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Hard Liver 2010

March 23, 2010 By Jay Brooks

hard-liver-8
On Saturday, the 8th annual Hard Liver Barleywine Fest began at Brouwer’s Cafe in Seattle, Washington. People started queuing in line at 9:00 a.m. for the eleven o’clock opening and the line ran up Phinney almost to 36th Street. There were 50 different barley wines and 12 more different vintages for a total of 62 available beers to sample.

Brouwer's on Hard Liver day
Brouwer’s Cafe on Hard Liver Day.

Tables filled with sheets of barleywine while the line for beer behind snaked from the bar
Like the Toronado Barleywine Festival, people camp out at tables to sample and discuss the barley wines, with many managing to work their way through all of the beers.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, this has become one of my favorite niche festivals. Brouwer’s is doing a great job with this barley wine festival and it continues to grow each year with more beers and greater attendance. What many people don’t realize is that it’s not just Saturday, but will continue through the entire next week, until all the barley wines run out. So don’t think you missed it, there’s still time to check out most of the barley wines, which are listed below.

Below is a slideshow of the 2010 Hard Liver Barleywine Fest. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.

Meanwhile, upstairs we deliberated on the final eight
The Final Eight Barley Wines

Barley Wines Available

2009 vintage unless otherwise noted
Bold = Winners / Italics = Reached Final Round

  • Alaskan Big Nugget 2008, 09
  • Anacortes Old Sebastes [3rd Place Winner]
  • Anchor Old Foghorn
  • Anderson Valley Horn of the Beer
  • Avery Hog Heaven 2006, 09
  • Beer Valley Highway to Ale
  • Big Sky Old Blue Hair 2008, 10 [2nd Place Winner, 2008]
  • Black Raven Old Birdbrain
  • Boulder Beer Killer Penguin
  • Boundary Old Boundary
  • Deschutes Mirror Mirror
  • Dicks 2005
  • Dogfish Head Olde School 2008
  • Elliot Bay Pro-Am
  • Elysian Cyclops 2008, 09, 10
  • Firestone Walker Abacus [Honorable Mention]
  • Flying Dog Horn Dog 2008, 09
  • Full Sail Old Boardhead 2008
  • Glacier Brewhouse Old Woody [1st Place Winner]
  • Great Divide Old Ruffian Barley 2008, 09
  • Green Flash
  • Hair of the Dog Doggie Claws
  • Hales Rudyards Rare 2007
  • Hood Canal Breidablik
  • HUB Noggin Floggin
  • Lagunitas Olde Gnarleywine 2008
  • Left Hand Widdershins 2008
  • Lost Abbey Angel’s Share Bourbon
  • Lost Abbey Angel’s Share Brandy 2008
  • Lost Coast Fogcutter
  • Mad River John Barleycorn
  • Moylans Old Blarney
  • Ninkasi Critical Hit
  • North Coast Old Stock Ale 2007, 09
  • Pike Old Bawdy 2006, 07, 08, 09
  • Port Townsend Barleywine 2007
  • Port Townsend Barleywine Wood Firkin
  • Ram Mallwalker
  • Redhook Treblehook
  • Rogue Old Crustacean XS 2008, 09
  • Scuttlebutt Old #1 Barleywine
  • Sierra Nevada Bigfoot 1996, 2009
  • Speakeasy Old Godfather
  • Stone Old Guardian 2010
  • Three Skulls Barleywine
  • Victory Old Horizontal

Filed Under: Beers, Events Tagged With: Barley Wine, Beer Festivals, Seattle, Washington

Knowing Your Limits

March 21, 2010 By Jay Brooks

limits
I woke up again in Seattle, my second day here. Yesterday I helped to choose the winners of the Hard Liver Barleywine Fest at Brouwer’s Cafe. It’s the eighth year of the festival and it’s really grown into an impressive event in the several years I’ve been coming up for it.

But the weekend has got me thinking, not about barley wines, but tasting in general. At these types of festivals, people often try to taste every offering — in small quantities of course — of some very big beers. You see it at the Toronado Barleywine Festival and you see if at Brouwer’s Hard Liver, where this year 50 barley wines will be judged and something like 62 or 66 will be served, owing to multiple vintages of the same beers.

And as impressive as that is, it’s today that has me worried. Each Sunday, the day after the Hard Liver Fest, Matt Bonney hosts, with his business partner Matt Vandenberghe (a.k.a. Vern) and a cast of characters, the private, invitation-only Keene Tasting, named for Dave Keene, who owns the Toronado in San Francisco. With Dr. Bill now working at Stone and no longer doing as many of his legendary tastings, the Keene Tasting is one of the few that follow the format Dr. Bill (at least as far as I know) pioneered.

