Events

Payette Brewing Black Friday 2015

December 21, 2015 by Ben Leave a Comment

The Friday following the Thanksgiving holiday, for many it’s a day filled with standing in line, braving the cold, and fighting the crowds to save a few bucks on electronics. What if I told you that there was a much better way to spend your day? Payette Brewing’s “Black Friday” is day filled with a possibilities and incredible beers from around the region! You can sate your need for deals with a few minutes online in the morning before you head out to enjoy the a breathtaking selection of Stouts and Porters that will delight your palate and ensnare the spirit. Ok, ok, that may be a little deep, but seriously… this event and theses beers are worth blocking out the day on your calendar and shipping the kids off to the grandparents so you can maximize your experience.

This year, Payette Brewing hosted the event at their new facility in downtown Boise off River Street. Since the building is still being renovated, a large tent was erected in the parking lot filled with tables, music, lights, and thankfully a generator nearby to provide power and some heat! To say that it was cold out is an understatement. To say that the generator was unruly is too kind, especially for those employees & volunteers who were on-site getting everything ready hours before the event started. I arrived at 10, an hour before the “League of Outlaws” members early access and you couldn’t miss the frost that was forming on the inside of the tent walls. Once things really got hopping around 1:00 there was enough heat inside from the heaters and warm bodies that the ambient temps were getting bearable although we had some intermittent rain from all that melting frost. By that time however, I don’t think anyone noticed… or cared. There were simply to many people to talk to and way too many beers to dive into….

Boise Brewing Hoptober Freshtival 2015

November 5, 2015 by Ben Leave a Comment

Beer festivals! These two magic words can make a beer lovers knees quiver. Sadly, in Boise, we’ve been without a honest to goodness beer festival for the past few years as costs, permitting and other issues with the city brought about their untimely demise. Last year, I was fortunate enough to attend (and volunteer) at the inaugural Boise Brewing Hoptober Freshtival (read about it here). The initial event in 2014 brought out mostly local brewers to a central location (5th & Broad St) in front of the Boise Brewing brewery. Beer lovers heard the call and purchased their $25 tickets and received a taster mug (roughly 5oz) and were treated to unlimited tasters until the beer was gone or until 8pm.

This year, the Hoptober Freshtival was bigger and better in all the ways that count. Instead of 13 breweries we had 25+ for a total of more than 50 tap handles to choose from. All the local players were on hand and some regional breweries made the trip up as well, including Fort George, Deschutes, & Mazama Brewing. Sadly, we did loose the “all you can drink” component due to permitting changes with the city, but that may have been for the best. Who wouldn’t get into trouble at an All You Can Drink craft beer event? The new system offered attendees their taster mug and 20 tickets which, if fully redeemed, would equate to 80+ oz of beer. Still, a pretty damn good deal for a $25 ticket ($30 at the door). Once again, Broad Street between 4th & 5th was blocked off in front of Boise Brewing. At noon, with people lined up along the fence, the gates opened and people started filing inside….

Moscow Brewfest 2015

May 22, 2015 by Ben Leave a Comment

Take a moment and ponder your perfect day. Are you’re thinking about a sunny summer afternoon, 40+ regional brews on tap, live music and a bunch of beer lovers on hand? I know I am. If you’re up for a drive up North you should consider checking out the Moscow Alehouse Brewfest. If you’re not already familiar with Moscow (home of the University of Idaho), it’s a quaint college town about 5 hours North of Boise (just a few miles East of the Washington border & Washington State University) nestled in the rolling hills of the Palouse. Now, when I first rolled into town a few days before, my first stop was of course, Moscow Brewing. When you’re in the area I can’t recommend highly enough that you stop by, have a few pints and say hello. This nano brewery is a hotspot for beer drinkers to congregate, drink and talk beer. They start trickling in right at open (4pm) and by 5:00 or 5:30 you may find it hard to score a seat.

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Payette Brewing League of Outlaws Initiation 2015

April 16, 2015 by Ben Leave a Comment

This past Sunday marked the inauguration of the 2015 League of Outlaws class at Payette Brewing. If you weren’t there or didn’t jump in to the league when you had the chance, I strongly suggest that you mark your calendar to take part next when it comes back around. Like so many brew related experiences in the greater Boise area, the thing that makes clubs like this so entertaining is that it brings a pretty diverse group together to meet, mingle, and be, under the common love for great beer.…

Alefort Reflections 2015

April 2, 2015 by Ben Leave a Comment

Well, the weekend is over, the bands have packed up and gone on their way home or off to other venues. But the biggest letdown of the entire weekend, for me at least, is the tear down of the tent that was Alefort. The most compelling part of the mini-beer festival within the larger Treefort Music Fest, in my opinion at least, was having such a diverse group of breweries (mostly local) that were all within a few feet of each other! …

