We went to Schlafly’s annual Cabin Fever event this past weekend at their Maplewood restaurant, the Bottleworks. It’s always held around this time of the year as their Winter Festival, featuring somewhere around 30 of their beers.
Generally, you pay $25 for a ticket (or $30 at the door, but it’s always sold out if you wait that long) and, in exchange, you get a nifty tasting glass and eighteen 2 oz samples of various beers. As it’s wintertime, the beers tend to be “high gravity,” meaning they’re a bit heavier and tend to have a higher alcohol content. They always have a few of their lighter beers on tap, too, but the big draw is their other fare.
Now, you say, “well Andy, that doesn’t sound like very much beer for the money you’re spending.” To a degree, you’re right, but the kind folks doling out the beer are kind enough to a). “forget” to bring along a Sharpie to mark off your ticket, and b). start at 2 oz of beer, and as the afternoon wears on, the volume increases. So in the end, you can get plenty of beer and taste just about anything you want to.
In the Picasa album that’s accompanying this post, you’ll see pictures of the list of beers that were available, including a brief description of each one, and my own marks to show which ones I had. You’ll see that I actually did get all 18 beer tastings…
…but my ticket only had maybe 5 of them marked off… 😛
There were quite a few great beers on that list that we tried. The India Brown Ale (pictured above) was probably my favorite, as it was pretty different from others I’ve had before. The similar, yet different, India Wheat Ale was also pretty good, but the hops didn’t seem to gel as well with the “wheat beer” flavor as it did with the “brown ale” flavor as before. The Raspberry Coffee Stout was also exceptional, with a flavor leaning closer to the “raspberry” than the “coffee,” yet not as fruity as you might expect. I had figured I’d prefer the Strawberry-Cocoa Porter over the Stout, but alas.
The Southern Hemisphere IPA was also shockingly good, mostly because it tasted recognizable, yet different. I mean, it was hoppy, as you’d expect, but the hops they used were something from Tasmania called “Galaxy,” so it turned out to have a very different flavor profile than other IPAs I’ve had in the past. Believe you me, I hope they put that beer in bottles so I can get more of it!
Regardless, the event was quite fun. Granted, the weather turned out to be cloudier and cold(i)er than the forecast had led us to believe, but with some good friends to crowd around and some strategically placed fire pits, we weren’t bothered all that much. That, and high gravity beer tends to keep you all warm and fuzzy on the inside.
If you want some additional pictures of the event, STLhops was there taking pictures. We even made it into one of them!
I expect you all to go along next year. 🙂