The festival kickoff included performances by Up Dharma Down, Pupil, Rico Blanco, and Urbandub. There were also beer-drinking contests in between performances. The festival will be a month-long celebration in Eastwood Mall and Venice Piazza and will end on October 25, 2013. For the complete schedule and more info on the festival please click the link: Megaworld Lifestyle Malls Beer Festival Schedule
The Festival Experience
We arrived at Eastwood Mall around 9pm . The area was already swarming with people as the festival started around 6pm. We reached the little entrance of the festival and to our disappointment, we were not able to get in as the security guards were already told not to let people inside (except for those with marks) because it was already full. I believe it was for security and safety reasons. Yeah I kinda understood that but my gripe is that all the beers are inside that area. Being a beer junkie, that did not deter us for getting beer from the inside. So what we did was go to side railings and get our beers from one of the merchants near the railings which was Distillery. The people from Distillery were very kind enough to let us buy beer and one girl even tried to talk to the guard to let me in but to no luck. Being at the back I wasn't able to see the beers so I asked for their beer-list which conveniently they have. Their beer list was a long one that I hard a hard time deciding what to get. I finally got these beers:
Paulaner is a wheat beer from Germany. It is a Hefeweizen which is a mix of yeast and wheat but some brewers put more wheat. The prefix "hefe" means yeast and "weizen" is wheat in the German language.
The aroma is fruity and I believe I smelled a hint of banana. I drank it straight from the bottle so I wasn't able to see the color of the beer. It was nice and smooth and has a nice after taste. Not as banana-tasting as it smelled but a fruity one nevertheless. It was not that bitter to my taste and will likely drink it again.
My friend got the Pink Killer from Brasserie de Silly. A very catchy name for a beer hailing from Silly, Belgium.
Again we have no glass so we weren't able to see the color of the beer. But I read from their website that it has a cloudy-pink color. I would definitely have to try this again and pour it in a glass.
My friend enjoyed the beer and said it has strong fruity taste. She can't tell what fruit it tasted like. So I guess I have to get a hold of a bottle and write a follow-up review.
After finishing our beers we decided to roam around Eastwood City mall. We passed by the display of the 150+ beers that are featured in the festival. Below are some pics:
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| Sorry no panorama shot as other people are also taking pictures |
This was the beer that devirginized my taste buds into the Belgian wheat beer. And from that day on, this was my go-to wheat beer.
What I really liked about this beer is its citrus taste that smoothly goes down to your throat. Faint bitter taste that makes it easy to gulp this baby. But I tell you, this is no "hoe" in my book. It is meant to delicately caress your taste buds leaving you wanting for more.
Night Cap and the Local Craft Beer Movement
After having our fix at Publiko (awesome nachos! Will definitely go back!), We decided to go back to the festival grounds. The crowd grew larger as Rico Blanco was onstage with an all-star sessionists composed of Ira Cruz and Jomal Linao. After Rico, Urbandub took the stage and gave the festival some southern hard rock kick before calling it a night. As the kickoff came to a close, people dispersed and so I told my friend that this was our chance to taste the beers inside. Here are the beers that we were able to get our hands on
Katipunan Indio Pale Ale (Draft)
This craft ale is one of the local brews that I'm looking forward to taste for a long time. And this night was my lucky night as they are serving it on tap.
The reasons that piqued my interest to this ale is the name Katipunan and their play of words with Indian Pale Ale (IPA) and made it to Indio Pale Ale. "Indio" was the term used by the Spaniards to refer to Filipinos during their reign in the Philippines. "Katipunan" was the faction led by Andres Bonifacio that revolted against the Spaniards. This connects with their motto or slogan "Take Part in the Brewing Revolution".
Now onto the ale. It has an amber color as seen on the picture. Aroma has a bitter smell to it and was very evident as soon as I took a sip. The bitterness seems to stay for a while after that sip. The ale is very unique to my palette in a good way. It was a little too bitter for my liking but I will definitely have to drink this again as a glass won't do this ale justice. So for now that's my initial impression of this ale. Watch out for its full review soon!
I was also able to chat a little bit with the owner/brewer from Katipunan Craft Ales (sorry I forgot to ask your name) and was able to get a tip that they are releasing a new variant by October. Looking forward to what this brewery has to offer!
Summer Sessions
The first thing I noticed with this beer is the bottle. It has very nice graphics that really fits well with the name. Maybe this brew was inspired during a "surf session" by the brewers.
Has a good fruity aroma to it. Drank this straight from the bottle so wasn't able to see its color. I was actually surprised by its taste which was very good. I love the fruity aftertaste and bitterness was just right. I now get it why it was named Summer Sessions, because of its refreshing and clean taste that can cool the summer heat.
Will definitely have to try drink this during summer and by the beach. I also believe that Craftpoint has something going good for Summer Sessions and will definitely check out their other brews.
Bavaria
We will try to order this beer in one of our night outs to write a full a review.
Trappistes Rochefort
This beer was offered to us a couple of times by this waiter before we finally gave in. He offered two variants which is the 8 and 10. He explained to us that the numbers doesn't mean the ABV but the years it was aged. Although the ABV is close to the years which are 9.2% and 11.3% respectively. So naturally we opted for the 8 as we already had a couple of brews.
The price of this beer is like a step to heaven and the waiter was gracious enough to offer a discount but I refused and said keep it as a donation for the church (no I didn't say those words exactly but I refused to get the discount and gave it as a tip for his persistence).
We opted to share the bottle as we got intimidated by the ABV. So we asked for cups and the waiter gave us paper cups. So I had to peek inside the cup to see the color. The color is a contrast to heaven as it is dark as the bottle. A strong aroma of roasted malt and coffee aroused my senses so I drank it hastily. I liked how it tasted but I liked the aftertaste much better as it tasted like chocolate. Did I hear angels singing while I was drinking it? No. Although everytime I take a sip is it made me smile and forget that I was drinking a 9.2% beer.
Well after finishing the beer it made me thank the heavens that I was able to finish it and help me get home safely.
Conclusion
All in all the festival experience was good and I was able to have enough beers to taste and include in this post. I will do individual follow-up reviews for the beers we tasted. Hopefully I can go back to Eastwood for the event-proper and get to taste more beers!
I'll give a high five to the event organizers for coming up with an alternative beer festival here in the Philippines. I would've have given them a double high five if they had a better system for beer-buying folks and the concert-watching folks. Hey, there's always room for improvement right? And this is on my wishlist for the next year:
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| Photo from acidcow.com. Wouldn't it be a lot nicer to see this beauties serving you beer? |
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