This year’s festival presented an even greater turnout than 2014 with a much better organized, more streamlined handling of crowds, vendors and classes. Over 3 days, this gathering of brewers from around the world presented the popular trends of the Germany beer scene along with some “new” trends that have caught on across the pond. This includes sours, barrel ageing and other experimental styles. However, the vendors did not disappoint as they showed their heavy handed hopping at attempts of American Style pale ales.
The crowd was intrigued (to include myself) by Steigel’s Framboise, “Faux Pas”. Delightfully tart and not at all syrupy, this was a nice escape from some of the overly malted, super sweet attempts at sours around the festival.
Another pleasant surprise was the craft line from Welde. Known for their more generic line, they have taken a chance at creating a new breed of homegrown craft brews. This includes the “Badisch Gose” with a Saphir hop freshness and a touch of salinity, “Barrel Aged Bock”, an easy but thin 6.5%, and “Hop Stuff”, a more run of the mill, somewhat mainstream pale ale. As they are just starting, this line has potential to be interesting but needs a bit more work on the mouth feel and body.
The highlight of the festival, as declared by the masses, was the new Schneider Weisse Tap X, “Mathilda Soliel”. This uber fresh, beautifully hopped wheat ale is being imported by B. United International as “M” Homage to the 4th Generation Schneider. This beer is bright, earthy, big bounces of lemon and chewy wheat. This beer is a tribute to Mathilde Schneider, the creator of the world famous dopplebock, “Aventinus”.
A fun and fascinating item that made me come back again and again is the family owned Hopfa Liquor line. Made from locally sourced Hallertau hops, these extremely smooth and drinkable liquids were refreshing and fun at 41% ABV. They produce a 12 herb distilled Hopfa Krauter and an orange infused Hopfa Orange. Also in the line is a hop syrup with orange that was presented mixed with Prosecco and a fresh orange slice. Beautiful!
A few other “notables” included the brightly labeled Buddleship, Crew Republic and Riedenburger Brauhaus. All had one or two interesting outliers, but for the most part were just ok. Buddleship’s “Pumpkin Wheat Ale” is sweet with a bitter middle and is has recently become extremely popular in Asia. Riedenburger Brauhaus tired its hand at a craft line hitting a middle note with its “Dolden Dark” and presented a crisp American style “Dolden IPA”. Crew Republic, a crowd favorite, is a unconventional craft brewery out of Munich. Their “Roundhouse Kick Imperial Stout” was a fun and welcomed knock to the palate. Their “X” series was also impressive with the “X 3.0 Sour Black” being one of my favorites.
Overall, this year’s festival was much more organized, streamlined and exciting. The liquids presented showed the inventive direction that German beers are headed. As compared to the 2014 festival, there seemed to be much more interest from the crowd who are in turn, holding the breweries feet to the fire and pushing them towards innovation. Although they still seem to be a bit behind the times, they are leaps and bounds from where they were last year. Looking forward to see what next year brings!