HAFF Brewing Grand Opening

February 28, 2015 by Ben Leave a Comment

Adding to the growing list of local micro breweries in the Treasure Valley, HAFF Brewing opened their doors officially with a Chamber Ribbon cutting on February 11th 2015. If you find yourself in town looking to check them out, they are on Chinden, West of Veterans Parkway on the North side of the street. It can be a little hairy to find them with an absence of street signage as you shoot down the road, but to make it easy just turn into the COBBYS parking lot and you're there. 🙂

The ribbon cutting event was a blast and the turn out, while I was there anyway, was promising. The beer was very good. I grabbed a McCallywood Porter which left me with absolutely no regrets. In chatting with the bartender I was tempted to try the White Chocolate (Raspberry) stout? I think it was Raspberry anyway and while the three other patrons near the bar that had already tried it were singing its praises and assuring me that it didn't really taste of white chocolate… my adamant distaste for anything “white chocolate” forced me to stay away. Maybe on a return trip when things aren't quite so chaotic, I'll break my cardinal rule and give it a go.

One thing that is clear though is that Boise seems to continue to open new breweries with open arms. While I can appreciate the business sense and likely lower operating costs associated with having a brewery/tasting room on Chinden it's a pretty dreadful location to try to get in or out of during peak traffic times. Hopefully this will prove to just be a temporary issue and perhaps success will lead to expansion into the downtown corridor.

Payette Brewing Black Friday

December 12, 2014 by Ben Leave a Comment

Payette Brewing Black Friday 2014 Menu

Why on earth would anyone care to battle the crowds to save a few bucks off electronics that you don’t need when you could spend 10 hours drinking amazing beer?? That’s just what we did at what will hopefully become an annual event put on by Payette Brewing at the Linen Building in downtown Boise featuring more stouts than I have ever seen in one location.

Everything on tap was a stout and they hailed from local brewers like Boise Brewing, EDGE, Crooked Fence, McCall Brewing, Sockeye, Highlands Hollow, & of course Payette. Not to be left out, a number of regional names were also in attendance like Deschutes, Ninkasi, Odell, Widmer Brothers, Full Sail to name just a few. Out front was one of my favorite local food trucks Archies Place, with perfect sandwiches to follow copious beer consumption. My only complaint was the unseasonably warm temps in Boise paired with mass stout consumption.

The crowd showed up ready to drink beer and while I was there at least, everyone was easy going, festive and chatting up other beer lovers. In fact, it was hard not to make new friends for those of us that were fortunate enough to have landed one of the few tables or barrels. After the first few hours… having a table to rally around made all the difference and as people came and went it proved fruitful in the inheritance of beer tokens as fellow patrons ran out of time, stamina, or sobriety and decided to throw in the towel. I wound up with 2 bonus beers which was both a blessing and a curse after the 5 tokens I had purchased for myself.

Payette Black Friday 2014; The event itself was free, tokens for a 5oz pour were $3 each, a commemorative glass snifter was $5 or you could forgo the glass and use a mini solo-cup. My thinking with the glass was that aside from the souvenir factor, it was also more likely to result in over-pour since it’s harder to judge the volume on the curved glass. Of course, every pour varied and some behind the tap were more generous than others. All things considered, definitely no complaints and as I understand it, some of the proceeds went to the Joe Cans project against cancer via Big City Coffee.

Payette Brewing Black Friday 2014 Album

Sockeye & Boise Public Library Beer Training!

November 6, 2014 by Ben Leave a Comment

Who would have thought that a beer lover should scour the local library website for classes concerning beer? Even better than classes, how about free beer tastings?? Certainly not this beer guy. Nevertheless there it was plain as day, a 2 hour beer presentation at the library with Josh King, the head brewer from neighboring Sockeye. Last week, the evening kicked off at the Cole library location with a light, conversational, basics of beer overview where we were able to put hands on the raw ingredients that go into natures best beverage and ask questions about styles, brewing, the micro-brew industry… really questions ran the gambit and it was incredibly insightful.

For example, as a huge Lager fan myself, I was always curious about why it’s almost impossible to find a local lager. The answer surprised me, but now that I know is perfectly obvious. It all comes down to timing and turn-around. A lager is going to have to sit for an additional week (or two) over a typical ale. When micro-breweries are trying to produce in volume to maximize their production and profit… having equipment tied up for an extra week or more poses a real problem when you have a very finite amount of space.

