Thoughts on Beer

Welcome to Brewfest!

Just a reminder that the 2012 Iowa City Northside Octoberfest / Brewfest is this weekend, with the Brewfest on Saturday.

It looks to be an exciting year, since the number of Iowa breweries has grown in the last year, as well as a few new out-of-state breweries (Schlafly, Founders, Tallgrass Brewing, and Green Flash to name a few), not to mention the new Backpocket Brewery in Coralville.

The most recent addition to Iowa’s shelves is Stone Brewing out of Escondido, California.

Hope to see you there!

Backpocket Brewery Tour

The time has finally arrived!  The new Coralville Backpocket Brewery will be opening this week.  There are pre-registered soft openings Tuesday through Thursday, leading up to the public opening this Friday, June 8.

We plan on making it sometime this weekend, so hope to see you then!

Festival of Iowa Beers

Last Sunday was the 7th annual Festival of Iowa Beers, and each year it continues to grow. This year,all the Iowa breweries, including the newly-named Backpocket Brewing, and many of the Iowa homebrew clubs participated.

Overall, it was a great day, and a great day for beer, with interesting beers from the commercial breweries, including a new Extreme Series beer, a dark rye, from Millstream Brewing.

Just like the previous Festivals, the homebrew tent offered the most interesting beers, including several barrel-aged beers, including an imperial stout aged in a Templeton Rye barrel, along with several meads and ciders .  My favorites from the homebrew tent were the Templeton Rye barrel-aged stout, an Imperial Wit, a Duvel clone, and a Munich Helles.

As always, I look forward to next year’s festival.  Did you make it out to the festival?  What were your favorites?

Some of the Backpocket Offerings

As we stated back in February, Old Man River Brewing (or as they are officially known, Backpocket Brewing) will be coming to the Coralville Landing area, just south of interstate 80, exit 242 in Coralville.  The company announced the news yesterday, with a planned opening next summer.

We look forward to welcoming the new brewery!