Rocket City Brewfest 2015: The View From Minnesota

On a recent trip to Huntsville, Alabama to visit my wonderful mother-in-law we were lucky enough to score tickets to the seventh Rocket City Brewfest (thanks Bill Fowler and the folks from OTBX!)  Being the super beer geek that I am, being in my wife's hometown on the exact weekend that they were hosting their beer festival was an amazing stroke of luck.  Or fate?  I already posted my blog entry on our visit to the recently opened Old Town Beer Exchange HERE, so feel free to check that out for some back story--especially on how much the beer scene has changed over the past several years.  As an outsider only making my way down every few years, the changes are even more dramatic!

The Brewfest itself was a two day affair over May 8 and 9 of this year.  The event is primarily a fund-raiser for Free The Hops--an Alabama based lobbying and education organization with lofty goals of improving the craft beer laws and attitudes in the state.  The website for the event is one of the best such sites I've seen--featuring good explanations, lists of the beers, and a countdown to the next year's event.  They also hosted an app for smart phones this year so you could figure out what brewery was serving what beer.  Traditionally the first (Friday night) session tends to a younger/rowdier crowd, while the Saturday late afternoon session is a bit more laid back.  We missed the first day, but were able to make the second day--probably perfect for our style.



I can't speak to previous year's events, but this was a great beer fest and run very smoothly.  Located on the grounds of the old Depot building, one has a good view of some of the old city, and its an easy walk to some of the downtown area.  After getting your ID checked, wristband (featuring a slightly tasteless advert for DUI defense), and taster glass, you are let loose on the grounds.

The brewery booths were a bit more spaced out than many such festivals, allowing for easier maneuvering and line management.  The local breweries almost all had their own tented booths, most with a separately run line for buying swag.  This is something I wish MN brewery fests would do, very few bring any glasses, hats, T-shirts, signs, etc. to sell us tipsy consumers.  Wasted opportunity!  Non-local and import breweries were serviced by combined booths, featuring beers from all over.  I focused more on the local stuff, but was excited to find the rare Tilquin Geueze from Belgium being poured at one station.  We also saw several of the breweries from North Carolina where we had just spent a week prior.  We also bought an awesome hand-made glazed ceramic growler with giant Grolsch swing-top from local Southern Growler--check them out HERE.

Let's talk water.  This particular fine spring day boasted temps over 90 degrees, but luckily some clouds drifted in to give us a little cover from the direct frying heat of the Alabama sun.  Every pouring station had a 2.5 gallon jug of potable water with a spigot as well as a dump bucket.  This made rinsing your glass out between and IPA and an Imperial stout a breeze!  Also if the beer in your glass was nasty, it was easy to dispose of the evidence.  Not that I had that happen very often.  This is in contrast to the otherwise well-run Minnesota Brewer's Guild events where they usually have only two dump/rinse stations for the entire festival.   There was also a booth handing out free bottles of ice cold water!  These guys know how to deal with preventing dehydration.

And food?  Oh, there was plenty of food available, though they were handled through annoying tokens.  Our favorite food option was the fantastic Sugar Belle Cupcake Truck that was serving a bunch of treats made with local craft beers.  Monkeynaught IPA cupcakes?  Heck Yeah!

We had a chance to try a lot of different beers, with extra attention paid to Alabama and other southern brews of course.  Some arcane law prohibits free samples of beers in the state, so each station has a bucket requesting a penny a pour.  If you forget, you can give a quarter to another bucket and count this as credit for 25 pours.  Strange.  Star local brewery Straight To Ale (celebrating it's 5th anniversary) had a constantly rotating line-up of over 20 beers--I really enjoyed most of them.  They also had a poor guy dressed in a suit (90 degrees!) and made up like a devil pouring samples of their 5th anniversary Belgian Quad from a tank on his back!

Pour bastard...

I enjoyed most of the things I tried from Yellowhammer.  One of the biggest lines in the fest was for Salty Nut, but all four of the beers we tried from them were just average to my palate.  We also got served beer from taps set into the side of a firetruck--best kegerator ever!