After our initial introduction to Sockeye things really kicked into high gear. A quick walk across the parking lot brought our merry band to the brewery and a private room with an array of tables, pitchers, and empty pint glasses. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to ascertain that the evening was about to get magical. Josh, and the helpful Sockeye staff proceeded to introduce us to their six primary beers; Galena Gold (smooth, crisp, easy drinking), Whoolybugger Wheat (heffe style), Angels Perch Amber (malty ale with hints of nut & chocolate), Powerhouse Porter (dark but not too rich, hints of coffee and chocolate), Hell Diver Pale Ale (I’d classify this as an IPA personally, very hoppy), & the Dagger Falls IPA.

Once we were all settled, Josh offered a brief introduction to each which was followed by the presentation of the pitchers. The idea being that we would each pour approximately 4oz samples into the waiting pint glass. An impressive amount of restraint was shown and everyone was more than covered on the initial pour… my issue however arises in sending a perfectly good partial pitcher back to be discarded. I simply can’t allow that to happen, and neither could a few others. The result of course was that 4oz pours quickly doubled or tripled as pitches needed to be put down before the next beer came out.

I’ve of course been to Sockeye on a number of occasion and have always enjoyed having a few beers there. They are well established and do what they do well. But prior to that evening I didn’t really know much about Sockeye.

As a general rule, Sockeye beers run on the hoppy side, beer lovers who haven’t yet acquired a fierce love of hops will do great up to the Hell Diver I’d say. Bottom line, if you are a lover of beer, always keep your feelers open for great brew related events in Boise, even at the Boise Public Library!

Hoptober FRESHtival 2014

October 12, 2014 by Ben Leave a Comment

Hoptoberfest 2014

What better way to spend 8 hours on a Saturday than at a street party surrounded by a few thousand beer lovers, 13 local breweries, food trucks ( P Ditty’s Wrap Wagon, Genki Takoyaki, Mosaic World Wraps), and music (Radio Boise DJ’s) on a mostly sunny afternoon. That was exactly the scenario that awaited the (hopefully first annual) Hoptober Freshtival attendees on October 11th at Boise Brewing in downtown Boise on Broad street.Admission to this all day beerbration (pretty sure I just made that word up) was a mere $20 in advance ($25 at the gate). At the gate each guest was issued a 4oz mini-mug. This mug, which was really more of a golden ticket, could be taken to any of the brewery fill stations on-site for a fill of magical elixir and the choices were fantastic. With 13 different breweries on hand, many having 2 beers to choose from, choices were never in short supply. On hand were beers from (in no particular order) 10 Barrel Brewing, Sockeye, Crooked Fence, Sawtooth, Woodland Empire, RAM, EDGE, Highlands Hollow, Salmon River, Portneuf Valley Brewing, Payette, Grand Teton, and of course Boise Brewing. Stouts, ales, saisons, and IPA’s were all easy to find, just to name a few.

While it was almost impossible to find a beer station that didn’t have a line, things were orderly and moved along at a brisk pace. Patrons waiting in line were cheerful, friendly and frequently chatting about what they had already tried, were hoping to try, or looking for advice of the like.Unfortunately, I missed out on the first few hours due to other commitments, but it was definitely still going strong when I rolled in at five o’clock. Having been on hand for the Boise Brewing grand opening earlier this summer (another street party), I knew that this would be a must attend event. To put the crowd and their beer drinking prowess into perspective, in total 35 kegs were consumed during the event and from what I could see I think the first breweries didn’t start to run dry until after 6 which I couldn’t help but find impressive. Having been behind the scenes, I know that more than one brewery on hand had more beer brought in to keep their taps flowing. As the evening drew to a close, around 7:45pm what seemed like a micro-burst brought in a bunch of wind and rain which wrecked a little bit of havoc but seemed a fitting way to close out a wonderful fall evening in downtown Boise.With the massive influx of new community micro-breweries that have started to spring up in the greater Boise area, it is fantastic to see events like this come about as a beer lover.

My only regret is that they don’t come along more often. Seriously, talk about beer paradise! Thirteen breweries that were all you can drink for 8 hours for a mere $20? Find me a better event anywhere if you can, because that’s where I want to be. As the North West continues to grow into a bit of a beer mecca it’s very welcome that this culture has expanded into Idaho after having such a successful incubation in our neighboring states of Oregon and Washington.Proceeds of this event benefitted the Idaho Brewers United and the Pink Boots Society. Boise Brewing has a great selection of photos from throughout the event that are worth checking out as well.

: Afternoon Crowd

: Afternoon Crowd

: Keep the hits coming!

: Got swag?