The Ten Best Beers At the 2019 Extreme Beer Fest
February 4, 2019
This past weekend, Russell went to Boston and attended his second Extreme Beer Fest to try as many crazy, boozy, rich, sour, decadent, and full-on extreme beers as his liver could tolerate. With friends Eric and Ronnie in tow (it’s always good to share with friends at festivals) and a constantly-refilling water glass in hand (it’s always GREAT to drink as much, if not more, water than beer at festivals), Russell tried over 80 beers during his Saturday afternoon session. While eighty beers is a small fraction of the total number of beers at a festival of this magnitude, we still would like to share our choices for the best beers we enjoyed at the 2019 Extreme Beer Fest. It’s an immaculately run event filled with outstanding beer, and we’ll be in attendance in the future– especially when (not if!) it returns to our home of Los Angeles.
So now, in alphabetical order… the Top Ten!
Aardwolf Brewing: Rum Barrel Aged Neapolitan El Mariachi
Extreme Beer Fest boasts the presence of many of the best, most hyped stout makers in the country, yet Duval County’s own Aardwolf stood out among the pack. The nose is appropriately ice creamy, with strawberry and vanilla tapdancing on your olfactory glands. The cocoa and strawberry swirl with rummy goodness, giving you 11% to help you forget about the season Blake Bortles had.
Aardwolf wasn’t the only crew of mad scientists tossing a Neapolitan grenade to our tastebuds at EBF. Aslin has continuously delivered some of the highest quality stouts in America, and the Genius Kitchen is no exception. This was one of the first beers we had and one of the highest ABVs of the day, so it was a calculated risk– but the cinnamon, coffee, and strawberry blend beautifully, making it a major winner at the festival.
Anyone who follows this site knows that we gleefully sing the praises of Cellador Ales, the maker of the some of the best sour beers in the country. They had three other terrific sours– the Gourdee Fumee, the Mellona, and the Stone Soup– but at the end of the day, my mind keeps darting back to the Moon Water, a spontaneously fermented blend of wild ales with Malbec grape remains. It was the tartest of the four. But the Stone Soup was creamy and rich, and the Mellona combined sweet and sour beautifully… look, the lesson here is support Cellador Ales.
Equilibrium Brewery: Paradise City (Pineapple, Peach, and Lychee)
I can’t promise that the grass is greener and the girls are prettier when drinking this Equilibrium/Other Half collaboration, but its effervescent mouthfeel and intense sour bite would have my tastebuds singing “Take me down!” The sign at the booth advertised tasting notes of pineapple mimosas, which is a better description than anything I could conjure. It’s like a perfect brunch drink, if you also enjoy eating Warheads at brunch. (Which I would.)
Adjunct-heavy pastry stouts can be found in maybe the majority of Extreme Beer Fest booths, and while many are extreme without being good, the ones that still manage to balance the sweetness and the intensity of flavors are the ones that linger. Horus is highly regarded for its elite stout skills, and this was the standout of the EBF pack. Proper Dose is shockingly creamy for a lactose-free stout, and while it indulges heavily in rich chocolate flavor, the sweetness of its flavors and the bitterness of its coffee finish end up balancing the scale flawlessly.
Kane Brewing: Barrel-Aged Mexican Brunch
Kane was the first booth we went to, as we’d heard it was the first to run out of beer at their previous Extreme Beer Fest appearance. Sure enough, the line was massive already minutes into the visit. We tried everything they offered, and consensus in my group was that the Mexican Brunch was the clear winner, largely because the spice from its chili was perfectly, delicately sprinkled at the finish– never overwhelming the porter, but not so slight as to be absent.
LIC Beer Project: Party Crasher
Party Crasher isn’t really the type of beer you picture when you think about Extreme Beer Fest. At 5.5% ABV, it’s nearly a session IPA, a far cry from the crazy barrel-aged stouts and wild ales at nearly every booth. Still, this was the perfect counter-programming beer for LIC Beer Project to deploy, with very bright, juicy flavor, lively carbonation, and just a splash of bitterness at the end. Most of the beers at EBF are slow sippers, but I could crush Party Crashers all day.
