Strange Brew

April 19, 2015 Sunday 3:00 PM
2 Adults
Atmosphere — 5 stars
Food — 5 stars
Service — 5 stars
Background — Another beer festival. As the name suggest strange brews. Some are the breweries normal release others a onetime special for the event.
Atmosphere — Backside of The Brewers Cabinet, in their parking lot. I was concerned that it was going to be too crowded but it was not, there was plenty of space to move around. As always a concern at a beer festival is the facilities. They had four port-​a-​potties outside the gates. They gave you a wrist band for exiting and reentry which made it easy. The only requirement was that your glass was empty when exiting. Not like I want to take my beer to the restroom with me.
Food
Drinks — This is the reason we are here. This is the second year of the event and first time for me. Some of the bigger breweries are getting involved as this is part of Reno Craft Beer Week. Sierra Nevada, Ninkasi, Lagunitas, they are some to big boys of the west coast.
Other great thing is actually meeting the owners and brewers. I have been enjoying Track 7 beer from Sacramento and it was great they came over the hill for this event as you cannot get there beer in Nevada. It was great meeting and talking with Ryan Graham from Track 7.
One of the popular choices for the indigents was peanuts or peanut butter. My favorite was the Cinnamon Toast Crunch Saison. Most saison’s for me leave a strong lingering after notes which I do not care for. This one left you feeling like you just had a bite of one of my childhood favorite cereals.
Food — I packed a bag of pretzels for the event as their flier did not indicate any food choices. There were two food trucks at the event, bonus, Burger Me and Brother’s BBQ. I had Burger Me’s Bison BBQ which was great and would order it again in a heartbeat. Loved sauce and crisp bacon, the menu did not indicate jalapenos but server asked and I said yes please. I still munched on pretzels as we walked around.
Service — It is all about getting to know the local community at these events and today was not different. Bonus touch was that they had setup rising stations for your glass so it was fresh for each beer. Yes I did say glass, not plastic, for this event, a real glass, a small sniffer, probably about four ounces. Amazingly I only heard two glasses break during the whole event.
Future — Yes please. But please put it on a Saturday!