Iowa City Brewfest 2012 is Saturday

Welcome to Brewfest!
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!

Schlafly Biere de Garde

Schlafly Biere de Garde
Schlafly Biere de Garde

The last few weeks, I have been traveling around, going out to New Jersey then down to Saint Louis.  Because we drove to each place, it gave me the opportunity to bring back some beer not available in Iowa, such as some from Oskar Blues, Avery, and Schlafly.

One of the beers I brought back from Saint Louis was Schlafly’s Biere de Garde.  I’ve had many different saison farmhouse ales, but this is one of the only biere de gardes I’ve had.  Without trying to sound too simple, saisons tend to be a bit lower in alcohol with a bit more hop flavor.

This beer was a very nice farmhouse ale.  It smelled very fruity with a bit of Belgian funkiness.  The flavor had a nice malty backbone with just a little but of hop flavor.  This was a great find, and I’m glad I had the chance to try one.

Have you had the Schlafly Biere de Garde?  What did you think?