North Carolina Beer Chicks Get Lucky

I know quite a few of you North Carolina Beer Chicks, and I have to tell you that right now I'm pretty jealous as the 11th Annual World Beer Festival is going to be held in good old downtown Durham, NC on October 7th !

I'm an All About Beer Magazine subscriber and they really know what they are talking about. On hand will be some of my favorite (and not distributed out west) breweries. You lucky NC girls will be sampling Foothills Brewing Co, from Winston-Salem, Brooklyn Brewery, from...uh..Brooklyn, Atlanta Brewing Company, from...uh..Atlanta.

FYI: Also from Atlanta will be one of the best breweries, in my opinion, in the country: Sweetwater Brewing Co. Try the Sweetwater 420 Extra Pale Ale. Forget it.

Also cool at this festival is the cask ale tent. Ale on cask, also known as cask-conditioned beer, and often referred to as "Real Ale" are brewed from only traditional ingredients and allowed to mature naturally in the original cask in which the beer fermented.

The unfiltered, unpasteurized beer still contains live yeast, which continues conditioning the beer in the cask, known as "secondary fermentation." This process creates a gentle, natural CO2 carbonation and allows malt and hop flavors to develop, resulting in a rich, creamy ale.

Real ale is always served without any added gas, usually by manually pulling it up from the cellar with a handpump, also known as a "beer engine." This is a very traditional method of brewing and serving beer. Really, the only place in the world, besides special events like these, where cask-conditioned beer is still commonly available is Britain, so, once again, I'm jealous that I will not be there.

Described as one of the "10 great beer festivals to tap into for some suds in the summer sun," by USA Today, The World Beer Festival is the largest celebration of national and international specialty beers in the Southeast...300 beers from 130 breweries, and is a benefit for charity.

Click here for ticket purchase information, accommodations, entertainment beer tastings and presentations. And now, just for fun, I'm going to check on some flights to North Carolina.