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One of my most anticipated beers of the year is the anniversary blend from Firestone Walker.
If you are in Los Angeles or Paso Robles, now might be the time to see if their company stores have any lingering 26’s on shelves so you can prepare a taste test.
The latest Firestone Walker Propagator beer is one of many in a group effort to celebrate California beer and support the California Craft Brewers Association, which is the non-profit that fights for craft breweries all over the state.
FW has chosen to brew a Hazy Imperial IPA. Look for it now.
Let’s keep that FW energy going with a review of the weirdly named barrel-aged Bread Spread. I had two excellent barrel beers at their Invitational (Wild Pirate and Boilermaker), will this be a third winner….
There is a lot in this bottle. Vanilla beans, hazelnuts aged in chocolate bitters barrels and Bourbon barrels. First, Weirdly, what I get in big amounts is banana. Not hefe banana but a chocolate covered banana. Yet, not sweet at all. There is that Bourbon note lurking in the background. Second, Weirdly is that as this warms up, the hazelnuts really pour forward. In both the aroma and flavor. Almost two different beers.
Time for one last look at the fun at the 2023 edition of the Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Festival, this time with more photos…
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….
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.
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.
Firestone Walker is well known for hitting that 6.5% ABV mark on their IPAs. But the next Mind Haze duo are going to be more dynamic. Brain Melter and Cosmic Crusher will be Imperial Hazies…
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.
We are mere days away from the 2023 edition of the Firestone Walker Invitational in beautiful Paso Robles and here is the third featured brewery that will be pouring at the fairgrounds, Private Press Brewing.
They are unique in that is a membership brewery that focuses on barrel-aged brewing focused and creating only Imperial Stouts and Barleywines. As with most membership breweries, the output is small and the wait list long and winding but the below beers give a taste of what they are up to, in case you run across them at a festival.
Limitations American Strong Ale – “Bourbon barrel aged munichwine ale brewed with honey.”
Ripple in Time Quadrupel – “Belgian-style Quadrupel aged in bourbon barrels.”
1966 Barleywine – “Blend of bourbon barrel-aged barleywine ales.”
Collaboration with Cellarmaker Brewing Company