Tag: Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest

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Review – Trailing West – Firestone Walker Invitational Collaboration

This year the special Firestone Walker Invitational collaboration beer partner is Half Acre Beer. And the beer is Trailing West Pilsner.

First off, I am so glad any time a summer beer festival chooses a lighter beer style for their marquee beer. It is just smart. That being said, this is the first year of the FWIBF beers that I have been really m’eh on.

Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe past beers have set a high bar. Either way this beer is not a favorite of mine. Firstly, it is labeled as a pilsner but it seems more a lager to me so right from the jump, I am on the back foot. It is also got a weird mix of corn and minerality that doesn’t mesh for me. If they called it a midwest lager, I would have rated it higher. But if pilsner was the target, they missed.

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Ahead & East

Each year Firestone Walker finds a partner and concocts their own Festbier and the style has run the beer gamut. Now we know this years beer is….

“Trailing West is this year’s Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Festival signature, collaborative release. A limited-edition pilsner made with our friends at Half Acre Beer, the recipe pairs a decoction mash of an Austrian barley variety over 100 years old with old-world Hersbrucker and Hallertaur Mittelfruh hops.”

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Tomorrow @ 10AM

One of my favorite parts of the Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Festival brewery announcement is finding the new invitees, seeing which foreign breweries are flying in and the number of my home state, Oregon breweries (7 this year!) in attendance.

There is not really a weak link in the bunch. But let me take a different tack this year, there are a few breweries that I would bench for a year to let in a few more fresh faces.

Revolution out of Chicago is great but I would love to see Funkytown or Turner Haus involved to bring a bit of diversity in.

Omnipollo and Garage Project garner big lines. I mean big lines but I would like to see some English or Scottish micros in California, The Kernel or Thornbridge come to mind.

I would also like to see a Mexican craft brewery involved as well, I think that would add a new dimension to the festival. Or maybe Bow & Arrow out of New Mexico.

I think removing the big line breweries would have the effect of creating more exploration. Instead of waiting 20-30 minutes for one beer, you might try two beers from breweries you don’t know much about plus a food sample.

This is, of course, the most nitpicky of posts you will read about FWIBF. It is such a fantastic festival that you have to resort to it so as not to repeat ones self.

Tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10am. If you haven’t been, try.

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FWIBF 23 – The Day After

After a night spent with an unhappy tummy courtesy of the sour beers consumed on Saturday, I made a short hop from my bucolic Creekside Inn to the Booker Wines for the Wine Down brunch.

And it did not disappoint (except for one thing), the Booker compound is amazing. At the end of the road with multiple other wineries, the vineyards surrounding the hill.  The architecture was super fancy.  I can easily imagine an extra fancy wedding being held here.  All open air and great views. I hopped up when they said they were doing a cave tour but it was more a quiet walkthrough the cave which also had a special room with the limestone on one side. Food was great as usual but it was time to say goodbye, but not to Paso Robles just yet.

Then just down the road was Bethel Rd. Distillery. More on that in a distillery post in a day or two.

Next up was KiloKilo, where I eavesdropped on the owner expound on the beer industry and what makes a festival good. The Cold IPA was my choice, Frosty Little Nugget. It was what I needed before heading south.

I made two stops on the way home.  One to reacquaint myself with Figueroa Mountain in Buellton and two for a first visit of Bellringer Brew Co.

FigMtn has a lovely outdoor patio and the same weirdly situated indoor seating. A tiny little room with a cubby for taps overlooking the brew deck. Food pick-up in another room which is weird. Recommend the outdoor bar.

I drove further south to the somewhat new Bellringer Beer Co. I get worried when the brewing equipment is tucked tightly into a space as it is here. I had half pours of the Galaxy IPA and the Ringer Pilsner. The IPA tasted a little old, hop-wise. Murky in flavor but not in color. The Pilsner was better for sure so I hope the equipment is being dialed in.

I took a little walk around Ventura then has one last beer….

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Review – Seavo Pils at FWIBF23

It is no secret that I am not a fan of the Humble Sea branding. But, the beer is what counts so when I saw that they had a Pivo Pils homage, I had to seek it out at the festival.

Seavo Pils pours a bright yellow.  First beer of the fest is this humble version of Pivo pils. Very crisp.  Bit of a metallic hit to it as well.  Simple and nice to drink. Compared to lager titans like Heater Allen and Bierstadt Lagerhaus, well it pales a bit. Overall though, quite nice.

