1st Annual Springfest Beer Festival

Some Beery Stickers From a Beery Good Festival

April 20th was the Arizona Craft Brewer's Association's Springfest Beer Festival at Rillito Downs in Tucson, Arizona. Over 30 breweries were represented, many of which were local Arizona Establishments. It was really great to see the new small breweries out there, with brewers on hand to answer questions and talk about anything and everything beer related. In fact, the knowledge of the people manning the tents was what made it stand out above the Sun Sounds Beer Fest that is held in October.

Some of the highlights for me were OHSO Nanobrewery, which had a beer bike and was serving their beer out of small wood casks. A lot of crazy stuff, including some Belgians and Sours. They were even running their imperial IPA through a Randell filled with Whole Cascade hops.

Fate Brewery from Scottsdale was by far the beer highlight of the day. These guys had 5 beers to try, including an Amber, Habanero Infused Pale, and Imperial IPA. They were all great. I might actually have to make a trip to Phoenix sometime to get some more of these folk's suds.

Right next to them was Cartel Coffee Lab from Phoenix (They have a store in Tucson as well). I talked to Cartel's owner, and he has been brewing beer in small One barrel batches and the stuff wasn't bad at all. He said he brews a batch almost every day right now! They also had a collaboration beer with Fate, which was a coffee infused pale ale. Just like the habanero, except with coffee instead of peppers. It was very good.

The Festival could have used some free food samples (there were food trucks selling their fare), and I should have worn a bigger hat to keep out the sun, but all in all it was a really great festival. Cheers!