A plethora of unexpected flavors meet my tongue. Lemonade, grapefruit, pumpkin pie, honey, chocolate, they all meet my taste buds in their liquid form, an unexpected surprise to my pallet.
Other flavors twist my tongue around and stab it with their bitter aggressive flavor. Regardless of the taste, each gulp becomes an opportunity for discovery, granted by the 2nd Annual Sun City Craft Beer Festival.
The festival drew approximately 7,000 attendees and featured 40 regional and national breweries
and 15 area bars.
Among some of them were Left Hand Brewing Company, Lagunitas Brewing, Dogfish Head Brewery, Brooklyn Brewery and
Deschutes Brewing.
Attendees were each allowed ten free samples from the various breweries as well as a complimentary
SCCBF glass mug.
While the extent of my craft beer knowledge is limited to knowing the different types of beers, such as stouts, lagers, ales, and malts, and a vague idea of how the different colors and tastes are arrived at, by the way in which they were fermented, my appreciation for craft beer is that it grants tasters the opportunity to discover something new.
It’s the idea of novelty that’s so great about craft beer, there’s a diversity of types, styles, flavors, colors, and tastes, all waiting to be discovered, appreciated, or marked off.
Everyone becomes both an investigator and critic of sorts. If you looked around the fest you see people reading over descriptions of beers until they find the one they think they’ll like. They slowly raise their sample cup to their lips allowing the the taste to settle, finishing off with a remark of met or failed expectations.
That is, I think, the coolest thing about the craft beer festival, whether people went with the pure intention of getting drunk or as craft beer aficionados, everyone left having discovered something new.
The greatest find for me was the Harpoon UFO Big Squeeze Sandy. If you’re into fruity beers this is the beer for you. It was a fresh discovery that tasted like grapefruit juice minus the tartness that comes along with it, it was such a pleasant surprise I opened my eyes wide and exclaimed “mmmm.” The Harpoon UFO White Ale was also good, its taste wasn’t as strong as the Big Squeeze but it had a soft sweet hint of lemonade.
The Harpoon UFO Pumpkin tasted exactly like a slice of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving.
Another great find was the Porter from SeaDog Brewing Co. It tasted like vanilla hazelnut coffee with a hint of chocolate whose rich flavor inspired some long forgotten childhood memory of Christmas.
The Select Macchiato Express Stout by Abita Brewing Company was also really good. It was smooth and matched its title closely with a Macchiato taste.
I didn’t care much for the Birra Etrusca, from Dogfish Head. The beers description was, “hazelnut, pomegranate, Italian chestnut and honey,” but I found it to taste exactly like incense if incense were drinkable.
The SCCBF also hosted cider breweries such as Ace Cider and Woodchuck, I enjoyed Ace Cider’s berry cider. It had a simple sweet grapey taste.
The only drawbacks to the festival were the heat, the music could’ve been better, but the festival did provide some fun games such as giant beer pong and giant jenga.
All in all the festival was a great opportunity for people to come together and try something different, and is emblematic of the growing craft beer community in El Paso.
Maria Esquinca may be reached at theprospectordaily. [email protected].
