World Beer Festival spotlights N.C. brews

Thousands enjoyed the World Beer Festival on April 13.

By Dathan Kazsuk | April 16, 2013

Twitter: @TriangleAT | Facebook: Triangle Around Town | Instagram: @trianglearoundtown

This had to be one of my most memorable Saturdays of the year so far.

On April 13, I was able to cover the All About Beer's World Beer Festival in downtown Raleigh's Moore Square. Over 100 of your favorite brewers serving over 200+ different beers. All I can say is "WOW."

I was on the clock with work, so I actually had to conduct interviews with local North Carolina beer managers and brewers. But honestly, I can't see that as a bad thing. I met several great local peeps, like White Street Brewing Company's Dino Radosta, Raleigh Brewing Company's John Federal and Natty Greene's Thomas Vincent.

But here's what I want you to do ... click here ... and read about it from my work blog, where I have 18 awesome photos for you to view in my slideshow, which highlights over a dozen NC breweries. I also have a rare photo of the National Bohemian Beer's mascot. I heard he's as rare as spotting Bigfoot himself!!!!

Sierra Nevada's Beer Camp winner taps Blood Shot in Raleigh

Either by pint or flight, Sierra Nevada had a beer for everyone.

By Dathan Kazsuk | April 13, 2013

Twitter: @TriangleAT | Facebook: Triangle Around Town | Instagram: @trianglearoundtown

After a full day at work – and might I add a boring one – it was nice to meet up with my wife and friends for a very special event at Raleigh’s BottleMixx.

On April 13, BottleMixx had very special guest, Jon Page, at the store to unveil a special beer that he helped brew with a little help from Chico, Calif.-based Sierra Nevada Brewing Company.

Blood Shot Imperial Red Ale has a great balance of malt and bitterness, and came into existence thanks to Page, the winner of Sierra Nevada’s Beer Camp contest. The contest was simple, just send a video to Sierra Nevada and let them know why you should be a brewer for a day.

Actually, I remember buying a 6-pack of Torpedo with my friend Dave, who was at the event, thinking this is something we should do. Of course we never did. But it was nice to see a local Raleigh native did, and won the whole thing.

The event brought in over 75 people in the hour we were there. Yes, I was doing my best at counting the people at the event. And for $4 a person, you received a ticket for 1 of 2 options. Option #1 was for a pint of the Blood Shot Imperial Red Ale. And option #2 was for a flight of 3 Sierra Nevada brews. Summerfest, Brewer’s Batch Belgian Double IPA and Blood Shot. Dave and I did the pint of Blood Shot, while Jen and Cheryl did the flight.

Sierra Nevada also had a few promotional items to give away that night, which included keychains, lip-balm, pens and beer koozies.

I had a good time, and looking forward to Bottle Mixx’s next event on  April 25 when Big Boss will be tapping their Munich-style Dunkelweizen, D’Icer.

Wines from Tuscany deliver delight in Wake Forest

Wine 101 and Piedmont Wine Imports hosted wines from Tuscany.

By Dathan Kazsuk | March 11, 2013

Twitter: @TriangleAT | Facebook: Triangle Around Town | Instagram: @trianglearoundtown

Some of you might know this already, but Wine 101 in Wake Forest is pretty much my home away from home. My wife and I enjoy the atmosphere at this wine and beer shop, and are good friends with store owner Joe O’Keefe. Shoot, Joe even calls my wife “sis,” and, no, they aren’t related.

On March 7, we stopped in again for a wine tasting featuring Piedmont Wine Imports’ Jay Murrie. The last time Jay was at the store he poured a selection of wines from the Piemonte region of Italy. This time he was back with wines from the Tuscany region of Italy.

If you know, of have met Jay, you know he can be a great storyteller when he talks about all the different wineries he’s visited overseas. From driving a compact car up a steep and dangerous mountain pass to trying to get 60-bottles of wines through customs, Jay can paint a great picture.

This time Jay brought the party of around 35 people 7 great wines to sample. The selection consisted of 2 whites and 5 reds. Each wine had a great story about the people involved in making the wine, or how that winery operates its “organic” vineyard.

Jay will be the first to tell you that drinking wine is a “social activity,” but I just wished some of the attendees at the tasting would have not listened to that advice. Around half way through the tasting, a handful of guests might have enjoyed the wine a little too much, and started to become less connected with Jay’s stories and more so their own little conversations. It was actually difficult to hear Jay speak from the back of the room at times.

Nonetheless, we enjoyed the organic wines of Italy. We ended up buying 4 bottles that night, and will be back again next time Jay visits Wine 101.

Below are the 7 wines we tried that evening.

Pietralta Bianco Toscano
Il Corzanello Toscana Bianco 2011 
Chianti Montalbano 
Ipogeo Fattoria Castellina
Il Corzanello Toscana Rosso 2011
Terre di Corzano Chianti 2009
Pietralta Chianti

Stout tasting featuring Sexual Chocolate and Big Bad Baptist!

Four great stouts at Wake Forest's Wine 101.

