Blue Dust and beer sampling

Last Saturday was the Big Pour, which we've wanted to go to but for some reason every year haven't been to.  It's a big sampling of lots of different beer.  We've done something similar twice now, at the Brufest, which is in Station Square and put on by the Pittsburgh Rugby Club.  (November 19, 2011 is the next one!)

Anyway, I've heard that they're trying to make a Pittsburgh "beer week" similar to what other cities hold.

Sidebar: we stumbled across San Francisco's beer week when we were there in February and it was AWESOME.  Loved it.

Thursday night we went to Hough's in Greenfield.  I was a little disappointed there.  It was supposed to be samples of Dogfish Head and Oskar Blues with free glasses.  But the reps from both places just stood there drinking beer the entire time, and by the time we realized there weren't samples and to get a glass you had to buy a draft of that beer, they were out of Dogfish Head glasses.  We did get two pint glasses from Oskar Blues though.

Friday night we went to Blue Dust, in Homestead (near the Waterfront).  That event was just great.  We got 4 sample platters of beers (3 beers on each platter):

Victory:
Storm King Imperial Stout - I usually don't like stouts but I did like this one.
Scarlet Fire (a smoked lager) - I didn't care for this one and Dave drank the whole thing after I took a few sips.
Mad King Weiss - I liked this one best of the three from Victory.

Roy Pitz
Double Pale Ale - I didn't like this one
Gobbler's Lager (Octoberfest) - This one was ok
Their pumpkin (mystery beer so I don't know what it was called.  - This one was also just ok.
I wasn't too impressed with the Roy Pitz brews.

Weyerbacher
Heresy (Oak aged imperial stout) - I didn't like this one, I think it had a coffee taste in it if I remember correctly
14th anniversary (2 year aged wheat wine) - This was by far my favorite of all the samples and Dave and I split a full glass of it after we finished all the samples
15th anniversary (1 year aged smoked stout) - I thought I wouldn't like it because it was smoked AND a stout but I really liked this one as well.
BTW, 14th and 15th anniversary were straight from their private beer library.

Troegs
Naked Elf (unfiltered Belgian gold ale) - I liked this a lot
2 other beers I don't remember (ok we drank a lot and it's been a few days- should have written this down that night!)  Neither of them stands out though.

I should have written this down earlier- I could have provided more of a description and remembered exactly which beers we were drinking.  Oh well- next time!

Dave also ordered a glass of Black and Red from Dogfish Head, which tastes like cough syrup.

And this doesn't count the other 2 beers from Dogfish Head, 3 beers from East End Brewing, which people at our table had so we got to try these as well.

Definitely a good night for sampling- they had 18 beers on tap just for that night.

Blue Dust was also really crowded.  We got there an hour early because that was also going to be dinner, and even at that point there wasn't really standing room inside.  We saw that there was "seating" outside, so we wandered out there, met some people and ended up sharing a table with them.  One of the Blue Dust employees brought random chairs from who knows where.  We had some chairs for tailgating in my trunk so we grabbed those, and the guys at the table with us had their friends bring some more chairs.  So that worked out.

And it turned out that the guys at the table with us- 2 of them are brewers for Milkman Brewing.  Last year at Brufest, we tried a peppermint stout that was just amazing.  You got to vote for your favorite beer and that stout won the award.  (They also came in 2nd in the actual judging.)  I've been talking about that since then, as one of the better beers I've ever had.  It turns out that they are science/engineer majors and we ended up going back to where they currently brew and trying out some of their beers.  They had a Saison, a Peppercorn, and a Kolsch.  I was excited about the Kolsch but it had an aftertaste to it.  They said they're going to have to work on that.  Dave had the Saison, and I had a few sips of that- it was pretty good.  And then I tried the Peppercorn, which was also pretty good!  They have some unique ideas and try to brew things that are different.

We ended up getting home around 3am, oops!  I haven't been out that late in so long...  But it also just shows what a good night we were having.