Extreme Beer Fest, Tree House, Jacks Abby, And Trillium Brewing
Greetings Everyone, I’m Tyler, a Certified Cicerone ® working in the craft beer industry in Philadelphia. Craft beer, good food, traveling and photography are my passions. Growing up I realized at a young age that food was a very important part of my family’s culture and has translated into my adult life working in the craft beer industry because as you know, good food and good beer go hand in hand. Growing up my father was always working on projects at home after work and many of those projects were homebrewing. I can vividly remember the first time I smelled the wort while my father was mashing in. It is a smell that reminds me of my father homebrewing to this day and one that I don’t think will ever grow old. I didn’t realize it at the time, that my childhood influences would end becoming both my career and my passion. One of the perks of working in the industry is the ability to attend the best beer related events throughout the country. Recently, I was able to attend Extreme Beer Fest and several up and coming breweries that have been on my radar. Here are my thoughts: Extreme Beerfest
- I would like to commend the team over at Beer Advocate for such a well-run festival. They definitely did not over-sell tickets which I greatly appreciated. If lines were long you usually waited no more than 10-15 minutes to sample those beers. When the gates opened at 6pm the line was relatively long and I was near the back, which moved very quickly.
- I have been to both Great American Beer Festival (GABF) and Savor for the past two years, and now having been to EBF I would say their beer lineup is on par with both of these credible beer fests.
- The only gripe I have with EBF was the generic plastic cups, which is just me being critical.
My Top 10 Beers from the festival
- Funky Buddha Schnozzberry Gose
- Funky Buddha Passionfruit Berliner Weisse
- Cigar City Margarita Gose
- Toppling Goliath King Sue
- Half Acre Double Daisy
- Treehouse Double Shot
- Firestone Lil Mikkel
- Nebco Coriolis
- Cascade Figaro
- Allagash Avance
After surviving the Friday night session I woke up early on Saturday to take buyers and friends to the Barrel Room at the Samuel Adams Boston Brewery to try their uncarbonated funky Belgian Ale known as Kosmic MotherFunk. KMF has all 3 strains of Brett, and is aged for up to 18 months in Hungarian Oak Foedrs. The barrel room also houses a large number of barrels which age Utopias, Triple Bock, and Millennium. It is a pretty awesome sight to see the sheer number of these barrels.
Sam Adams Utopia Barrels
Tree House Brewing After we finished drinking KMF directly from the Foedrs we hit the road and took a 90 minute drive to Tree House Brewing. I must admit it’s a beautiful drive on the way through the Western Massachusetts Countryside.
Tree House Brewing
Tree House Brewing
Jack’s Abby
Jacks Abby Tap List
Trillium Brewing Co.
Our last stop of the day was Trillium Brewing Company. We left Jack’s Abby around 4:30pm hoping to make it to Trillium by 5:15pm. However, we hit traffic on our way and I was forced to exit the vehicle and run four blocks, hitting the front door at exactly 5:59pm. Although I walked through the door one minute before they closed up shop I was still able to fill numerous growlers due to their extremely friendly staff. While waiting for my growlers to be filled I was able to walk around and admire how beautiful their tasting room is. That Saturday happened to be the release of Mettle, a Double IPA in honor of their one year anniversary. I was also lucky enough to have tried their Fort Point Pale Ale earlier in the week which is an exceptional and juicy pale ale.
Trillium Brewing Taps
Trillium Brewing Growler
