 |
| The Seaport World Trade Center! |
Over this past weekend, I had the wonderfully fun experience of going to the
Extreme Beer Fest at the Seaport Convention Center. The EBF is presented by Beer Advocate & mainly sponsored by Dogfish Head Brewery. I've been looking forward to going for months and was not at all disappointed by the offerings!
According to their site, by "extreme", they mean:
"A beer that pushes the boundaries of brewing."
 |
| The lines were not too bad--the EBF did a good job at capping the max # of tickets. |
During the festival, I was able to try out a lot of really cool offering from breweries that I already love and discovered a few new breweries. I wasn't expecting the beer to actually be
extreme, but it really was. I went with two other people (my husband and a close friend) and we sampled 2-3 beers every time we hit a brewery. Some of the breweries we hit twice. I was surprised at the numbers and spice in the chili based beers (ex: Strawberry Jalapeno beer) and the many many breweries that produced oak aged beers like bourbon barrel stouts. The majority of beer offerings were quite boozy (in the 7-10% range) and the highest beer we tried was a whopping 15%. Some of my favorites were unfortunately limited editions that were specifically brewed for the festival.
 |
| Franklin's Restaurant, Brewery, & General Store (Hyattsville, MD) |
 |
| Right Brain Brewery (Traverse City, MI) |
 |
| Blue Point Brewing Company, Patchogue, NY |
 |
| Newburgh Brewing Company (Newburgh, NY) |
 |
| Sierra Nevada Brewing Company (Chico, CA) -- this is the Blizzcane Bock with "snow" :) |
 |
| Ithaca beer co (Ithaca, NY) with their gorgeous hop bouquet. |
In terms of eats, I shared bites of: a cheese platter from the
Cellar's at Jasper hill, sugar waffles from the
Waffle Cabin and beef pot pie from
KO catering & pies. The Waffle Cabin wins for smells, but the KO pie was extremely tasty.**
 |
| Cheese platters (Cellars @ Jasper Hill). The cheese was tasty. Went nicely with beer. |
 |
| Sugar Waffles from Waffle Cabin - smelled like the most amazing thing in the world. |
 |
| KO Pies |
I also ended up having samples of
Food Should Taste Good chips (which are always amazing, love this brand!) and various smoked meats from
Vermont Smoke & Cure. The Food Should Taste Good booth had samples of their new Kimchi flavored chips which, I'm surprised to report, tasted sort of kimchi-like in a good way. Pretty interesting (potentially extreme?) new flavor from them.
 |
| Food should taste good - kimchi flavor? |
 |
| Vermont Smoke & Cure |
Overall, the Extreme Beer Fest was one of my favorite beer festivals. I would definitely go again next year!
***For anyone who is wondering, I usually tend to avoid wheat-based baked goods for stomach-ache reasons but I forgot to eat dinner before the 'fest and the food options were a little limited. I mostly ate cheese, chips, sausage samples, and ate a few bites of everything else pictured here. [Yes, I know many beers have wheat. No, I don't
usually react to them, except sometimes to hefeweizens and other witte beers. Nope, it doesn't make sense. Sigh.]
