The 2015 Beer Bloggers Conference kicked off last Friday in Asheville, NC — “Beer City, USA” — and after a welcome discussion from CraftBeer.com‘s Julia Herz, and a discussion on Asheville’s journey to become a hub for craft beer featuring brewery owners and beer writers as panelists — we were off for two brewery tours.
First stop: Oskar Blues Brevard.
T and I hopped the Oskar Blues trolley, obviously. Who needs air conditioning? Not me! (P.S. I love this about Asheville. I know I’m in the minority. #humidityhairloveitthere)
We prepared poorly and didn’t have libations for the ride there, but we did make new friends when Ryan Self from Olde Mecklenburg Brewery called out Tierney for not drinking a stout nor wearing stilettos.
Thus began the beginning of a weekend-long friendship with Nick from Drink.Blog.Repeat. and Jonathan Wells, a.k.a., All the Wells.
Once at Oskar Blues, we were offered our choice of Oskar Blues Pinner or Mama’s Little Yella Pils and helped ourselves to coozies and those Oskar Blues can necklaces that I of course took but have no idea what I will do with it.
You guys know I’m like, obsessed, with Oskar Blues Pinner, right? I had it first at Brewhouse Grille in the spring, and it is — hands down — the best session IPA I’ve ever had. Jimi filled me in on the name (my pot knowledge isn’t what it should be?) — A “pinner” is a thin, tightly rolled marijuana cigarette low on buzz.
Pinner the beer is a session IPA that is miraculously full-bodied and oh so dank.The biggest problem with session IPAs is that often the beers smack you in the face with hops but are too light-bodied and disappoint the palate. Even Tierney said Pinner was dangerously easy to drink, and Jimi and I have been singing its praises for months.
After a reasonable amount of socialization, we were welcomed by Anne Fitten Glenn and presented with breaking Oskar Blues news:
Yes, that’s right — and no, they don’t already have one! Pretty exciting stuff, and I can’t wait to try it. (PSA: Oskar Blues is available locally via Westy’s.)
We also got a tour of the brewery, snacked on some crystal malts and crushed up some hop pellets before heading back out to the outside beer garden (?) to sample more beers.
We got to try the Oskar Blues Death by Coconut, an Irish style porter with chocolate and coconut, which was soooo good. But of course my favorite was the Crowlers floating around of a mango habanero version of Dale’s Pale Ale. Yes, please.
Before we left, our new friends scored a sixer of Dale’s to smuggle on to the bus ride to Sierra Nevada. Stay tuned!