It’s a simple, if punishing format, where a new beer is opened roughly every five minutes over a period of several hours. So while you never get a large portion of any single beer, you do ultimately taste a lot of different beers. Still, it adds up. There are snack breaks and a lunch break, and those that stick with it can expect to be there eleven or twelve hours. Like many other types of marathons, very few actually reach the finish line, tasting every single beer.

At the beginning, the first beer
Last year something like 160 beers were tasted, beginning around 11:00 a.m. and going well into the evening. That year I made it to 110 beers before reaching my limit.

The year before, I only made it half-way, and dropped out at beer 75, owing to getting very, very sick — not from the beer, just a feverish flu — which I detailed then in Pride Goeth Before A Fall. And that brings me to my point. We all have our limits, and it’s not only good to know them, but also pay them heed.

Matt Bonney keeping things moving
Impressively, one of the improvements Bonney employs over the average Dr. Bill tasting is that a clean glass is used for every beer, a Herculean task if ever there was one.

There are, of course, myriad ways to taste from settling in to drink only one beer, exploring it thoroughly from start to finish, lingering over it as it changes when it warms, really letting it sink in to the very opposite, tasting as many beers as possible, very quickly, and everything in between. Generally, when judging beers in competition, you want no more than nine or ten in a flight and 30 or less for a single session. But that’s just one legitimate way in which beer can be sampled. That may be too many at a time for some people and too few for others.

I know there are people critical of the rapid fire Dr. Bill-style tasting, but I’m not. Is it my favorite way to sample beer? Not necessarily, but it is still quite enjoyable and while you can’t linger over every single beer, you can get a sense of it all the same. There’s a Danish proverb, “better thin beer than an empty jug.” And that’s the rub. I still prefer the opportunity to sample some truly rare beers, even if not under the most ideal circumstances, than not at all. So yes, I’m a relativist when it comes to the marathon tasting but I’m just fine with that. The important thing is to have a good time and know when to walk away. I already know there will be some spectacular beers poured later today and I’m looking forward to giving it another go. Will I make it to the end? Probably not. But that’s okay, there’s no shame in that as far as I’m concerned.

In the words of the immortal Kenny Rogers, equally applicable to drinking as gambling. “You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away and know when to run.” With any luck, I’ll know when to fold and can walk away. Stay tuned for details.

Below is a slideshow of the 2009 Keene Tasting. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.

Filed Under: Beers, Editorial, Events Tagged With: Photo Gallery, Seattle, Tasting, Washington

Hard Liver Barleywine Fest Winners 2010

March 20, 2010 By Jay Brooks

brouwers
Here are the results from the 2010 Hard Liver Barleywine Fest in held at Brouwer’s Cafe in Seattle, Washington:

  • 1st Place: Old Woody ’09; Glacier Brewhouse
  • 2nd Place: Old Blue Hair ’08; Big Sky Brewing
  • 3rd Place: Old Sebastes ’09; Anacortes Brewery
  • Honorable Mention: Abacus; Firestone Walker Brewing

Congratulations to all the winners.

Filed Under: Beers, Events, News Tagged With: Awards, Beer Festivals, Seattle, Washington

Toxic Paint Discovered At Old Rainier Brewery

March 4, 2010 By Jay Brooks

rainier
While the good news is the building may be able to be saved, the bad news is that the iconic Rainier Brewery building in Seattle, Washington is teeming with toxic PCBs from the paint. Here’s the story below, from KING 5 television.

Filed Under: Breweries, News Tagged With: Seattle, Video, Washington

Beer Perfume: My Two Scents

December 28, 2009 By Jay Brooks

perfume
I don’t know how I missed this, but Sweet Anthem, a Washington perfume company, and the Seattle-based recycling company, Blue Marble Energy — whose business model is to”utilize hybridized bacteria to generate biochemical and bioenergy products” — recently announced a perfume made partially with a by-product of brewing. One of the many ingredients in the perfume is “organic spent brewery grain” from nearby Fremont Brewing. Though news stories are calling it beer perfume, apparently it’s much more than that. They start with the spent grain as a base, and process it through their patented AGATE technology, which creates volatile fatty acids. Then, “[t]hrough catalysis, bioesters are then extracted from the volitile fatty acids stream and are ready to be blended with Sweet Anthem’s fragrance oils. The feminine version of EOS is a very modern, bright, floral, tea-based scent, while the masculine or unisex version is characterized by citrus and cognac with hints of powdery apricot.

eos-perfume

According to the Blue Marble website, where you can purchase the perfume, it comes in two fragrances, one for women and the other which they call unisex. The one “for her,” they describe as “a green bright floral, tea-based scent. Very modern and feminine.” It includes “Butyl Proprionate (bioester), Neroli, Tea Rose, Sandalwood and Green Tea.” The unisex version, which most news outlets call the masculine or male version, is described as “citrus and cognac with hints of powdery apricot. Equally appropriate for men and women.” It includes “Propyl Butyrate (bioester), White Ginger, Apricot, Cognac and Honeysuckle.”

