Lakewood Wine & Craft Beer Festival

I started off with 15 drink tickets and cool 4 oz glass to drink my 15 beers out of.

Got to meet the man behind Franklin Brewing Company in Elyria, OH, Howard Ross.  I also, tried their America's Gold.  It's a kolch style ale.  What that means to you is some extra hoppy taste mixed with a big drop in bitterness giving you an interesting tasting but very drinkable beer.

www.franklinbrewing.co

Beer #2 was Harpoon's Winter Warmer.  It's full of good flavors including ginger bread without being over powering or nauseating.  It looks to be one of my favorite Christmas ales of the new season.  That's the last I'll talk of next season's beers at least till after Halloween.

Beer #3 was called Wheat Freedom.  This was a beer in the opposite direction.  It had that wheat beer bitterness that I prefer with a well rounded taste of lemon to make sure we all new it was a summer beer.

Thor Platter's band been a fan of the blog for a while now and is always worth giving a listen to.

http://ThorPlatter.com/

One of the big contributors of this event was Lakewood's World of Beer.  Now, you could say that their involvement just makes it some big chain bar event.  You'd be a little right.  This gave us three things:  a better organized event, more than likely a better selection of beer and wine, and Shawn Freeman.  Shawn's the general manager of Lakewood's World of Beer.  He is one of the friendliest most enthusiastic people you'll ever meet.  Shawn loves craft beer and I believe that he has a secret plan to make everyone he meets to love it just as much.  He made his bar and this event something a bit more special.

My next beer's name was lost to the night but my notes say that the beer was forgettable too.
Beer #6 was Goose Island's Sophie.  A light and hoppy beer that shows that you can make a quality beer that everyone can enjoy.

Melt's a great bar I've been before and their official blog day is coming soon.

25th Anniversary from Lakefront Brewery that uses apricot to make their beer instead of masking it.  You'll taste a different nuance every time you drink it.

This is the best hard cider I've ever had.  It's crisp taking advantage of a non-sugary tangy apple flavor with a hint of honey.

I had Pizza BOGO for the first time for dinner.  Besides a great combination of toppings I liked the cheese on the pizza more than just about anybody else's.  I also realized that 8 little beers in is a good distance on an empty stomach.

The scary game of the night was Jenga with 2x4s.  I played against Johnny and our new friend whose name is probably Andrew, if not sorry.  Both of them either work or have worked for NASA.  We started with the rule that if you touch a piece then you have to pull it out.  The game went fine for a bit until I picked a low piece that didn't want to move.  That meant there was a lot of weight pushing down on it. We did not have the rule, however, that I couldn't touch other pieces.  So I pressed down on the top as hard as I could and yanked.  Two pieces almost came out, leaving the tower precariously reliant on my hand on the top.  I knocked the pieces back in place with newly released board.  I have found that in games played with drunk people if you add in enough confidence with a big smile anything is possible.  When I said, "we never said we couldn't hold the tower up with my other hand;" the rocket scientists happily went along with it.  The tower no longer had a proper center of gravity and every pull caused lots of swaying and twitching by all of us.  We all had one more successful yank until Johnny was unlucky enough to have the swaying tower fall.  The best thing about Giant Jenga is watching everybody scatter as the log tower attempts to smash everyone in its path.  As the loser, Johnny had to drink what we decided on next, which was mixing a glass of wine in with our dozen+ beers of the night.

Roo Brew is not from Australia, it's from Akron.  It's not made by a beer brewery it's made by a winery.  There was a day when the people of Akron Law School said we need beer and this winery said, "Sure, Why not."  It's a smooth beer with a slight taste of mint.

This was the disturbing place where the glasses were rinsed off into.

After this point my notes just become a mess of autocorrecting.  Regardless if you are going to drink anything I drank this night, drink this, it's amazing.

If you were the designated driver you got in for $10.  Thanks Katie!

Hi Sue!

I drank Mama's Little Yella Pils by Oskar Blues Brewery, a favorite for those that love a good pilsner.

I've already written about  21st Amendment's Hell or High Watermelon beer.  In a world where watermelon beer should be awful this is awfully good.

This beer is super clean and an excellent example of a higher quality Eastern European beer.  Keep an ear out for more news from this foreign beer in the future.

I don't know what I drank from her booth.  I somehow drank two of them.  They were 9% alcohol.  She is currently yelling chug and I drank the glass in under a second.

I hope everyone had a great night.  I know we did.  See you all next year!