so-cal-homebrewers-festival-2011-see-photosThis weekend the California Homebrewers Association (CHA) celebrated their 21st Annual Southern California Homebrewers Festival at Lake Casitas in Ojai, CA. Dozens of homebrew clubs and commercial brewers came out to pour hundreds of beers on Friday and Saturday. We enjoyed getting to know the Golden State’s homebrewers and sampling their many, many beers in a gorgeous setting!

Pro Pours and Amateur Ales Coming Together

At the festival, attendees had an opportunity to mingle with and learn from fellow homebrewers and professional brewers alike. In addition to the brandy tasting and commercial beer pours on Friday night, the CHA arranged two pro speakers on Saturday. Last year’s speakers included Lost Abbey’s Tomme Arthur and Russian River’s Vinnie Cilurzo. This year, New Belgium’s Peter Bouckaert talked about Belgian brewing techniques and The Bruery‘s Tyler King discussed brewing high alcohol beers.

In addition to the speakers, a handful of homebrewers that work at commercial breweries served up homebrew with their local clubs. Beachwood Brewing’s Julian Shrago shared his West Coast IPA with the Long Beach Homebrewers. The Bruery’s Kevin Hammons and JD Cramer shared BrewCommune‘s beers with us. Eagle Rock Brewery‘s Erick Garcia and Drew Beechum worked the Maltose Falcons booth, tapping their delicious Whiskey Barrel Barleywine with the thirsty masses.

That Burn is Not the Alcohol

Each year clubs can enter a beer in the Bragging Rights Only Beer Competition. This year’s style up for competition was the “session beer.” Each club could submit one beer with an original gravity of no higher than 1.042. Ventura Independent Beer Enthusiasts (VIBE) was named the club with the winning brew. We tried lots of great session beers, including one that was made only 5 days before the festival!

Another beer style we tried a variety of were spicy beers! There was a Pepper Porter with five kinds of peppers from Addison Homebrew Provisions, chiptole brews from both the Maltose Falcons and Crown of the Valley Brewing Society, and a chili/pineapple/strawberry/passion fruit beer from Lab Rat Homebrew Society. Plus, we learned a ghost pepper beer is on its way from The Bruery Provisions, so cheers to that.

Additional information:
http://www.calhomebrewers.org/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Southern-California-Homebrewers-Festival/111893145491298