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Sunday, June 02, 2013

World of Beer Festival 2013 - Angel Style

Yesterday was the World of Beer festival sponsored by the Beer Barons of Milwaukee. It is a small, by choice, beer festival that boasts it is "By beer nuts, for beer nuts". The breweries in attendance were fairly standard but many brought out the rare and normally not available in this area beers. Lots of special casks and barrel aged treats to sample along with a whole section of meads.

The gathering crowd

The nice thing about the festival is that it is small and not a drunk fest like other festivals I've been to. One of the coolest things about the festival is that it had its own app. You could check off what beers you wanted to try. It then gave you a little map of where the beers were located. I would love to see this for other beer festival. It really helped me put a plan of attack in place.

 This year I went not as a participant but as an exhibitor. Barley's Angels (@BarleysAngelsMKE) is now a registered home brew club. We were invited to serve up our home brews on the patio with other local clubs.

Paula and Erin working hard. Don't you love the bright table cloth we had?

The weather was perfect. Warm and sunny. Erin and Paula arrived early to secure a prime spot on the patio. As women, we are naturally well organized and were so efficient that we were often mistaken for the check in table.


Paula is getting her taps ready

Erin is wicked with a mallet and a tap
We had seven different beers for folks to sample. A special cask of Natalie's British session ale, two versions of English Milds, a Wheat Ale, Black IPA, Hefeweizen and Paula's very popular cranberry cider called Candy Crush. Aptly named after the addicting game.

Natalie is tapping her cask of British Session Ale

The festival kicked off and our tent was always steady. There was even a crowd (three's a crowd, right?) waiting for the tapping of the cask at 2 pm. It was fun to talk with people about our beers while they sampled them.

With having four of us there, everyone had some time to go off and sample other beers. It was great to see Alex from Rustic Road, Scott from St. Francis Brewery and fellow Angels Meagan, Tallgrass and Joan, Oscar Blues. I didn't get to sample as many beers as I would have liked but made the most of the ones I did try. Some winners were Psuedo Sue from Toppling Goliath, Tounge Thai-ed from Blue Moon's Graffiti collection and the Fleur de Houblon from Ommegang

We got to meet lots of women and introduce them to Barley's Angels. I'm excited for our next meeting to see how many come out and enjoy a good beer with us.