Monday Night Brewing: Overnight Celebrity
My first experience tasting Monday Night Brewing was a doozy, an 11.5% ABV maple bourbon barrel aged imperial porter with espresso beans and coconut. “Maple” is always a bit of a scary word for me, because too often the stouts are way more sweet and syrupy than I’d like. Fortunately, while this had some nice maple and vanilla on the nose, its taste was predominantly coconut and coffee, letting the maple exist like a mere dollop of syrup rather than a slathering.
The Rare Barrel: 2018 Shadows of Their Eyes
I took notes throughout the festival, and I only wrote one word about this oak-aged dark sour from the Berkeley-based sour legends of The Rare Barrel: “Insane.” It gives off a Flanders vibe, and its got those cherry, chocolatey, and malty notes that you’d expect in a sour of this color– but I was taken aback by the sheer impact of the sourness. Very few sour makers can deliver this degree of flavor with THAT potent an explosion of tart. Extreme indeed.
How many times can I rave about Urban Artifact? They’re part of the best brewery hop in Cincinnati. They gave me one of the best sours of last year, one of the best brewery experiences of last year, and the best beer from the state of Ohio I had all year. And yet, somehow, I still don’t feel like I’m selling them hard enough. I had The Gadget, a beer I’ve had five or six times, at EBF– and I *still* found myself blown away by its absolutely brilliant fresh fruit tartness and its mouthfeel combination of effervescent and nearly-pulpy juiciness. Don’t be surprised when Urban Artifact is all over my Best of 2019 lists as well.
BONUS AWARD: Best Booth: Against the Grain Brewery
Not that a brewery booth with beer as strong as the beer at this festival needs any sort of eye-grabbing gimmick… but when said gimmick is as good as Against the Grain’s was, it deserves special mention. Their beers were named for four different years, so when you selected your beer, a time machine whirled before you and someone from that year greeted you with a beer from their era. I saw a tri-cornered hat-wearing colonial gentleman serving the 1776 beer. I ordered the 2045 malt beverage out of curiosity who would arrive… and I was not disappointed.
BONUS AWARD: Best Smell: Great Notion Brewing: Blueberry Muffin
I’ll expand again to make special mention of a great Berliner from the great brewery Great Notion. It pours a lovely pinkish color, it tastes refreshing and tart… but the real all-star in this brew is the smell. One of my friends had it poured, and I could smell his beer from over a foot away. It smells like, well, a fresh blueberry muffin. How does a hazy, tart beer like this smells absolutely identical to a pastry fresh out of the oven? Head to Portland and ask the Great Notion crew, because I can’t explain it without the word “witchcraft.”
BONUS AWARD: Most Extreme Beer: Benchtop Brewing: Chapulin Exchange
There were a number of beers whose flavor options ranged from strange to insane, but none stood out like the Chapulin Exchange. The deranged geniuses at Benchtop have cooked up a gose with lime, chipotle pepper, and… wait for it… toasted grasshopper. Yes, you read that correctly. This is a sour bug beer. It’s also quite delicious: salty, citrusy, just the right amount of chipotle heat, and a certain je-ne-sais-quoi complexity that I can only assume is derived from the presence of cooked insects. Benchtop has given whole new meaning to the term “hoppy beer,” and I can’t wait to try more.
If you went to Extreme Beer Fest, please let us know in the comments what your favorite beers from the festival were– and we can’t wait to see you next year! (Or perhaps at GABF this year… keep your eyes peeled!)
Mexican brunch is a porter not a stout.
Noted and corrected! Thanks!
Lol sure…taste it blind and tell me you just drank a porter
How could nothing from Mortalis have not made this list?
As noted in the article, we weren’t able to try everything, and Mortalis was out by the time we got there. Hopefully we’ll get to try some at the next festival! Cheers!