Compliments of the Washington Beer Commission, here is a preview of the upcoming Washington Brewers Festival.
For Immediate Release
What’s pouring at
“The Mother of All Fathers Day Festivals”
2009 WASHINGTON BREWERS FESTIVAL
Friday, June 19th–Sunday, June 21st, 2009 Ÿ Saint Edward State Park
Kenmore, WA- This Fathers Day Weekend the Washington Brewers Festival will return to Saint Edward State Park with a monstrous beer list. The Festival kicks off on Friday evening with an intimate 21+ only affair exclusively featuring Washington breweries. It will be a can’t-miss event for beer connoisseurs since many breweries will be bringing Friday-exclusively beers which are often smaller-batch, experimental brews. Then guests can choose from a full beer lineup featuring nearly 200 beers from 60 breweries on Saturday and Sunday. With that many beers on tap everyone is bound to discover a new favorite beer or two. Here are some of the beers that will be pouring at the Festival:
NW classics There is never a shortage of NW style hoppy beers at this event. After all, it is the “Washington Brewers Festival”. There will be over 30 varieties of IPA’s alone, including such classics like Boundary Bay IPA, a few Belgian IPA’s (Big Al Belgian IPA and Elliott Bay Organic Hop von Boorian) and Double IPA’s (Hale’s Aftermath IPA, Big Time Double Decade IPA and Pike Double IPA which was brewed as the inaugural Seattle Beer Week Beer earlier this year). Also not to be missed is the only continuously-hopped IPA brewed on the west coast by Cashmere Brewing Co. who is going to make their first Brewers Fest appearance this year.
Summer seasonals Now the sun is out more often and temperature is soaring, so is the demand for refreshing summer seasonals. There will be many thirst quenchers such as crisp and clean lagers, Hefeweizens, Blondes and other summer seasonals. Try The Golden Boot by Elysian, Honey Big E Summer Creamsicle, Big Al Summer Lager and Issaquah Brewhouse White Frog.
Art of darkness While many people opt for something light and refreshing there are always some that want to rebel and prefer darker beers regardless of the temperature outside. For those rebels there will be plenty of dark, robust beers including Quilter’s Irish Death by Iron Horse, Black Frog Stout by Snoqualmie Falls, Hooskal Stout by Skoooum (a Friday beer) and Flyer’s award-winning Pacemaker Porter.
“Real” ales Every year an increasing number of breweries are bringing cask-conditioned beers (also known as “real ale”), a welcome trend for many cask fans. Diamond Knot will bring a different cask beer each day while Silver City will have two throughout the weekend (Cask Whoop Pass IPA and Fat Scotch). Anacortes will be pouring their popular Cask IPA (a Friday beer) which has won the Cask Festival People’s Choice Awards multiple times. Another cask-conditioned Friday beer is Cask Black Pilsner, Scuttlebutt’s highly inventive new brew.
Fruity beers Summer is a farmers market season and restaurant chefs are not the only ones who get inspirations by fresh produce. There are many beers brewed with a variety of fruits such as Northern Lights Blueberry Cream, Schooner Exact Seamstress Union (Raspberry Wheat), Rock Bottom Black Cherry Saison, and Trade Route Mango Weizen.
“Rootbeer” Garden The “Mother of All Fathers Day Festivals” promises to cater to the entire family which means kids deserve the highest quality products just like their Mom and Dad do. In the Rootbeer Garden presented by Washington Beer kids will get to enjoy the finest rootbeer and soda brewed by Big E Ales, Boundary Bay, Fremont Brewing, Gallagher’s, Lazy Boy, Rock Bottom, Silver City and Trade Route.
New Kids on the Block Every year the Festival introduces new breweries to thousands of beer aficionados and this year’s no exception. Black Raven Brewing who’s been receiving rave reviews since they opened in April will make its festival debut, as well as Fremont Brewing who is scheduled to open in June will be pouring Universale Pale and Interurban IPA. Also new to the Festival are Big Al Brewing, Chuckanut Brewery & Kitchen and Three Skulls Ales.
