Hoppy Hour

The beer landscape here in South Carolina continues to evolve, with beers from revered national brewers like Stone (California) and Smuttynose (New Hampshire) now flowing around the state. Now there's another one on the way - Kind Ale from the brand new, Charlotte-based Kind Beers. Don Jordan, the breweriy's thick-bearded (think ZZ Top), affable sales guy, said at Charlotte's Oktoberfest on Saturday that the pale ale is "days away" from hitting South Carolina. And there's a local connection, too - it's contract-brewed here in the Upstate at the Thomas Creek brewery.

I had high expectations for this one when the guy ahead of me on line at the Fine Beer tent said it was the best beer in the entire festival, and Jordan followed by saying that everyone else was saying the same thing. Don't know if I'd go that far - there were some incredible beers there - but this was a very impressive brew. Quite hoppy but well-balanced and drinkable. We'll try and write more on this brewery in the next couple weeks.

Speaking of Oktoberfest, the beer lineup was amazing. You know it's a good festival when the first three beers you sample are Southampton Double White Ale, Duvel and Hennepin, and you're just getting warmed up. I'd have to say the Duvel and French Broad Brewing's (Asheville) Kolsch were my favorite lighter beers, while some of the pale ales and IPAs that really stood out were the Kind Ale, Stone IPA, Avery IPA, Foothills IPA, Pick Axe Pale Ale from Colorado's Tommyknocker Brewing, while Asheville Brewing Company's Shiva IPA and Old School Pale Ale certainly held their own.

The one complaint I had was the crowd. First, there were just too many people, with 6,000 in attendance. And by the later hours of the festival, most of these people were totally trashed, including several of the volunteers who were pouring samples - some of them could hardly speak straight they were so wasted. We even saw a near fight at the very end of the fest, something I can't ever remember seeing in the 14 major beer festivals I've attended over the years. Everyone is usually so well-behaved.

While Charlotte had many advantages over festivals like Brewgrass (Asheville) and Hickory Hops, I'll take those more intimate events any day. Perhaps I'm biased because I knew more people at last week's Brewgrass, but Brewgrass, which capped ticket sales at 3,500, just had more of a family-like, laid-back, fun atmosphere.

Cheers!