Canfest – upon reflection

I have a few more photos of Canfest to display so I thought I would sprinkle some in amongst my review of the event.

There were really only two items when you talk Canfest. The Beer pairing dinner and the event itself. Both of which were well done and fun. That is a great start. But what I would add in future versions is to have a Canfest bus that you buy a ticket to that will take you to Buckbean, Silver Peak and Great Basin as well as the wonderful Craft wine and beer store. Give a flavor of the Reno craft beer scene.

As far as the events themselves, the dinner and awards is in it’s infancy but was a good, solid dinner. I really like the idea of using last years winners as the beers to pair with. But I would have loved to see a dark beer in the mix. Even though the best pairing was the dessert with an IPA which I thought was a great and unexpected pairing. I would also add a visual component to the awards portion. Just a simple name of category and winner slide would suffice.

The main event hit most of my requirements for a festival. Water was available. The space was large enough for the amount of tickets. Beer was plentiful. And what I really liked was the fact that it was such a wide geographic sampling. South Dakota. Alaska. Arizona. Oregon. Kansas. I would have loved to see Sixpoint, Two Beers, Good People or Surly or some other East Coast influence too. But that is greed on my part.

Overall a very fun trip and if you like the brewery list. I recommend giving Canfest a whirl.

Oh and a Buckbean is a marsh dwelling plant of the Tahoe area that has bitter characteristics, much like a hop. There is a reason why hops are used in beer and not the buckbean though.