s Strong Ale Festival.
Chris and I ended up heading out around 3:30, completely full
of both food and liquid (it is possible to have a 100% blood alcohol
level?). We hopped back on the Light
Rail to the park and ride, where we changed into clean shirts and headed to the
nearby movie theater for an early evening showing of “Deadpool,” which was
completely delightful (seriously, we loved every second of it – so good!).
Pre-sobering up selfie
with Deadpool.
Duck face!
After the movie, we were ready to drive home (or at least
Chris was), so we walked back and hopped in the car, stopping at Papa Murphy’s
for a take and bake pizza and some cookie dough. We finished out our evening watching “Top
Chef,” eating junk food, and hanging out with our fuzzy kiddos.
The next day was Valentine’s Day, and I awoke to find a
lovely bouquet of white roses on the kitchen counter for me along with a bag of
Ghirardelli dark chocolate and sea salt caramel chocolate squares. OMG.
The man knows me. Once Chris
headed downstairs, he opened his gift from me, a set of chocolates made by the
folks at Moonstruck Chocolates (an Oregon based firm) featuring chocolates
inspired by beer from four different Oregon breweries.
In addition to all of these sweet gifts, Chris also
demonstrated his culinary prowess by making homemade ravioli! I helped out by making the filling (mushroom
and cheese based), but he handled the really difficult part, making the dough
and feeding it through the hand-cranked rolling machine. Check this out:
Voila!
Delicious!
Up next on the blog, AZ Beer Week continues with a few more
events…
Later!
Amy
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