Beer lovers revel in RateBeer craft brew festival in Santa Rosa

About 2,000 beer aficionados experienced nirvana Saturday with suds from more than 50 first-class craft breweries on tap at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.

With each brewery pouring small tastes of up to eight different products - with names ranging from Juicy to Barrel-Aged Outta Kilter Scotch Red Ale - there was pleasure aplenty for those attending the second annual RateBeer Best Beer Festival.

“It's a beer drinker's paradise,” said Brian Donlon of Santa Rosa, standing in the crowd filling the cavernous Grace Pavilion. “The best of the best.”

Donlon timed his approach to the Russian River Brewing Co. booth to get the first taste of Temptation, a blonde ale aged in French oak chardonnay barrels. It was poured from a lone 3-liter bottle uncorked at 3:23 p.m. By 3:30 it was empty.

Another man, who just missed out on Temptation instead got a taste of Russian River's Consecration, which packs a punch with 10 percent alcohol by volume.

“Very satisfied,” said the man, who identified himself as a regular Russian River Brewing patron but declined to give his name.

Many of the featured brews - crafted in the United States and six foreign countries - were in the “high octane” range, with eight to 12 percent alcohol, said Mark Lagris, the event coordinator. But moderation was encouraged as the beer was doled out mostly in two- to three-ounce samples in round glasses less than four inches tall.

The festival had shuttle buses running to three local hotels, and everyone who bought tickets for the sold-out event was advised by email to use taxis or online ride services, Lagris said.

Joe Tucker, who runs the RateBeer website out of his Santa Rosa home, said he was please with the turnout for the upstart event.

“It feels like I'm doing my job,” Tucker said. That job is to “connect people with great beers.”

By design, there was no live or recorded music during the festival. “The whole thing is about preserving the experience,” Tucker said.

Cassidy Symons of San Diego said he had sampled 40 or 50 beers. “I've been doing work,” he said with a grin. “Stressful job we have here.”

His friend, Jenn Briesach of San Carlos, said she was “a little bit slower” with 35 samples ingested. Her favorite: Anagram Bourbon Barrel Aged Blueberry Cheesecake Stout from the Swedish brewer Omnipollo.

“I got one and my friends drank it all so I had to get another,” she said.

Jen Harpe of San Mateo said she had tasted only 10 brews. “It's still early,” she said. “We have another party tonight.”

Festival organizers, collaborating with Visit Santa Rosa, a tourism-oriented program of the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce, picked this weekend for the festival with an eye on the Friday release of Russian River Brewing's famed Pliny the Younger, a triple IPA, in hopes some folks would spend the week in the region.

“We go every year, it's fun,” Harpe said, adding that she tries to get in line for Pliny by 7 a.m.

Sonoma County is indeed the cradle of craft beer, Tucker said, noting that New Albion Brewing Company, founded in the town of Sonoma in 1976, is recognized as the nation's first craft brew.

Craft brewing's estimated economic impact in the county was $169 million in 2014-15, according to the Sonoma County Economic Development Board. Since 2012 alone, local production has jumped 40 percent, the agency reported.

Kim Link of Visit Santa Rosa said the twin bill of beer events, referring to the festival and the limited-edition Pliny release, is intended to boost hotel and restaurant business in the off-peak season.

The top 100 beers selected by RateBeer reviewers will be announced at 11 a.m. Sunday at the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 707-521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.