Brew Choo Choo

Sunday, July 20th, 2008 | Trip Reports

A great time for all ages was had on the Brew Choo Choo

A night like Thursday would be hard to top, and having been at the festival all week, I’m almost ready to go home. But there still are a couple of events I look forward to attending. What’s really strange is that although I’m ready to wrap things up, I meet a whole bunch of people who are just arriving and rearing to go.

Friday festivities starts out with a tasting at Jackie O’s Brewery at 2PM. I got a chance to taste several of the fine beers from this local brewery — including Wheat’s Up, Sparbock, Java the Stout, Wee Heavy, Dark Apparition, Black Betty and bourbon-aged Black Betty. A lot of his beers tend to be on the higher alcohol side, so I am feeling pretty good. My favorites are the Dark Apparition ( An Imperial Russian Stout) and the bourbon-aged Black Betty. Black Betty (named after the song originally recorded by Leadbelly, and popularized by the group Ram Jam.) is a 9.5% dark porter with vanilla, raspberry and chocolate flavors — aging it for three months in the bourbon barrels adds a another complexity to this interesting beer. The Dark Apparition has a delicious toasted coffee type taste you would expect from a rich stout. I decide to buy a growler of the both The Dark Apparition and the bourbon-aged Black Betty, one of which I’ll share to an upcoming beer tasting.

After the tasting at Jackie O’s, I head to the festival headquarters for one final beertasting event — the Home Brew Choo Choo. There is supposed to be a shuttle service that will take me to nearby Nelsonville. Homebrewers as well as microbrew lovers will be whisked away on old fashioned train ride running through the historic Hocking Valley Scenic Railway. There is some confusion at the shuttle and although there are several vehicles present, nobody seems to know what’s going on. Eventually, things are straightened out, and I board a stretch limousine to Nelsonville. Contrasted with events earlier in the week that seemed sparsely attended, I sense that a lot of people appear to be arriving for the weekend. By the time we get ready to board the train in Nelsonville at 6PM, there are hundreds of passengers waiting. The train consists of 7-8 different cars, and the train is completely filled.

It’s a very hot July day, and due to the large amount of people we have some delays in starting out. I get the impression that the festival organizers, who for the most part did a wonderful job, were often over worked, and in this case it took a while to get all the people on board and situated, as well as beer and refreshments. So we had to sweat a little bit in the hot sun, but once the train started out, the cool breeze was refreshing and all was well. There were some great beers, including Imperial Dortmunder and Thirsty Dog’s Siberian Night going around — as well as some home brews (people who brought their own home brew to share were given a free ticket from what I understand). In addition to the adult beverages, they had root beer and a little gift bag for all children.

A little over halfway through the trip, the train stops in a small town — apparently we’ve run out of beer. More beer is on the way, but somebody gets lost and we end up waiting another 20 minutes in the hot sun. But everything works out and we load up on more beer for the trip home. The thought of our train stopping for a beer run is kind of amusing.

After our train ride, I call Seven Sauces, a local restaurant back in Athens, for reservations thinking they would busy on a Friday night with a big festival going on. However, we get there, and there is only one other table, who soon leave before we are served. The food was delicious and I have a Holy Moses White Ale with my dinner, but I find it sad that we are the only customers and wonder if they will still be open our next trip to Athens.

Saturday, we check out of our hotel, but not before giving Kevin at the front desk a small souvenir glass from Ohio Brew Week. The staff at the Ohio University Inn was exceptional at meeting all of our needs, and we undoubtedly will be returning there on our next visit. We go back to Case Nueva’s one last time (probably our 4th or 5th visit for this trip) and find out they are out of PawPaw Beer. Things are definitely much more crowded than what we saw during the week.

The big event for Saturday is the Boogie on the Bricks. Part of Court Street is closed off to traffic, and in it’s place is a large stage, while vendors lined the street. The children have a good time playing in the kids area, and we listen to one or two bands, but it is again very hot, and I’m eager to go home. They were setting up a special micro-brew tasting area, but I didn’t get a chance to see what was available. But before I left, I wanted to pick out some reading material from the book selections that they had on sale at their souvenir stand. I briefly considered getting a book Bob Skilnik, who I sat with Thursday at the Brewer’s Ball, but the only book they had available was his book “A History of Brewing in Chicago”. Instead, I decide to get Ray Daniels’ book (who was at Ohio Brew Week earlier in the week) “Designing Great Beers”, but somehow get the eery feeling somebody is watching me. Sure enough, as soon as I put the Skilnik book back on the shelf and leaf through the Daniels book, a voice behind me says, “You should get that, it’s a great book”. I turn behind to find Bob Skilnik himself, and of course, I immediately feel embarrassed for putting his book down, enough to reach back for it as if I planned to purchase that one as well. So I end up buying both of the books, but not before I at least get him to autograph the “A History of Brewing in Chicago” (which turns out is an interesting read even if you aren’t from Chicago).

So everything considered, I had a great time in Athens, as did my entire family. Here’s my top 10 (or so) list of things that I liked best about this festival (in no particular order)…

Generous tasting glasses
Affordable pricing for tastings
Formal tasting with the brewers present
Brewer’s Ball
Choo-Choo Train Ride
The entire format of the festival, where all the beers where spread out throughout the various bars of Athens
Dining at the Casa Nueva

Tags: Ohio Brew Week