Iowa beer fests--now and then

Reading through my feeds, I came across this review of the Iowa Craft Beer Fest 2012.  Looks like a really good time and got me thinking of the only festival I've attended in my home state of Iowa.

Only a year into this hobby, my wife and I attended the Brewfest in Des Moines in 2002.  A small festival at that time, we sampled nearly as many new beers at Court Avenue Brewing as we did at the festival.  At least those I recorded.  I remember drinking  beers that I had already imbibed, even that early in my tasting career. The best samples of the fest were Rogue's Mocha Porter and Boston Beer's Octoberfest followed by Blue Cat's Hefeweizen, none of which are from Iowa.

The Brewfest is still going on and seems to have improved, slightly.  However, it's still mostly regionals and imports like Rogue and Unibroue with a few locals mixed in.  Less of a craft beer fest than beers distributed in an area, similar to the City Pages Beer Festival that I attended years ago.  I have since learned my lesson and I wouldn't go to either today, but we all make mistakes when we're learning.

So, it's been a decade since I've done a festival in Iowa.  Organized by the Iowa Brewers Guild, the ICBF looks like a very promising festival.  With this bit of information, inklings of improving Iowa beer quality from various articles that have crossed my path and a positive experience in 2008 for a day trip to Worth Brewing in Norwood, Iowa,  it's clear to me that Iowa deserves another chance.

Road trip, anyone?

Rogue Ales (Newport, OR)

We made a wrong turn to the Rogue Ale House and found
one of the best sunsets we've ever seen.  

10/22/06

Rogue Brewer's on the Bay is in an old boat dock converted to brewery, bar, and restaurant. Kinda fun walking through the brewery up to the bar. View from the restaurant into the harbor is good, and we saw some sea lion butt going under out the window. Fun place with lots on tap. Tables on the "patio" are outside in the brewery, which would be a lot of fun on working day. Tables and lights were kegs cut in half and put together for fixtures, consistent with the Rogue attitude discussed below.


We drove up the Oregon coast for the day and held out for dinner at Rogue.  Mistake for us. Starved and nothing was vegetarian (even the cheese soup) except standard pub grub, so we ended up eating cheese bread and onion rings; adequate but nothing special.  Service was helpful but spotty.

The tour was a lot of fun and worth the trip.  Rogue is very much about getting the beer done right regardless of how it looks, so the mish mash brewery was interesting to see. Free beer on the tour, and lots of info and they were working hard to make sure we had a good time.

Beer is what you'd expect from Rogue—good and lots of it: Mocha Porter, Honey Orange Wheat, Russian Imperial, and OC on my tasting list for the stop. Good day though a bit pricey.

We spent the afternoon in Newport and had a great time with the sea lions on the dock and hanging out. Ended up with dinner at the Rogue Public House after an absolutely spectacular sunset. Public house had spent grain pizza which was much better than the food on the bay.