Jacksonville Craft and Import Beer Festival

On Friday, May 18th, the Renegades were in full force at a massive beer festival in Jacksonville.  To be exact, I believe the final numbers were in the realm of 4,500 people who attended this event at Veteran's Memorial Stadium.  Of all of the festivals that I worked last year, this was the second largest so I knew I'd have to rustle up some fellow Renegades, organize our volunteers, and prepare ourselves for the onslaught of beer lovers, home brewers, and journalists who have waited since last year to enjoy this festival once again.

Very exciting also, was that we were going to get to pour draft at this event and, although there are drawbacks to pouring draft at festivals, it is great to be able to show off a few brews that either are not available on draft or that simply shine when poured out of a keg.

Two of these are especially near and dear to my heart.  

The first is Lazy Magnolia Jefferson Stout.  This beer is not available in the bottle as the brewery does not have a pasteurizer and the lactose that is added to this brew apparently sours when in the bottle.  For this reason, we are not able to get the Jefferson Stout out as much as I would like and I was very excited to have it out for this large audience.  A little about the beer.  The brewery description is:

Jefferson Stout, Lazy Magnolia\'s original Sweet Potato Cream Stout, is Lazy Magnolia\'s version of the ideal Southern-Style Stout. Jefferson Stout is brewed with sweet potatoes and lactose (milk sugar). The sweet potatoes provide the background to an impressive taste with added notes of roasted chocolate, coffee and caramel flavors.


Every time I get a chance to sample this beer out, it goes over well.  This day was no different.  I'm hoping more distributors will be picking this great beer up soon and we can get it out in the market more.  

The second beer that I was monumentally excited to have on draft was the Sweaty Betty.  This Heffeweizen from Boulder Brewing is great out of the bottle.  On draft it takes on a whole new life.  The most beautiful beer I've ever seen in a glass, it appears in the sun what you would think white stained glass would look like.  Add to that, the massive banana and clove flavors that present themselves even larger out of a keg, and this beer is a no-lose.   


The festival itself lasts from 6pm-10pm and I'm usually afraid of evening festivals, simply because people will either want to use this as their night out and want to get tanked, or they figure that if they're gonna be out all night, this is going to be their alcohol consumption for the night and thereby want to hyper-consume.  Either way, I'm often leery of these events and do not look forward to driving home after.  As it turns out; the crowd, even at their massive size was extremely polite and enjoyable.  


As for myself, I wanted to take this opportunity to visit some friends of mine who work for other breweries and we get to run into each other on these journeys.  With Vinnie present and plenty of volunteers, it is nice to get out from behind the booth and mingle a bit.  It's also nice to get upstairs and enjoy some all-you-can-drink Orval from Mr. Rob Nelson of Merchant du Vin.  It ain't often that you can enjoy Orval with pricetag impunity so you have to take the opportunity when you can.    


This event is a very inexpensive $30 per head with an opportunity to get a VIP ticket for $45 which allows you to get in an hour early.  This is also a charity event to benefit The Southside Men's Business Club and the Jacksonville Chamber West Council.  


Definitely an event that I am looking forward to attending again next year, this event is one of my favorite of the year.  Cheers!