Enjoying the sights and sounds of the 2009 Cap City Oktoberfest

Our favorite Oktoberfest of the year is the Capitol City Brewing Company Mid-Atlantic Oktoberfest.  The tenth annual Oktoberfest was held this year on October 3, 2009.  Beth, the kids and I met Rich and my niece Elizabeth in Shirlington for the German beer festival that we look forward to every year.

I did a little research and according to my beer database, 2009 is the sixth consecutive year I’ve attended the festival, and seventh time overall.  As I describe on the About the Boa Beer Blog web page, my database has an 18-month hole right after the twins were born, so I figure I’ve actually been eight or nine times in the ten-year history of the festival.

Why do we like this festival so much?  We like the German music and dancers, German food, street-party atmosphere, and the…beer!  There are always a lot of great beers to try from a lot of different brewers, and this year may have offered the best line-up yet.  My kids like this festival because there is a toy store in Shirlington.  We stop in between beer samples with the kids and find something to keep them entertained – this year it was Playmobil.

Back to the beer…I sampled:

• Maierfest Lager, Rogue Brewery, Newport, OR
• Harvest Ale, Southern Tier Brewing Company, Lakewood, NY
• 10^th Anniversary Saison, Rock Bottom, Bethesda, MD
• Organic Trippel, Capital City Brewing Company, Arlington, VA (8.5%)
• 8 Point IPA, Devil’s Backbone Brewing Company, Roseland, VA
• Ichabod, New Holland Brewing Company, Holland, MI (Pumpkin Ale)
• Red’s Rye PA, Founders Brewing Company, Grand Rapids, MI
• Interlude, Allagash Brewing Company, Portland, ME (Belgian style ale, 9.5%)
• Weizenbock, District Chophouse, Washington, DC
• Back in Black IPA, 21^st Amendment Brewery, San Francisco, CA
• The Kaiser Imperial Oktoberfest, Avery Brewing, Boulder, CO
• Eye of the Hawk, Mendocino Brewing Company, Hopland, CA (American Strong Ale, 8%)

The best beer of the festival was Interlude, from one of my favorite breweries, Allagash.  Read the description on the Allagash web site to learn about this incredible beer.  What an amazing beer to have at a beer festival.

Another standout was Back in Black IPA from 21^st Amendment Brewery, which was a unique black IPA.  I also enjoyed The Kaiser, a strong imperial Oktoberfest from Avery.

I’m intrigued by Devil’s Backbone, one of the newer Virginia breweries.  And I really need to get to the District Chophouse – while I’ve tried many of their beers at festivals, I’ve never been to the brewery restaurant.

All told, there was not one disappointment out of the 12 beers I sampled – quite a beer festival!