Going regional, we tried no less than 4 peanut butter beers!  I have brewed one of these with fair success in the past, but have never had a good commercial version.  Our favorite of them was the Rocket Republic brown ale that was then run through a randall filled with peanut butter chips.  Yum!  We actually went back for more of that one.  The rest of the RR beers were quite tasty as well--and I feel all the happier to display their rocket shaped tap handle that my niece Anna sent to me last year.

Overall this was a very well-run, and well-maintained beer festival.  For variety, water accessibility, and smoothness it was one of the best I've been to.  Top that off with the fact that almost every beer there was new to me and I was quite happy!  The beer quality was very good, but I would say that they are perhaps a bit behind where the general state of Minnesota breweries are these days.  We do have about five times the number of breweries to choose from here though...

If this came to emergencies there would be a LOT more false alarms...

The festival ended at 8 PM with dusk starting to cool things off outside.  My wife and I had snacked on amazing cupcakes, but were ready for something a bit more substantial to fill our bellies, so we walked a few blocks to Below The Radar.  This is a brewpub (one can see the fermenters through glass from the bar) but at the time we were there, the house beers were not on tap yet.  Instead they had a good selection of tap and bottled beers with a lean toward local/southern beers.  The food was fairly standard selections for a brewpub or bar, but the quality was above average.  The staff seemed friendly, but at least one server had no clue about beer at all...something they really need to fix if they are planning on being a real brewery!  

A great day spent in Huntsville, and far more impressive from a craft beer standpoint than I would EVER have guessed the city to become.  I'm excited to go back and see how things progress!

Old Town Beer Exchange: Huntsville, Alabama

Why am I, a Minnesotan beer blogger, writing about a beer store in Alabama?  Why, I'm glad you asked!

My story begins way back in college at Emory in Atlanta.  There I met the woman who would eventually become my wonderful wife.  Her hometown was Huntsville, Alabama--home of Space Camp, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, Redstone Arsenal, and a whole slew of Southerners.  As a larger city with so many technological jobs available, Huntsville has accumulated a fair number of folks from other states and countries (post WWII German scientists...) and as a result is a bit more metropolitan than a lot of other cities in the Deep South.  Also with all those scientists and engineers around, the geeky hobby of homebrewing has been popular for some time.  However, only in 2013 did the state legalize homebrewing, sneaking in just under the wire to get the hobby legalized and active before neighboring Mississippi.  Take that Mississippi!

When I first visited Huntsville, there was really no craft beer culture to speak of at all.  Nothing.  Several years later, (around 2005) I was excited to find Olde Towne Brewing had started up as the first craft brewery in the city.  Laws were still pretty strict, and brewery taprooms were not allowed.   In 2010 that brewery shut down, but they opened the door for several more craft breweries in town.  Since then Straight To Ale, Yellowhammer, Salty Nut, Blue Pants, and more have arrived on the scene.  Much like all of the USA, craft beer has arrived!  However, the caveat here is that the craft beer drinker is still much in the minority in the area, and the scene is still a bit fledgling compared to many other states and cities.

On a recent trip to Asheville, NC, my wife Sarajo and I decided to tack a few days onto our road trip and visit her mom in Huntsville.  We were excited to discover that one of Sj's high school class-mates, Bill Fowler, had just that week opened a beverage store specializing in craft beer.  We made sure to swing by the shop and he took some time to talk with us about his new venture.

The Old Town Beer Exchange is located, shockingly, in Olde Town, virtually across the street from Below the Radar Brewpub.  In a modern looking, somewhat understated building, a glass door with the OTBX logo emblazoned upon it welcomes one to the shop.  Inside, the place is cozy without being small.  Directly across from the entrance is a beautiful bar constructed of light-colored bricks from the old Coca-Cola Bottling plant in town, and topped with a ruggedly solid wooden bar top.  A large screen behind the bar lists all of the 32 craft beers they have on tap, with up to the minute information on how much beer is left in the keg!

To the left of the bar is the main store space, including refrigerated cases and copious shelf space for beers.  Windows are darkly tinted to discourage sunlight from injuring the beers on the shelves.  Some beers are organized by country (Belgium, Germany, Europ-ish), while American beers are organized by region rather than by style.  Bill tells me that he hopes this method of shelving will encourage people to discover other styles of beers by breweries they already enjoy, rather than automatically going to the IPA section and ignoring all the other good products to be found.  I like it!  They had a great selection of imports, larger regional breweries like Stone and Lagunitas, as well as a good amount of beers from Alabama and The South. So many of these beers are not available where I live, that I was like a kid in a candy store while exploring!  Oh, and they have a selection of wines in the center of the store if you are not a huge beer fan.