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FWIBF 23 – The Day

The common talking point amongst beer scribes is, what is the angle when talking about this festival? You can talk best booth decor. To me Green Cheek with their photo frame and slushie machine was tops. Or you can talk amount of beers. Bagby brought a ton of stuff, all of which looked great. You can talk lines, which present wasn’t omnipresent this year compared to my last fest in 2019.

In the end, it comes down to the beer. And the beer, uniformly is fantastic. You can quibble about the breweries invited or the mix of light beers to big ABV beers but the choices are just great. Whatever you pick, it is not anywhere near mediocre.

That said, there were some beers that really, really stood out. So, I am going to highlight those. My best was a Green Cheek beer. Not one at their rightly crowded booth but a beer poured at a Thiol conversation just wowed me. Evan Price poured an IPA that was good, then a second beer was brought, Forcing Natures Hand. Damn, it was as if you cut a passion fruit under my nose. Price said that he liked a blend of one and two. I dis-concur.

Other winners was the Earl Grey lambic from Oud Beersel which compared to the blunt force of the lapsang souchong smoky version was an exercise in subtlety. I was excited to try FW Brewmasters Collective beers, and the best of my tasted trio was the Pirate Sour. Maybe too sweet for some but very tiki to me. I had two beers from Leeds based Northern Monk and both were my favorite hoppy beers, pils and hazy.

I spoke with a few people about their viewpoint on the day and each one was impressed by something different. That is the festival in a nutshell. Impressive.

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FWIBF 2023 – The Day Before

When you go to the Firestone Walker Invitational, the day before can be a lot and if you sneak in a distillery visit, it becomes a day.

I drove up from June Gloom L.A. to bright and sunny Paso Robles and went to work with a stop at The Backyard for a beer (Wild Fields Cosmo Canyon Red) and a sandwich before heading to CalWise Spirits for a comprehensive tasting of their products, some of which were started at Firestone Walker. My favorite was the flagship gin with the orange liqueur second.

I moved north on Ramada Drive to pick up beers at the FW Emporium and then checked out the new barrel room and had some beers before taking a tour with scion Nick Firestone around some of the environmental initiatives at the brewery from solar panel fields to CO2 improvements,

From there, the Friday night water park dinner awaited where I nearly choked on some food before recovering to enjoy seeing luminaries like Bob from Highland Park and Henry from Monkish before crashing as I type this.

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FWIBF 23 – How To

I have had the great fortune to attend the Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Festival a few times now. And as a keen watcher of people, I have gleaned some tips for those attending for the first time or who want to up their experience.

  • Pore over the brewery list. Each year new breweries are welcomed to the Event Center and you should get to know those that you may not be familiar with whose beers you might not see again.
  • I will not tell you to avoid the hype beers but I will tell you that you can drink really well without standing in a line more than five deep. I remember picking a random fest goer who was at the back end of a hype line and recording what I did before that person got a beer. I had two beers, a nosh on ice cream and plotted out my next booths to visit before this person had a sip.
  • Food it up. Take advantage of it all. Not just because you will be having lots of beer but because it is really good stuff. No food truck lines and then more waiting for your name to be called.
  • Be on the lookout for special pours. They will be at certain posted times at booths and also over at the seminar stages. Many a time did beer get brought right to me while I sat in the shade learning about beer, brewers and the brewing process.
  • Do not sleep on the Firestone Walker beers. You may have already had the official festival beer, No Vacancy IPA but they bring a lot of other gems and who doesn’t like DBA.
  • Fred Eckhardt famously said “listen to your beer”. Addendum to that is to listen the the other fest goers. Don’t be creepy about it but overhear when people say out loud that something is great. And if you hear about a beer twice, start looking for it.
  • Be kind and an ally. It is 2023 and I should not have to write this but men act shitty and they need to stop. Right now, before you arrive in Paso Robles. Bring your best behavior and police others you know so that everyone can enjoy the fest.
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In the Tap Lines for June 2023

June is a special month on the calendar. You have the Firestone Walker Invitational, you have L.A. Beer Week and the weather ain’t like a pizza oven yet here in Los Angeles. This month plenty of posts about the festivals and less about the weather.

~ e-visits to (3) breweries from the Central Coast

~ special featured reviews of beers to and back from Paso Robles

~Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events

~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark

~ A Book & A Beer reads Lone Women by Victor Lavalle

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Vinfamous

~ Sports & A Beer returns with the transfer portal

~ New Beer Releases and Best Beers of the Month

~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.