5th Annual Hell with the Lid Off Barleywine Festival

This past weekend, February 21st and February 22nd, marked the 5th Annual Hell with the Lid Off Barleywine Festival held at Kelly's Lounge on Penn Circle, here in Pittsburgh. This is one of my favorite events! A four hour session, each day, with limited seating, and servers delivering barleywines tableside that are ordered ala carte. Ticket price was $35 before the day, or $40 at the door, and the selection consisted of 31 different barleywines, with 10 of these barleywines also available in 3-5 vintages, dating back to 2003.

I hear that the Saturday session got a little crazy, and that's why I attended the Sunday session. The Sunday session was awesome! A sold out session that consisted of very mature drinkers. If I didn't know any better, and didn't have a wonderful menu of barleywine sitting in front of me, I would not have known that I was at a beer festival, not to mention a four hour barleywine festival . . . Nobody bumping into you, spilling beer on you . . . No lines to wait in, while people funnel to a table like cattle heading for the barn at feed time . . . No obnoxiously loud, ridiculously drunk people acting as if they have never had a beer before. Just mature drinkers, in no hurry, enjoying some awesome barleywine, in a great setting.

Some highlights from the Sunday session:

I shared my table this year with two good friends; Brad Scanlon, Bar Manager at the Mad Mex Robinson location, and, Rick White, Film Maker, former Bar Manager for various Big Burrito locations here in the local Pittsburgh area. Both have stamina, and more importantly, something to say about the beer that we are enjoying. The following opinions were compiled during group discussions at our table.

We enjoyed a few great flights worth mentioning. Please excuse the brevity of the descriptions. Notes were taken immediately at the table as the flavors hit our palates, and I see no reason to edit the descriptions. Rather, I would like give you the descriptions, as they came to us, as we were drinking each.

Not sure if it was our experience that led us right to the first three breweries' offerings, or random chance, probably a bit of both, but we decided to start with three vintages of Weyerbacher Blithering Idiot, Stone Old Guardian, and Bell's Third Coast Old Ale.

Weyerbacher Blithering Idiot:

'06: super soft, mild caramel flavor, dry

'05: toffee, vanilla, white pepper, round, full

'04: fig juice, hints of cognac, supple

Stone Old Guardian:

'07: nutty, ripe fruit, round, semi-dry finish

'06: ripe fruit, dry bitterness from hops, hop bitterness left malt cling nicely

'05: super soft, pepper, dry, soft caramel

Bells Third Coast Old Ale:

'06: nice complex nose- burnt sugar, a little hot.

'05: much softer nose and mouth feel, nice hop bitterness

'04: slight coffee roastedness, hints of chocolate, heavy toffee, semi-dry finish

All three of these previously mentioned breweries' beers ranked high for us the remainder of the day, with the oldest vintage of each being most memorable for the each of us.

Green Flash Barleywine 2008 was another favorite of ours, and seemed to be the crowd favorite. A great modern representation of the style, hop forward, hop middle, hop finish, lending to a nice rich, full-bodied beautiful barleywine.

Brooklyn Monster Ale:

'06: surprisingly light at the beginning, opens up with nice fruit, finishes dry with fruitness

'05: super clean, dry, refreshing. Nuances of good english tea. Is that a hint of lemon zest?

'03: hints of chocolate, raisins, hints of orange, soft, dry, beautiful

Rogue Old Crustacean

'04: big nutty, ripe fruit, hints of chocolate. Clean, hop bitterness in the finish.

There were plenty of great barleywines to choose from . . . Some other worth while notables included:

Sierra Nevada Big Foot '05,

Dogfish Head Old Skool '04,

Anchor Old Foghorn '06

Surprises:

Mendocino Talon '06-Mendocino Brewing Company, considered "Old Hat" around these parts, had a wonderful offering with the 2006 Talon. The Talon was drinking very mature, smooth, and nice.

Moylan's Old Blarney Barleywine '08-listing this under the Surprise Section might be surprise to those who know what a great brewery Moylan's is, but I list it here, because the 2008 Old Blarney that we enjoyed drank like a 2 or 3 year old barleywine. It was so unbelievably round and smooth, that it shocked us all! Kudos Moylan's!! You are a truly great brewery.

I'm gonna call it quits with that. I hope that you were able to make it to the end of this blog. If you were, I'm gonna give you the same reward the people that stopped reading early received:

Freedom until tomorrow . . .

Make sure that you make it to next year's Hell with the Lid Off Barleywine Festival. Don't make me tell you about it again.

Cheers!