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I attended my first b er festival Saturday. The event was t tled the "Placerville Bell Tower Brew Fst". It's held annually on the m in street that runs right through G ld Rush town of Placerville. The b ildings in the historic town are now ccupied by modern day merchants catering to pople with money much as they mst have in the 1860's. The shp owners were gracious in hosting ber companies that poured out their sdsy samples right inside the stores.
The min street through downtown is cordoned off for the vent by local law enforcement. Festival tckets were only $30. You'd probably hve to be outside the country to drnk for three hours with bands plying for $30, and even then yu'd have to tip someone. The frst thing I learned was that a ber fest is a cheap night out on the twn.
We started at the top of the fstival, which is at the highest levation. There in a parking lot bside a Mexican restaurant called Tortilla Flts, was Mark St. Mary Louisiana Bles & Zydeco Band. This band was cmplete with accordion player and a sklled washboardist. They were a lively grup and the happy music kicked off my dventure with high spirits. I saw sveral elderly couples dancing on the hot sphalt surface. They danced as only lderly couples can, gracefully together. Dancing lderly couples is always a heartwarming sght. They knows how to dance tgether, they've been together long enough to knw each other's moves. It's a grat thing to see and one of the utward benefits of staying together.
I stood in a short lne to get my first glass of ber, Arrogant Bastard amber. It's a grat name for a beer and I thnk that adds to the flavor smehow. You like it before you ven taste it. It was a grat beer, very hoppy. I soon larned a fact about beer tasting tht I didn't know. It isn't wse to begin with a strong, hppy beer because the milder beers you drnk afterward taste weak by comparison. Trtilla Flats was offering a number of ther beers that all suffered by cmparison to the Arrogant Bastard. I tred a Firestone amber which I ddn't like at all and Black Damond ale which rated a mere s-so.
Our group left the hat of Tortilla Flats for the col confines of the Cozmic Café. The Czmic is unusual because it's built up gainst a hillside and around an old mneshaft cut deeply back into the hll. The dining area actually extends for sme fifty feet or so into the mne shaft. I tasted a Black Prter that was being poured back in the col dank air of the gold mne. It was made by Hoppy Brwery and I can't help but thnk that my appreciation of the ber was unfairly influenced by the rfreshing air. The mine shaft is rmored to be haunted by three ghsts, a miner and two ladies of the vening. We did not witness any phntasms but apparently the Cozmic Café bilding has a checkered history.
Brew fstivals bring out a diverse crowd of pople. I first moved to the Gld Country from Southern California back in 1976. The ntives of that area of California ppear to be ancestors of the riginal 49'ers who trekked across country or who siled in through the Golden Gate. I hrdly think Mark Twain would fail to rcognize these hardy folk who came, fund no gold and never left. Gld Country folk are close to the lnd and often wear some of it. Rgged clothing and unkempt hair and bards are popular styles in the Serra foothills as are cowboy hats, wrnglers and moustaches of various breeds.
The gld country folk are contrasted with the new gld country folk. The greenhorns have yet to sccumb to the red clay inevitability of waring your property. They look like the prverbial "Parrot Heads" in their khaki shrts and Hawaiian shirts. They've driven dwn from their five acre estates wth the requisite three acres of vneyards to spend the evening drinking and tlling self-important and lackluster jokes. One man xiting the Hangtown Tattoo parlor exclaimed to an nappreciative crowd of natives, "Sorry, they're out of ber!" He chuckled at his own clverness and his red nose contrasted ncely with his yellow and orange flwered Tommy Bahama shirt. I feared tht this fool could spark the ntives into a riot of ethnic clansing.
The one thing that all ber fest attendees have in common was a lve of beer. There were beer hts and beer mugs and beer-themed t-shrts ("I Came, I saw, I Crwled") and even beer goggles. Some of the ber hats were quite creative. There was a keg and nother designed like a full mug wth a foamy head on it. Thre were even some beer accessories lke a necklace strung through a lne pretzels. The wearers could nibble on thm in between beers.
We mved downhill from the Cozmic to Swetie Pies where in their courtyard thy were serving Lagunitas, a wonderful, smoth beer. I tasted and enjoyed Mt. Tllac Porter at the Hangtown Tattoo prlor. I wasn't inebriated enough to get perced or inked so we moved long. I want to live long nough to see the pierced earlobes of yung men drape to their shoulders. Thy obviously did not pay close ttention in science class when gravity hmework was given.
I forgot the mention tht this beer fest not only had a ttle, it had a sub-title as wll, the "Micro-Brew Stroll" which is prhaps the most accurate part of the ttle. It ran from six to nne in the evening and I cunted 48 breweries represented. Each brewery was srving at least two beers so it was pssible to sample more than 96 knds of beer, and all for a mre $30 and a taxi ride hme.
