Article from Drink Me magazine!

http://drinkmemag.com/2011/09/freaktoberfest/

NY Craft Beer Week Begins: Freaktoberfest

by Allegra Ben-Amotz

NY Craft Beer Week kicked off this Friday with Freaktoberfest, a party hosted by Shmaltz Brewing Co. that featured representatives from over 20 breweries, a bevy of Coney Island freakshow performers, 2 floors of live music, and a mustachioed emcee named Donny Vomit who juggled knives and swallowed balloons between sets.  The third annual celebration went down at Southpaw, a raucous music venue in Park Slope, Brooklyn where beer geeks boogied and sipped unlimited tastings alongside soul singers, industry types, and burlesque dancers.

The spirit of the event was embodied by its highlighted beer and official drink of NY Craft Beer Week: Geektoberfest, a collaboration between Captain Lawrence, Ithaca Beer Co., and Shmaltz Brewing Company, is a blend of seven barrel-aged sour brown ales.  The beer, only available on draft during Craft Beer Week, is a spirited, tart ale with hints of raspberry, a kitchen-sink project that brings together sours with history all over the state.

We sampled the national launch of Genesis 15:15, Shmaltz’s new barrel-aged harvest barleywine ale with a whopping 13.4% ABV, brewed with pomegranate juice, fig juice, date & grape juice, aged in rye whiskey barrels – the perfect tipple for the Jewish New Year!


Shmaltz also celebrated the recent launch of the world’s tiniest craft brewery, Coney Island Brewing Company, who welcomed five of the guest brewers they had at their facility this summer (we especially liked The Horny RYEnocerous, a dry-hopped rye IPA, brewed by Fritz Fernow).  Other notable participants were Greenport Harbor, a two year old Long Island brewery who served up a double IPA; Ommegang with a palate-cleansing, summery Belgian pale ale; Speakeasy, who shared a two-month release from their Bootlegger Limited Series (Butchertown Black Ale, a roasted but light-bodied IPA-type brew); and Goose Island, a Chicago-based brewery who featured Matilda, a dark, fruity pale ale targeted at wine drinkers, and Sofie, a tart, Belgian-style farmhouse ale aged in wine barrels with orange peel.

Freaktoberfest had all attendees in high spirits, ready to embark on a week-long celebration of New York’s finest brews.