Great Taste: final

Three words: real ale tent. If I had known about this, I would have made a bee-line and hunkered down in there like I was having a zero-day. A tent full of cask-conditioned kegs, unfiltered, British style (including not being ass-cold), and cask ales are fermented for a second time in the cask or firkin. This tent is a great example of a growing trend in the US for cask style beer, someday we'll get our own version of CAMRA which is kinda like a Slow Food for "British" style beer and pub culture. Keeping it real yo.

Surly brewing company out of Minnesota. Best name: Teabag Furious, which is a malty IPA-like reddish beer with some tea tossed in somehow. Maybe added post hops, who knows but the beer had a nice tannic taste that was a great palate-cleaner, coppery hue, medium beige head and cloudy with the tea. Tasted more like a good ESB than the usual overly hoppy IPA. Cask style oak-aged Bender was pretty sweet too, lovely low carbonation strong oak taste with a heavy mouthfeel. The best taste from Surly was the Darkness 08. Even the name sounds cool. This Russian IPA-style beer (correction: Russian Imperial Stout NOT Ale holy shit shoot me) had alot going on taste-wise but it all worked: big mouthfeel, black as sin, chocolate, rum, molasses, vanilla, caramel, blackberry/rassberry, oak. The hops ass-smacking aftertaste prevented the Darkness from being too sweet and heavy.

Summit oatmeal ale had a slight bitter taste that came after the initial sweetness. I could literally taste oatmeal, overall it was one of the more unique oatmeal ales I've tried.

Sadly, I missed some really limited ales because I wasn't terribly aware of this tent. I'll do better next year.

On a side note: we were kinda expecting some sort of amateur hour. I mean, 5,000 people with unlimited beer? But this festival is apparently some serious shit, I saw very very few amateurs. No fights, hardly any police (in Atlanta if there were 5000 people drinking, the cops would be thick as fleas). And drunk buses to take you across town. What more could you want? I think we'll be tailgating for tickets next year, I'm not missing this one.