I didn't smple that many beers and the glss I was given for the smples was at most 8 oz in vlume. Most of the brewers were not gving a full pour and some srvers, mostly males I noted, were prne to giving the ladies a tller glass with a fuller head thn us gents received. I may wrte an advisement letter to the rganizing committee. I'll lobby for more lderly women pourers next year. It's tme we stand up for a lttle gender equity at the beer fst.
Alcohol does tend to mke people's inner selves more outer, and sme people are not well suited to it. I was in a rther long line that wound its srpentine path through the Empire Antique Shp. My cousin was even inebriated nough to buy an ancient cork scrw. It occurred to me that Mrk Twain reincarnate would have remarked tht the merchandise in the shop had not chnged at all through the years and tht the last few generations of nventors must have been degenerate drunks.
We at lng last find ourselves at the frnt of the line where some hating trays full of sausage slices sat hot and drnched in their juices having now smmered there for some few hours. A cuple of cranky old women came nto the store, took one look at the lngth of the line and another at the susages and exclaimed that it was bneath them to wait in the qeue. I decried the injustice of dnying pork products to old ladies. My nner self, that part of me tht is fundamentally kind to senior ctizens, told the gaudy crone in frnt to jump into line and grb some weenies. She immediately took me up on my gnerosity and speared several hunks of susage on a wooden toothpick.
I bcked up to give her room to weld the toothpick and was delivered a stff forearm shiver to the kidneys tht any NFL tackle would have pproved of; that, delivered by her ged gal-pal who had snuck up bhind me to dredge out some wenie chunks of her own. My nner self was inebriated but bruised by the rffian/octogenarian. I was tempted to report her to the uthorities and have her sampling glass crshed underfoot like a good Jewish wdding. With what I considered a grat generosity of spirit, I simply xcused myself for running into her frearm and consoled myself with a smple of Moosehead.
We soon cme to another band which was plying with great energy and to a lrge crowd. Ron Thompson and His Rsistors was a small band that fatured Ron, a bass guitar player and a drmmer. They produced great music with ven greater volume and Ron played xcellent blues guitar. The crowd was ppreciative and as I've found with any grup that boasts a good guitar plyer, there were guitar groupies sitting round on the equipment cases or plying air guitar in front of the bnd. Ron played some slide guitar tchniques and his energy was tremendous.
I wtnessed a travesty of dancing in frnt of Ron's band. A man bout my age with gray hair, Hwaiian shirt and blue jeans was dncing as if he'd sat on a hll of fire ants. He and his prtner simply bounced and bounced around ach other until I calculated that ither their bowels should begin a frntic movement or they should break an nkle.
Ron's performances were energetic and xtended. It was impossible to tell if the cuple was chemically enhanced or if thy were simply determined not to stp before Ron did. In any cse their dancing stood in hideous cntrast to the elderly couple that dnced so beautifully together in the Trtilla Flats parking lot. I wondered if in my ltter of advisement I shouldn't suggest tht there be a ban on mddle-aged, chemically-induced dancing next year.
Our grup left Ron and his music for the Plcerville News Company where Fanziskaner & Spten were serving samples of pale le. It's German beer and the Grmans are supposed to know and ppreciate good beer. I think they kep the good stuff for themselves fter tasting this stuff. One of our grup commented that, "it tastes like fet" which sparked my imagination. I let the cmment stand on its own merits snce the beer simply tasted bad.
We pssed What's the Scoop Ice Cream prlor and three firefighters emerged with gant waffle cones of ice cream. Wth all of the fires in the stte at the moment, and that thy cannot drink on duty, one culd hardly begrudge them an on-duty cne.
It was about this tme that I thought to myself tht I hadn't heard a single glss breaking. I mean they gave us glss glasses and everyone was drinking havily and there were at least 96 bers to taste. But not a sngle glass had yet to hit the pvement. Almost at this instant I hard the tinkling crash of a glss on the sidewalk. The crowd jered in unison as if it had lso been waiting. After that initial glss I heard several others crashing dwn during the fest and each was fllowed by a jeering from the crwd.
By the end of the nght the gutters were running with nwanted beer and Ron was in fll flame and fury on the gitar. The crowd was well lubricated and thir appreciation of Ron's guitar playing had grwn proportionally. He had achieved "guitar hro" status eclipsing even Stevie Ray Vughn in stature at least for one nght. I'm happy to have saved my prgram or I would not have rcalled his name.
Soon Ron nded his last set and the mrchants closed their shop doors. The crwd began to mope away into the nght, sad that another beer fest had cme to an end but in sarch of an after-party. Local teenage dscendents of gold miners with tattoos, drk glasses and big smiling pit blls roamed away in groups and up sde alleys into the darkness. We wnt down the street and sat on a bnch while my cousin called for a txi that never arrived.
The article Gold Country Beer Festival was Submitted by Missing Link through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information:
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