Regular readers of this humble beer column likely know what this month’s installment is about: The Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Festival.
Firestone Walker was kind enough to once again invite me, and I made the trek to Paso Robles at the end of May to enjoy what is the best beer festival I have experienced.
For those who aren’t familiar, let me quickly recap what goes down every year. Firestone invites their brewer friends to Paso Robles for the weekend and typically releases a collaborative brew made with an attending brewery. (This year’s was made with Half Acre Brewing and was a tasty American pilsner.) On Saturday, the festival commences with said breweries and local eateries providing different kinds of food to enjoy. (This year, a tuna ceviche stole the show for me.) The food, beer and live music are all baked into the price of the tickets, which are increasingly harder to get, but incredibly worthwhile.
Just one of many blessings that come with receiving a press pass is the accompanying VIP ticket to the fest. This means entering one hour early, which I did on a gorgeous, sunny, 80-degree day. The festival’s app allows attendees to view the breweries’ beer lists and make a wish list of beers. I grabbed some quick bites of food to build the crucial base in my stomach and walked over for my first pour of the day: Pliny for President from Russian River Brewing. If I had been shrewder, I would have spent that VIP hour making it to every brewery I knew would have a huge line later, but I instead chose the usual tack of enjoying myself at my own pace. This avoids any stress at what should be a great time from start to finish, but carries the consequence of me missing out on some breweries I’d otherwise like to try. This year’s huge lines were reserved for New Zealand’s Garage Project, Trillium, Side Project and a few others—but waiting in long lines at beer festivals is something that offends me to the very core of my being, so those will have to wait for another year.
I stopped and tried everything on offer at Wildflower Brewing & Blending‘s booth and had a lovely conversation with Topher about his beer and how everything is going in Australia. I won’t recap everything, as I gushed about his beers in last year’s column, but the barrel-aged sour ales are all brilliant, and the 2.9% alcohol-by-volume table beer was bright as could be with organic Motueka hops. I hope to someday enjoy their beers in their taproom outside of Sydney. There are not enough breweries doing stuff like they are—due in part to the dedication, passion, knowledge and creativity required to pull it off.
Before the large general-admission crowd entered, I was able to catch up with Julian Shrago of Beachwood Brewing. Julian is an old friend I met through friends who attended the University of California, Santa Barbara, and we share two passions: music (especially metal) and beer. We spent most of the time in a corner so I could hear the guitar tones he got thanks to our mutual friend, Ross, who is both an excellent guitarist and recording engineer. I was professional enough on our walk over to try an excellent Yuzu Session Ale at the booth of Yo-Ho Brewing (which came all the way from Nagano, Japan!), and to ask Julian how he felt about 10 years of Firestone Walker Invitationals. He said he’d been invited to all of them.
“It’s an honor, and I don’t take it for granted,” he said, adding that he strives to bring his best beer—and that goes for the Beachwood Blendery half of their killer craft-beer equation, which brought an amazing barrel-aged sour inspired by a Manhattan cocktail, with vanilla beans, maraschino cherries and Amburana wood chips. The New Zealand-hopped pale ale, Silver Fern, was equally tasty and very crushable. Find a Beachwood location—and go.
Speaking of Amburana wood, Revolution Brewing had a new trick up their sleeve. They consistently bring the most refined and delicious barrel-aged strong ales at every invitational. Rioter’s Reserve 2024 is “triple bourbon barreled, double French oaked, Amburana-finished imperial stout.” At 19% ABV, this big boy is rich with dark fruit, chocolate vanilla and so much more, including the contribution from the Amburana, which imparts a flavor very similar to a cinnamon roll with icing.
I spoke at length with brewer Jim Cibak, mostly about the possibilities with Amburana, a wood native to Brazil that is huge in craft brewing today. He said the beer touched the barrel for a mere 48 hours in order to emerge with a distinct cinnamon flavor. I brought up the possibility of aging something longer and using it to blend into other barrel-aged beers, and he thought it was a good idea. All I ask is to be able to taste the results—but I usually have to wait until the next invitational to try anything from this Chicago brewery. Rioter’s Reserve and the Stoopermassive Cafe Deth barrel-aged coffee imperial stout (at a mere 14.9% ABV) were my winners yet again for best barrel-aged beers at the fest.
I’m running out of space, and I feel like I’ve barely touched the surface. I was able to try two helles lagers side by side, from Germany’s FrauGruber and Oregon’s Heater Allen. Both were superb. I talked mostly about metal with Austin from Oakland’s Ghost Town while I sipped a Geisterfaust lager, and talked to Scott from Balter Brewing from Queensland, Australia, while I tried an IPA with NZH-109 hops that gave it a fruity, piney, slightly peppery character. Blackberry Farm from Tennessee had a killer saison that brought me back 15 years, to when people cared about saisons. After a nice conversation with a couple of women from Orlando, I was pointed toward Tampa Bay’s Green Bench, whose export lager and Alsatian pilsner were both simple and beautiful.
As I spent the last hour trying to get different brewers together for collaborations, I wound down and felt a warm feeling in my heart. The year since the last invitational was a tough one for me, but I made it, and it was worth it all. Thank you, Firestone—and keep up the brilliant work.
