Sadly, the boys of FuzzyBrew did not make it to Zoo Brew at the Memphis Zoo this past weekend. But as luck had it, our friend Diana, who blogs over at Eating Local in Memphis, scored some tickets and agreed to share her thoughts about the event. She has some great insights on Zoo Brew and the many beers she sampled.
●●●
Last Friday, Mark and I went to ZooBrew, a semiannual fundraiser at the Memphis Zoo. It was sold out, but it didn’t feel completely packed. After the initial logjam at the table to get your plastic cup, the event was nicely spread out around the front parts of the zoo. Winding our way up and down the paths gave us a chance to mingle and to walk off some of the beer.
We went without much of a plan beyond “Let’s try things we’ve never had before.” Since the ‘brew featured over 100 different beers, many of which we hadn’t tried, this turned out to be a bad plan. Enter Nate, husband of a good friend, home brewer extraordinare, and beer festival spirit guide. After asking us what we like to drink, he turned out amazing recommendation after amazing recommendation.
Between the two of us we sampled 28 different beers, from Abita to Xingu. There’s no way we could talk about all of them (literally—my notes from that night are virtually incomprehensible), so I’ll run down the unexpectedly solid, the wonderfully weird, and the offensively wrong.
I started out with a Hitachino Nest Sweet Stout from Japan. It was super smooth and had a finish that tasted like coffee whipped into fresh cream. Mark finally found his groove with Stone’s Arrogant Bastard Ale, which he praised extensively until we tripped onto the Dogfish Head table and Nate recommended the Indian Brown Ale. 
We both liked that one for its fantastic balance of hoppiness and warm roasty malted flavors. My pick at Stone was the Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale, which the guys behind the booth described as “very heavy” but tasted basically like a grapefruit bomb. Which was totally okay with me; I don’t mind a little hop explosion every now and then.
Sadly, we skipped the Unibroue table (I love love La Fin du Monde), but the nice surprises at Sierra Nevada, Victory and Abita (almost) made up for it. As the FuzzyBrew guys have noted, Sierra Nevada is rolling out Tumbler, which we liked for its solid drinkability. I’ll have two, please. Oh, wait, we did (we came back to it).
Victory was new to me, as I am apparently the last to board the Hop Devil train. I tried a Prima Pils here, which had a super refreshing citrus taste without all the aggressive hops of an IPA. Palate cleared, check. Not so for Mark — he went to a Baltic Thunder porter. The notes I have indicate only that it was “v. good,” but trust me, he was making yummm sounds as he drank it. Finally, I had no idea Abita made beers other than the standbys Amber, Turbo Dog and the like. So wrong! They made a very excellent IPA called Jockamo, for which I have no notes but highly recommend you drink.
Now, the weird. So basically, this is the entire Dogfish Head table, sans the Indian Brown Ale. I am totally down for what Sam Calagione, the founder of the brewery, is trying to do: resurrect forgotten brewing methods and combinations and basically show us that the things we’d never think would make good beer actually do. The problem, I think, is that it sometimes gets a little unapproachable. Like, take the Midas Touch, a supposedly 2700-year-old recipe. It tastes like honey and mead and is great one ounce at a time. I’d never sit down and drink a whole bottle. 
I’d pour the bottle into one-ounce cups for dinner guests so we could all try this crazy drink without going into a diabetic coma. The Palo Santo Marron was interesting, too. At 12% alcohol, it was a wood-fermented beer that the guys behind the table doled out in tiny splashes, saying “You like it, I’ll give you more.” One of my friends described it as “rough.” Maybe rough around the edges, certainly nothing a year of letting it age in the bottle couldn’t cure, our spirit guide assured us. And he should know, because he’s done it. Finally, I can’t say enough nice things about the Raison D’Etre, brewed with sugar beets and raisins. With enough maltiness to balance the winey undertones, it was one we both liked. It was a great example of weird done right.
Now, the ugly. Saranac‘s table was kind of a bust — its Black Forest reminded us of cottage cheese. I don’t like fruit in my beer, so the strawberry flavors of Flying Dog Garde Dog (a biere de garde, which I always like at Boscos when it’s a seasonal) put me off my cracker. And why were we even surprised when Kasteel‘s Rouge fruit beer tasted exactly like Robitussin?
It was a hugely fun night and one I’d love to do again. We never even got to the England, Germany or the Belgian tables. We definitely learned a little bit (thanks to Nate), and already I don’t feel paralyzed with indecision when I stand in front of the beer selection at Joe’s.