By Dathan Kazsuk | March 3, 2013

Twitter: @TriangleAT | Facebook: Triangle Around Town | Instagram: @trianglearoundtown

If you are a fan of stout beers, you probably should have been at Wine 101’s Stout Tasting in the Beer Library on March 1.

For only $10 per person, you could have been introduced to a flight of 4 great stout beers.

Wine 101’s James Wood was in the Beer Library hard at work pouring out all the beer for the flights, while Joe O’Keefe was busy greeting all his loyal customers, including yours truly. It was really a jam-packed event as both rooms of Wine 101 contained around 70-100 people drinking beer or wine that evening.

The first beer on the flight was Terrapin Beer Company’s Wake-n-Bake. This coffee stout was a perfect start to the tasting, and with its special blend of beans from around the World, you really can’t go wrong here.

I had to explain to my friends the true definition of “wake and bake” as someone who gets out of bed and jumps straight to their pre-packed bong first thing in the morning. You got to love some of these beer names!

Second on the flight was one of my favorite stouts, Sexual Chocolate. And just like Wake-n-Bake this beers name derives from something else. Yes, the name Sexual Chocolate comes from the 1988 Eddie Murphy flick, Coming to America. 

The beer, it comes from Winston-Salem’s Foothills Brewing and is a great stout – a cocoa infused Imperial Stout, with a Pam Greer-esque looking woman as the beers label. Again, you can’t go wrong here.

The third beer on the flight was Coronado Brewing Company’s Blue Bridge Coffee Stout. This California-based beer was OK, but out of the 4 in the flight, this my least favorite that night. To me it tasted more like just a “flat” chilled coffee. 

The final beer, and by far my favorite that night was Epic Brewing’s Big Bad Baptist Imperial Stout. This creamy stout with a blend of cocoa nibs and coffee beans really hit the spot. After my taste, I had to go order up a pint of the beer to have some more.

While checking online, I saw that each release number of Big Bad Baptist uses a different dark roast coffee. I’m not sure what number I had that night (1-11), but it really didn’t matter, because it was great regardless.

Now I can’t forget to mention the pizza that Wine 101 was kind enough to purchase for it’s patrons from Grandma’s Pizza that night. Great pizza, and I enjoyed that it was all cheese, because being a Catholic on a Friday night during lent, I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy anything else.

I can’t wait for Wine 101’s upcoming events. Stay tuned for more blogs.

Follow us on Twitter at @TriangleAT

Organic Piedmonte wines at an exceptional value

Jay Murrie with Piedmont Wine Imports.

By Dathan Kazsuk | Feb 15, 2013

Twitter: @TriangleAT | Facebook: Triangle Around Town | Instagram: @trianglearoundtown

I was suppose to do a social networking event in downtown Raleigh on the day of Feb. 7, but when I got an email from my friend and store-owner of Wine 101, Joe O’Keefe, telling me to bring my wife and I to his shop for a wine class hosted by Piedmont Wine Imports’ Jay Murrie – I couldn’t pass up that opportunity.

Wine 101 is a wine and beer shop located in Wake Forest, and we have considered this one of our favorite places to go to hang out with friends, gossip, and enjoy some great beer and wine. Joe is amazingly great with people, unlike a few other shops we’ve been to where it seems the owner goes out of his way to avoid you.

But when Joe has an event, it’s best to pencil that date down on your calendar and be sure you attend. And you know you’ll usually run into a handful of the locals, who seem to call Wine 101 a home away from home, just like we do.

This time, Joe brought in Jay Murrie, co-owner of Piedmont Wine Imports, a company that sells wines from small family wineries out of the Piemonte and Tuscany regions of Italy. It’s also great because Jay and Luc Suér (the other co-owner) only select wines that are natural (none of those nasty chemicals and such that you find in some of the other wines we all drink).

That night Jay selected 5 wines for the class to sample, along with a bonus wine selected by Joe himself. The wine class consisted of around twenty people in the new “beer” room.

Let me start by saying Jay is a great storyteller. Each wine he poured had a story that went along with it, as Jay talked about his travels to Italy visiting each of the winemakers at their small vineyards in the Piemonte region. From binge-drinking, driving on icy roads to having a winemaker prepare a day-long meal for Jay – it was all there in his rather lengthy stories.

The first wine we sampled was the Borgo Moncalvo, bottled by Andrea and Luca Elegir. It was a nice, crisp white wine, which went well with the antipasto plates Joe had available for us to snack on.

From there, I got a little lost with the exact names and order of the wines we sampled. We did have a sheet on our table, but they weren’t matching up with the wines Jay was pouring. But that really didn’t matter, because each one of the organic wines we tried that night were nice wines. 

In the end, we had a great time listening to Jay’s stories and will be back again on March 7 when Piedmont Wine Imports will be back at Wine 101 with a selection of wines from the Tuscany region.

Wines purchased that night: Saccoletto Minerva Vino Rosso and Cascina Barisel Dolcetto. Two nice snags that I can’t wait to open the next time I craft up an Italian meal at home.