Bill sat down with us at one of the sturdy tables along the outside edge of the place.  I could tell he was busy--putting out small fires (not literal ones), greeting new and returning customers, organizing for the upcoming Rocket City Brewfest, etc.  I really appreciate him taking the time to hang out with us and tell his story.

Bill and three local friends had been planning this venture since the spring of 2014, combining backgrounds of medical sales, software CEO, law, and marketing into a cohesive whole.  The one thing the group shared was a love of craft beer and the desire to see a higher quality and availability of craft beer in Huntsville.  The company's tag line is "Southern, Craft, Culture".  After talking to Bill I truly feel that this is not just a clever marketing tool, but a credo that the owners live by.  Bill talked extensively about his desire to create a better craft beer environment in Huntsville, but in a way that embraces the deep (and sometimes shunned or ignored) history of the area.  As a start to this, they sourced as many things from the local area as possible for the building itself--from that amazing bar, to the reclaimed barn wood for tables, to the local craftsmen who fashioned them into usable furniture.  We did get to meet the talented carpenter, Ben Niemitz, and I could feel the pride in his work radiating out of him as he watched all the folks clustered around that bar.

While we talked, Sj and I shared some Minnesota beers with the staff, including Surly Pentagram and Schells Black Forest.  Bill shared a couple of local beers with us as well, including Straight To Ale's 5th Anniversary Belgian Quad that was lovely.  Meanwhile people continued to flow through the place at a steady clip--ordering a beer at the bar, wandering about eyeing the shelves of beer, and just plain enjoying themselves.  All of the folks working at OTBX were incredibly friendly, excited about what they were doing, and Bill hopes to have everyone properly Ciccerone (basically a beer sommelier) trained to improve and maintain their beer knowledge.



Some interesting notes as a Minnesotan visiting a beer store in Alabama before I wind down.  Despite being slow to legalize homebrewing and still having dry counties, Alabama has been rapidly improving its beer-related blue laws in the past few years.  A lot of that push has come from grassroots groups like Free The Hops.  Now breweries can sell on-premise and have taprooms.  As of 2012 Alabamanians can buy 750 ML bottles (now that one was a dinosaur!).  And you can buy beer on Sunday.  Oh, and you can get growlers filled with commercial beer at beer stores!  There are a few onerous restrictions remaining like brewpubs only being allowed in a county that had a brewery prior to Prohibition (seriously, what?) and not being able to bottle beers.  Still, considering how far behind this state was, they have made up time quickly, resulting in a new and vibrant craft beer scene in the area.  Here in Minnesota, we mainly struggle these days with being one of the few states to still outlaw Sunday liquor sales (resulting in a mass migration into Wisconsin every weekend), and our beer/liquor stores can't serve pints or fill growlers.  Strange but impressive that the traditionally conservative Deep South is lapping us on some of these issues!

Beyond just sharing his valuable time, Bill also went above and beyond the fabled Southern Hospitality by giving the two of us tickets to the next evening's Brewfest.  Getting to a brewfest in my wife's home town?  Amazing!  Oh, I'll be writing that experience up as well since it had some interesting differences from such fests back home...We had a fantastic time visiting the Old Town Beer Exchange and wish them much prosperity in the days to come.  I also hope that Bill and his partners can really have an impact on continuing to improve the craft beer scene in Huntsville for the future.  I know I'm more excited about heading back to town next time!

Beer Scene: Huntsville, Alabama

To finish up our tour of the Deep South, we ended up in my sweet wife's hometown of Huntsville, Alabama.  Having visited new breweries in Nashville and Birmingham, I had already been pleasantly surprised by the rise of craft beer south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  Nothing could have prepared me for the changes I would find in Huntsville.  The last time I visited the area was probably about 3 years ago.  At the time, there was one recently opened brewery called Old Town that served a couple of understated quasi-craft beers in a few local bars--and despite going the way of the dodo, they seem to have paved the way for what was to come.  Let me refrain: three years ago I could not find a craft beer on tap in this town to save my life.  At the time of my current visit there were nine breweries in (and around) the city!  For background, Huntsville is the fourth largest city in Alabama and had roughly  395,645 citizens as of the 2008 census.  Many of the people in the area have come for work in the aeronautics industry (NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and the United States Army Aviation and Missile Command,) and as a result the city has a more cosmopolitan feel than many Deep South cities.

