Sierra Nevada Beer Camp Beers

[mashani]

It has "dark" right in the name, man!

It's not a porter. So how can it be icky?

[The_Professor]

The Myron's Walk Belgian Style Pale Ale is interesting.

Real hop flavor and bitterness mixed with the Belgian yeast flavors.

[jivex5k]

Had em all now. Favorites:

Bell's Imperial Dark I think it was
Ballast Point IPL
Ninkasi Double Latte man this was awesome
CCB Maibock
Oskar Blues Rye Bock

Rest were solid, but those above stood out.

[Kealia]

It has "dark" right in the name, man!

It's not a porter. So how can it be icky?

[Foothiller]

What has held me back is having only one of each beer, and knowing that if I want a second, I'd need to buy another case, including any that I wouldn't like as much. I have quite an inventory on hand already.

[swenocha]

Speaking of Beer Camp... I haven't been able to try these beers due to the screwy TN beer laws. Though the laws are better now, with wine/liquor stores being able to sell low and high grav as of July 1, and groceries and such in line to be able to do the same in the coming years, the weirdness of the laws do not allow beer packs to be sold that are a mix of low and high grav (which the Beer Camp is). Sucks, but them's the breaks.

In the meantime, the Beer Camp Across America has been on tour this summer, featuring festivals in seven cities pouring beers from over 700 breweries. Unfortunately, Nashville was not on the list for the tour. Somewhere along the way, however, someone convinced Sierra Nevada that Nashville would be a spiffy place to host one of the festivals. Fast forward to tonight, and lookie at what I stumbled into...

Shazam! That there's a free Beer Camp ticket!

Sierra Nevada decided to have a mini-Beer Camp fest of sorts in Nashville in addition to the main tour, primarily for industry folks here in Music City. Though 90% or so of the invitees were industry people (brewers, distributors, beer store folk, bar folk), of course I still managed a ticket. Come on... would you expect anything less?!?

The differences in the main seven tour stops and ours were that the main tour invites every brewery in the area to serve, and have thousands of attendees. Our mini-fest had only the core beer camp beers, as well as Rain Check and SNPA. But, we were a much more intimate affair, with only maybe 100 or so in attendance, so it was a much more casual affair, which made it a fun hang. We also miss out on the brewers and reps from the 12 breweries in the collaboration, who are present at the big events. But... Free beer, free food... what more could one ask for?

Sweet!

The event was held at the former Yazoo Brewery, now Corsair Distillery

Menu and tasting glass in hand for the first pour

As I said, an intimate affair

As for my impressions of the beers...

All fourteen beers I sampled were good. Far and away the best for me, and many around me, was the There and Back collab with New Glarius. I also was a fan of the Torpedo Pils (Firestone Walker). Electric Ray IPL (Ballast Point),the rye (Oskar Blues) and the alt (Victory). I was so-so on the Cigar City collab... too much pineapple for me, but that's a personal preference. The FFF collab was OK, but a little disappointing. I wasn't in the mood for the darker beers, so the Bell's and Ninkasi beers kinda were a miss for me (though I could see me really liking the latte during the winter), as was the Rain Check, though I liked it much better than I thought I would after reading the description. The other beers (scottish, belgian pale, white) were fine as well. Of course, SNPA is rock solid, and is one of the beers that got me into American craft beer, so much love for it.

Free t-shirt!

All in all, a great little intimate fest with a bunch of friends from the beer community. Really glad I stumbled into a ticket for this event....

[Beer-lord]

Sounds like an aweseomely fun event. Hope to be able to find this locally soon if it's not already too late.

[swenocha]

Three stops left for the core festival...

Portland, ME (Aug 1)
Philadelphia, PA (Aug 2)
Mills River, NC (Aug 3)

Chicago, Denver, San Diego and Chico were the prior stops. They have been doing little side events along the way, such as ours. I've seen beer pairing dinners at cities along the way and the like, but I'm guessing there won't be much of that in August, with the festivals scheduled back-to-back-to-back like that...

[Kealia]

That's awesome! You Swen'd them!!

Looks like a great event. I went out last night but the only beers left on tap were the darker ones and well......

...the weirdness of the laws do not allow beer packs to be sold that are a mix of low and high grav (which the Beer Camp is).

I knew you had some odd laws, but that may take the cake. Weird.

[swenocha]

Yeah, totally weird. But I could conceivably build a mixer sixer of the exact same beers at the exact same store. Sigh. Csw&s has one of the invitation beers set back for me. Will be curious as to my take on it after your reviews.

[Beer-lord]

Went to my local place that usually has the beers I want/need and the guy saw me walk and and handed a bomber of Beer Camp. I asked if I could have 2 more and he said just 1. They got a few cases of the 12 packs in and they were gone in 3 hours. Looks like I have a zero chance of finding that 12 pack anywhere here but I'll try to wake up tomorrow anyway.
He still doesn't know anything about Unapologetic IPA yet.