It's A Beer Fest In Freakin' Tacoma!

So, unless you live in a cave, or worse, France, you've probably heard about this weekend's Tacoma Craft Beer Festival. It's shaping up to be a hugely successful event and I am all-a-quiver. 42 breweries is an impressive line-up for a first year event.

I've been witness to only a small amount of the effort the organizers have devoted to putting this event together: they have worked their asses off. So do them a favor and show up, or volunteer. I happen to know there's a meeting at the Parkway on Thursday at 7PM, and I understand that they still need help. I, myself, will be there all day. I'll be the guy with the mop lurking near the Honey Buckets.

Tacoma Craft Beer Festival. Saturday October 3rd Noon to 9pm.
Foss Waterway Seaport, 705 Dock Street, Tacoma.

R.I.P. Brian Redman

With great sadness we learn of the tragic, and untimely, death of Brian Redman.
He was probably the best, and most popular, bartender in Tacoma and one of those rare people that everyone loved.
All of us in the industry, and beyond, owe something to his professionalism and style.
Our hearts go out to our friends at Doyle's in this very difficult time.

Nous Bouvons Plus Biere etc.

My reader, and you know who you are, pointed out that the last French beer tasting included only those beers available at the convenience store. He was right, of course. What I failed to mention was that those stores also had a pretty good selection of Belgian beers, as do the bars around town. But my focus was on French beer and to be honest I had hoped that they would be as bad as they turned out to be.

However, as I was taking the poodles for their apres-midi merde I stumbled upon the neighborhood 99 Bottles. This place was so tiny that it's quite possible they only had 99 bottles on the shelves. The French beer section was a shelf. Even better, the English section was a bottle.

I bought one of everything French they had and this is how they tasted:

Demi de Melee

Blonde ABV 7%

Clouded honey color, lots of tiny champagne-like bubbles. Floral, apricot nose. Bready and honey up front with delicious apple pie spiciness. Slight metallic at first quickly dissipates. Noticable alcohol burn but helps balance the sweetness. Oh, and a very pretty label.

3 out of 5

La Salamandre

Blonde de Touraine ABV 6.5%

Very lively out of the bottle, big fat bubbles, foamy head. Looks like apple cider from Target. Cardomom and ancient monk toe jam nose. Soapy mouthfeel and slight soap flavor, too. Savory and salty like chicken soup. Big on the spice up front but washes away at the finish with a slight hoppiness. Complex, but too chickeny to slug down a six pack. The label would make a cool tattoo, for a French guy.

2 out of 5

Brasserie de la Pigeonelle

Loirette ABV 7.5%

Cloudy again. Brown, grey, green, orange. Raspberry and cherry blossom nose. Very slight carbonation. Earthy and kelpy. Slight spice up front like oolong tea, dirt and sandalwood. Not much middle but explodes in the finish with a pronounced dry lingering finish. Dank! Now that's a word.

2 out of 5

Brasserie Thiriez

La Rouge Flamande ABV 5.8%

Burnt umber color with tiny bubbles. Not much head. Rich carmelized chocolate cherry nose with no monk's toes. Chocolate sweetness devolves to big alfalfa and wet barnyard flavors. The finish is majorly gleeky. We are juicing up all over. If you only ever drink one French beer, and that might seem unlikely, drink this.

4 out of 5

Nous Bouvons Biere etc.

My team of financial advisers suggested I take a little tax evasion vacation and so I find myself trapped in the palatial and luxurious surroundings of Les Tours TBT Paris.

By most standards Paris exhibits all the trappings of a civilized culture. The children are taught to smoke in elementary school, even the dorks have beautiful girlfriends, and dogs can crap on the sidewalk without a care in the world. The French also know a thing or two about grape juice. But what about the beer?

Fortunately, I have managed to assemble a crack team of beer tasters, my long suffering wife and my not so long suffering sister in law, to sample the finest beer that the local convenience store has to offer.

Read on, dear reader, read on:

Tourtel

Blonde

Skunky aroma with hints of sweet bong water? Pear and vanilla notes. Carmel sweetness with a nasty vinegar finish. Better than O'Douls. Watery, but this might be a non alcohol beer. Ooops.

Negative zero

Pelforth

Blonde ABV 5.8%

Morning piss color, solid irregular bubbly head. Malty biscuit nose. Hoppy up front, midget gem middle, corn predominant, no sweetness that you might expect from a lager. Almost a sour? Really quite dry. Mostly we liked the faux brushed aluminum packaging. Probably the most drinkable crap we tried.

2 out of 5

Pelforth

Brune ABV 6.5%

Again nice packaging. Uniform bubbles in the head. Dark amber red color. Nutty carmel and roasty nose but very watery on first sip. Very, very, sweet and noticable rough alcohol finish. Makes one yearn for Pabst dark.

1 out of 5

Belle France

Blonde ABV 4.5%

Pale straw color weak head. Chemical cleaner smell from the floor of a nasty French factory. Tastes like colorant, one of the ingredients. Metallic. Suspiciously bad. We need to brush our teeth after that one.

0 out of 5

St. Omer.

33 Export Blonde ABV 4.5%

Soapy head and gasoline color. Sweet skunky nose and a little carmel. Nothing up front, earwax in the middle and metallic on the finish. Like puking in your own mouth or maybe like having someone else, someone you don't like, puking in your mouth.

0 out of 5.

So there you have it. French beer isn't very good. Tacoma, I miss you.