Here’s NBC’s story about it. And below is the television report on the perfume by Channel 5 Seattle.

Filed Under: Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: Aroma, Seattle, Washington

Hard Liver Barleywine Fest Results 2009

March 21, 2009 By Jay Brooks

brouwers
Here are the results from the 2009 Hard Liver Barleywine Fest in held at Brouwer’s Cafe in Seattle, Washington:

  • 1st Place: Big Nugget ’07; Alaskan Brewing
  • 2nd Place: Old Godfather ’06; Speakeasy Brewing
  • 3rd Place: Cyclops ’06; Elysian Brewing

Congratulations to all the winners.

Filed Under: Beers, Events, News Tagged With: Awards, Beer Festivals, Seattle, Washington

Pride Goeth Before A Fall

March 18, 2008 By Jay Brooks

The full quote from Proverbs 16:18, at least in the King James’ version, is “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” but the more common shortened version says it all. Essentially, the modern meaning of this proverb is not to be overly confident, especially in yourself, or you’re likely to have something bad happen to put you back in your place. If you allow yourself to become full of pride, you will find yourself humiliated. Be modest, that’s good advice to remember. It’s what happened to me on Sunday, and I offer up my cautionary tale by way of illustration.

I’ve done my fair share of prolonged drinking over the years, and rarely have I not been able to muddle through to the end. We (and by we I mean those of us who have been regularly attending GABF for many years) generally say about the Great American Beer Festival—by way of advice—that it’s a marathon, not a sprint to suggest that pacing is very important to a full enjoyment of the week’s events. So when I was invited to the 4th annual Keene Tasting on Sunday, the day after the Hard Liver Barleywine Fest at Brouwer’s Cafe, it simply never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be still standing after twelve hours and 150 beers. Alas, my body had other plans for me.

At 11:00 a.m., with our first beer of the day. Things went fine through the first 50 beers or so, when suddenly and quite unexpectedly I felt cold shivers shoot through my body. Initially undaunted, I assumed that the open windows letting in the fresh Seattle air had simply chilled the room so I put on my jacket and resumed tasting. But after another half-hour of involuntarily shivering it became obvious that all was not well and my body had decided to pitch a fit. I felt fine, apart from the chills, and struggled through until we almost reached the half-way point, 75 beers, and it was time for another break. I hunkered down in a comfy chair during the break and tried to will myself to warm up, but it did no good. When tasting resumed, I stayed put figuring I should not ignore my body’s tantrum, and still hoped it was just a temporary thing and my recovery was minutes away. A few kind souls asked if I was okay (perhaps I looked as bad as I felt) and I nodded and muttered that I was fine. But as more time passed and I was feeling worse, I decided to spare myself further humiliation and called in the evacuation troops — my wife — to come and collect me. About an hour later I was standing out front shivering in the cold and waiting for her arrival to whisk me to safety and nurse me back to health. This proved trickier than I might have imagined. Whether my weekend drinking had finally lowered my immune system to the point where I got the flu that’s been circulating in my friends and family for weeks or I simply drank too much, too fast, I can’t really say. All I know is that my chills turned to heat as I burned off a fever so bright that my wife said my skin was hot to the touch like an old-fashioned radiator and that she couldn’t even lie near me because I was radiating so much heat. By morning I only felt lousy, a distinct improvement. But that was nothing compared to the disappointment at not finishing the tasting. Perhaps I was at least a source of amusement for those I left behind, as I heard Bonney calling my name from the window above me as I waited for my ride. I called up, but I don’t think he heard me. C’est la vie. There’s always next year.


Our hosts, Vern and Bonney, the two Matts, during a toast to Michael Jackson’s memory with the beer made by Pike Brewing for the Michael Jackson Tribute dinner held the night before in Philadelphia. The first half of the tasting I enjoyed immensely, right up to the point where I had to leave or die.

For many more photos from at least the first half of the Keene Tasting, including some bottle shots of the beers sampled, visit the photo gallery.

Filed Under: Beers, Editorial, Just For Fun Tagged With: Personal, Photo Gallery, Seattle, Tasting, Washington

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