On my first night in town, having a late dinner at the hotel Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, I was able to have a Straight To Ale Monkeynaut served to me in a proper beer glass with absolutely no strange looks from our kind server.  Speaking of the aforementioned beer--the can art for this beer is one of the wackiest I've seen: named for the monkey-manned early space flights back in the 1960's.  The beer itself was a boldly hopped IPA, that had a bit too much alcohol heat to make it into my favorites...but this was a legitimate local craft beer!  Rubbing my fingers together eagerly, I began to plan my trips to further explore this unexpected change in the area. 

A bit devilish for Alabama...

The following day, after fighting with my mother-in-law's ancient modem and 4 power-strip plug octopus for hours, I was finally free to visit Straight To Ale Brewing.  Hidden behind a large gym, and located in an unassuming warehouse off the beaten path, we had a difficult time finding the place.  A metal sign with their devilish logo hanging off the front of the building is all the notation they apparently want or need.  There was no visible entrance at the front of the building, but not to be distracted from my goal, I walked around to the side.  A small door with an even smaller Straight To Ale stencil on it (looking like an un-official worker's only entrance) yielded to my attacks and allowed us access to the tiny tasting room.  A very small bar across from the entrance boasted a friendly server, a television and a glowing crimson brewery symbol.  One other patron sat at the bar sipping at a drink and gazing at the television's blue glow.  A large rocket hung from the ceiling, piloted by two stuffed monkeynauts.  Posters and framed can artwork for the brewery were placed sporadically upon the walls.  My personal favorite (also playing off Huntsville's NASA past) was the Wernher Von Brown Ale.

Rocket City here I come!

We tried all the beers, served to us in trippy hand-made rocket shaped wooden sampler trays.  All of the beers were good to very good.  I especially liked the Lilly Flagg Milk Stout and the Brother Joseph's Dubbel: fine examples of their styles.  The lagers were a bit less perfect--perhaps fermentation temperature issues--but still drinkable.  I spent a nice and relaxing hour here with my wife and her older sister, talking and trying out these local beers.  Not until heading out did I realize that they had a small arcade with old fashioned pinball machines in a room around the corner.  Our server suggested looking for their recently released bourbon aged Laika Russian Imperial Stout (named after the Russian dog sent into space in 1957) and I did find a bottle the next day to bring back to Minnesota.  I haven't tried it yet, but have high hopes!

The next day I spent more time in battle with ancient technology, hooking my mother-in-law's old tube TV's to cable boxes and finishing an upgrade to a wireless home network.  I also spent a bit of time out in the muggy Alabama air tearing apart a rotting and now dangerous wooden ramp in front of her house.  Beneath that aged ramp were a good number of enormous cockroaches, primitive looking two inch hopping camel crickets, and a petrified possum.  Yech!  After a much needed shower we headed out to continue our exploration of the city's beer scene.

Our next stop was Blue Pants Brewery, located within a warehouse in the suburb of Madison.  The building isn't much to look at, but has size in its favor with plenty of room for them to grow into it.  I guess that this is a recent expansion and I got the feeling that they haven't quite settled in fully yet.  There wasn't a lot of branding/signage on the outside nor the inside of the tasting room, but I knew we were in the right place when I saw the Blue Pantry Food Truck parked outside.  The brewers started out as homebrewers (not surprising now days, especially in a town filled with science geeks!)

