Brews and Blues Beer and Smokin’ Blues

Hickory Hops 2009

Once a year, on Union Square in Downtown Hickory, North Carolina, the Hickory Hops Brew Festival brings several thousand people in from Hickory and the surrounding areas for an afternoon of pure good times.  With the bands "WSNB" and "Baby Black" pumping the music from the stage all afternoon, beer fans strolled the premises sampling beer from 40 different regional breweries.  When you arrive at this festival, you get a glass like the one shown above with your admission.  The glass holds about 6 ounces or so, and you just carry it around with you for all the samples of beer from the various breweries that you can handle. 

Several of the breweries had displays set up like this one to show visitors what actually goes into making beer.  On this table, there are two different types of hop leaves and three different grains that are used by this brewery in their ales.  The grains are crushed and then soaked in hot water, which activates enzymes within them that convert the starches to sugars.  The sugars that come out in the water are what gets fermented into beer by the yeast that gets added.  The purpose of hops in beer are to provide bitterness (or to balance the sweetness of the sugars) and to give those wonderful aromas you smell when you crack open a good beer.

The pretzel necklaces are something that I ALWAYS forget to make for myself before I attend this event.  I always remember as soon as I get there, but I forget to do it every time.  As many of these events as I have attended, It seems like I would remember.  Someone needs to remind me to do this before next year's event.  It's not a good idea to drink a lot of beer (or any alcohol for that matter) without eating a little to go along with it. 

I met people from all over the place today. When I first started making photos, I bet I talked to 20 people before I found one from Hickory. I know I talked to people from North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, so people really did come from all over the place to attend this event.

Bobby Bush, a.k.a. Suds Brewer, took the stage during the afternoon to announce the winners of the beer competition. Unfortunately, I did not write down the winners, but the third place prize went to Liberty Steakhouse & Brewery (High Point, NC) for their dry-hopped Kellerbier. The other unfortunate item about the winners of this competition is that the third place winner was the only winning brew that was available for tasting at today's event. 

I'll tell you a secret about Bobby... Before I met Bobby back in about 1992, I was a BudMillerCoors beer drinker.  I also enjoyed fine imports such as Heineken and Fosters.  I didn't know good beer from bad beer and I had never tried many micro/craft brews or home brewed beer before.  Bobby introduced me to a lot of excellent microbrews and invited me to his home on many occasions to watch and assist him with his own home brewing.  After working with Bobby on home brewing two or three times, I was hooked.  I gathered the equipment I needed to do it myself and never looked back.  People like Bobby are great for the craft beer industry.  He teaches people how to enjoy real beer and helps them find beers that they really like. 

Yours truly was captured by local beer fan and photographer Tom Devlin at today's festival.  I was sampling my last beer of the day, which was Pisgah Brewing's Belgian Trippel...

I didn't get to try as many beers as I had hoped for today, but I did manage to taste 16 beers.  They are as follows:

Foothills Brewing - Torch Pilsner
Highland Brewing Co. - Cattail Peak Organic Wheat
Lone Rider Brewing - Shotgun Betty Hefeweizen
RJ Rockers Brewing Co. - Bald Eagle Brown
Big Boss Brewing Co. - Angry Angel Kolsch
Kona Brewing Co. - Longboard Island Lager
Moon River Brewing Co. - Savannah Fest Bier
Natty Green's Brewing Co. - Old Town Brown
Foothills Brewing - People's Porter
Heinzelmannchen Brewery - Big Amber Gnome Ale
Liberty Steakhouse & Brewery - Kellerbier
Gordon Biersch - Marzen
Clipper City Brewing - Holy Sheet Uber Abbey Ale
Mash House Chop House & Brewery - Ravishing Red
New South Brewing - ESB
Pisgah Brewing Co. - Belgian Trippel

I had to take it rather easy today because I did not have a ride home and I was technically working, so I had to behave. 

If life treats me well and lets me find a job after I graduate in May, I hope to attend the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, Colorado either in 2010 or 2011...