Last Saturday we drove out to Falls Church to check out Mad Fox Brewing Company's Barleywine Festival. Wow am I glad we did. If there is one beer style that I find endlessly fascinating, it's Barelywine (many of my drinking comrades know this well). The range of flavors and aromas, the potential to age and mature, and the higher abv, really make it an exciting beer to sample. You can never be too sure what the next one will taste like, but you can be sure that you won't need to sip (not guzzle) much of it. To be attending an event geared solely towards the greatness of BW, is a pretty rare thing.
This was only the second time I had made the trek to Mad Fox, so I can't really compare the traffic to a regular Saturday, but I can say that the place was busy. And especially so around 3:30, when I filled my growler and departed. The crowd seemed to be filled with beer aficionados. I spotted some pretty cool beer t-shirts, some local blogging celebs, and the head brewer, Bill Madden, all having a great time at the bar.
I tried Mad Fox's own Slobberknocker, Headknocker and Wheat Whacker Wheat Wine (great names) and was really impressed by all, with the American style Slobberknocker being my favorite. I also sampled Devil's Milk by DuClaw and Blithering Idiot by Weyerbacher. Both were excellent. I wish I could have stayed for the second session to try the 2007 Monster and the Devil's Milk aged in Jack Daniels barrels, but there is only so much you can accomplish when sampling beers with names like Devil's Milk and Headknocker...
Last thing I want to say is that on top of it being cool to see this style of beer get attention, it was really cool to see Mad Fox pull out all the stops and provide a truly massive offering. I think there were around 24 different BW's on tap to try... Very impressive and I really appreciated it. Already looking forward to the 2nd annual.
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