Sj and I ordered the full sampler so we could try everything.  I saw funny blue-pants shaped wooden sampler trays on display behind the bar but we didn't get one so no good pictures for you my reader.  Our beers were served in plastic cups with the names written in Sharpie by our pleasant bartender.  The laminated cards describing the beers were a little sticky and gross, so I didn't look too close at the details.  One of my favorites was the Workman Common, a hoppier take on a classic Steam beer.  Most of the others were fair representations of the style (Pale Ale, Double IPA, Black IPA) but none of them really wowed me.  A few--like the Highwater Hoppy Tripel--had some fermentation flaws that detracted from my enjoyment.  Their special release cabernet barrel aged Belgian Red was served from a wax-topped bottle and had quite a bit going on.  I actually picked up a bottle of this to take home when I ran into it later that day.  The brewery's tag line is: "We like to make unusually good beer."  I think they are close to that description, but perhaps not quite there yet.  I will certainly check them out next time I'm in town to see how they have improved. 

Our bartender at Blue Pants was very good and pointed us toward our next goal:  Wish You Were Beer.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Madison had its very own all beer store!  Just down the road from Blue Pants, we headed out.  Located in a small strip-mall, the store front itself lacks bells and whistles, but has a large easy to see sign on the façade.  With fingers crossed I stepped into what became one of my favorite places we visited in the city.  Founded in June of 2012, (but only opening for business a few months before my trip in Fall of 2013) by owner Damon Eubanks, the store aims to sell only craft beer, cider, and meads.  Damon was at the store and I had the chance to talk to him a bit about his new store.  He is a Cicerone Beer Server and is currently studying to become a Certified Cicerone, also encourages his staff to also seek certification.  Interestingly he modeled (at least in part) his store after The Four Firkins in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.  Our own Jason Alvey was breaking new ground by opening an all beer store in Minnesota and continues to show other people how to do it across the country! 

Can I live here?

The front of the store is small, but the wall shelves and center stacks are packed with local and regional micro-brews.  With different distribution than Minnesota, there were many beers that we can't find back home like Stillwater Artisanal, and Oscar Blues.  Large coolers host even more beers--most local.  Damon sells most of his beers in singles as well, so one can try more beers without having to settle on a full six pack.  Unlike The Firkins, Damon can actually sell pints of beer in his establishment.  I was happy to taste the local Salty Nut Brewery's brown ale, as well as have a full pint of Avondale Brewing's Vanillaphant while perusing the store.  They can also fill growlers from the taps for you take home and drink at your leisure.  We are unable to do either of these things back in Minnesota due to old Blue Laws that are still on the books.  The store also sells a limited amount of homebrew supplies, now that Alabama has finally legalized my favorite hobby.  Damon told me the story of an un-named liquor store in Birmingham that got in trouble with the law over that last year.

I stocked up on a bunch of Alabama brews to take home with me, including several special releases like the bourbon aged Laika and the Blue Pants Belgian.  I love the concept of the store and I was intrigued with what Damon has been able to do with the place already.  Once people find out about Wish You Were Beer, I think he will be able to expand his line-up even more and start having special events.  If you are anywhere in Huntsville and like craft beer this is a must-visit place!

As a wrap-up from my visit to the South, I wanted to touch on some of the big changes I've seen in just the past 3 years.  Traditionally the Southern states have not been big into drinking alcohol in the first place, and many people I know down there either don't drink at all or drink only in private where fellow church members won't see them.  When folks do drink beer, they tend to go with American macro-lagers.  From a craft-beer waste-land, the region has started to blossom with small breweries, beer stores and craft beer bars.  They still have a ways to go to catch up to Minnesota (they are about 6 years behind by my reckoning) but are on the right track.  Strangely, many of the stubborn post-prohibition era laws that plague us here in Minnesota are absent down in the Bible Belt state of Alabama.  Really, I can buy a sixer of craft beer on a Sunday in Alabama, but not in progressive Minnesota??? 

Regional differences in palate are easily apparent with most breweries having sweeter brown ales and porters in their portfolios, and big hoppy beers are just starting to trend up.  On this trip I could literally taste how these brewers are experimenting with higher hopping rates--some pulling it off and others needing more trial and error yet. 

Local restaurants and bars seem to be embracing these new local beer options and nearly every place I went for food (minus having intolerance-chicken at Chick-fil-a) had at least one local beer available.  I'm exited and proud of those craft beer pioneers, breaking trail and braving the wilderness for the good of the craft beer movement in The South.  Since I have written this, The Salty Nut has already opened a tap room in the Huntsville area...and more breweries are sure to follow.  This is a truly untapped market that seems ripe for the taking.  I look forward to the new options to be discovered on my next trip down.