The Washington Brewers Festival will take place on June 19th-21st at Saint Edward State Park. Admission is $15 on Friday (advance and at the door) and $20 advance and $25 at the door on Saturday and Sunday. Designated driver admission is $8 and available at the door only. Minors are admitted free (must be accompanied by a parent). Tickets are available online (www.washingtonbeer.com/wabf.htm) and at the outlets. Due to the recent maintenance work at Saint Edward State Park parking space is very limited. There will be a $15 on-site parking fee on Saturday and Sunday (free on-site parking on Friday). On-site parking passes are also available via the festival web site and advance purchase is required. The Festival also encourages guests to take public transportations or park in one of the designated off-site parking lots and take FREE shuttle bus to the Park. Parking and shuttle information is available online at www.washingtonbeer.com.
You can see a full beer list here.
Why is this event — one that is narrowly-focused on drinking alcoholic beverages — repeatedly held way out there where there is little to no public transportation? The park is pretty, but Seattle Center is a much better location for a large beer festival.
Phil – While I think the park is a beautiful location, I too wish that the festival was more centrally located.
If everything went well, it would take me two busses and about 75 minutes to get to either the Kenmore or Kingsgate P&R, and I’d then still have to take the shuttle bus to the park. With wait time, I’d figure about 3 hours to 3 1/2 hours of round trip transportation if I want to take the bus to this event.
The only defense I can think of is that Seattle proper gets plenty of “easy to get to” festivals…maybe their intentions are to have this one out there as a treat to people that live in the burbs?
Maybe it’s selfish, but I’d look forward to this festival much more if it were in Seattle Center or somewhere else central.
I didn’t attend this last year, and probably won’t this year, because it’s too hard to get to. You shouldn’t have to drive to a beer festival – that’s a dangerous way to encourage drunk driving.
And this year they’re charging $15 for parking?? So you would have to find/bribe a designated driver, drive to a suburb, and then pay to park in this suburb. They suggest public transportation, but what public transportation? When I looked into it last year there was only like one bus that could get me to Kenmore and its schedule doesn’t run that often on the weekends and would take quite a while.
Kaiser, I’m less concerned about the convenience of a central location than about the ability for large numbers of people to get to and from the event without driving.
As for a “treat to people who live in the suburbs”: I’m not very concerned with that. People who choose to live way out there in the sprawl presumably do so with the knowledge that they will need to drive anywhere they want to go in exchange for their inexpensive property. I have little interest in providing them with a beer festival to drive to. If this even was held in Seattle, they could drive to the nearest park and ride lot and take a bus in if it’s too far to drive. Either way, they’re going to drink and drive unless they find a designated driver.
It’s irresponsible of the Brewer’s Guild to hold this event at a location from which they know almost every attended will be driving.
s/attended/attendee/
Hey Phil – I definitely understood…I was implying that centrally located = easy for more people to get to w/out driving.
And I completely agree once again…I don’t think the possible reason I pointed out is a good one for having it out there, just one of the few I can think of:-)
FYI, P. Fruit Trees lays out a good reason that they continue to hold the festival out at St. Edwards in the comments for this post on the Washington Beer Blog:
http://washingtonbeerblog.com/2009/06/02/washington-brewers-fest-parking-transportation-news/#comments
For those like myself that don’t have children, it’s easy to forget this side of the beer festival. There have been lots of kids at this event in the past, so it must be something that gets people out there…I just hope those parents hauling their kids home are responsible enough to watch what they drink.
I just wanna say that Big E’s rootbeer is so effin’ good! Wish they bottled it….
Washington Brewers Festival and Lagerfest Coming Up This Weekend // Jun 17, 2009 at 6:05 am
[…] festivals of the year and takes place out at Saint Edward State Park in Kenmore, WA. You can see a preview of the festival here. Also, the Pickled Liver recently pointed out that Elliott Bay Brewing has a bus shuttle heading to […]
Quit complaining! St Edwards is a beautiful park with so much to offer! Who wouldn’t want to drink beers in one of Washingtons sweetest parks! The location is great!
Oh and I think that a lot of peole that live in the burbs are not there for the inexpensive property, some yes, but the avid and adventurous beer drinkers probably not. Maybe it has something to do with escaping the crazy city, traffic, noise and what not? I don’t know, just a thought…..
And no I do not live in the suburbs, but in the city, just have a soft spot for the beauty our city has right in its backyard!
See you all at the festival! If not, too bad for you…