Beer and baseball - a big hit

After day one, this year’s Inland NW Craft Beer Festival is shaping up to be a home run.

Eric Radovich of the sponsoring Washington Beer Commission was all smiles about the attendance at the festival’s new home in Avista Stadium , where the Spokane Indians play baseball.

It helped that the weather cooperated, after last year’s muddy monsoon downtown in Riverfront Park. It’s supposed to be even nicer today, in the mid-70s and mostly sunny, as the festival continues from noon to 8 p.m.

And people seemed to love Avista, with its open feel, free parking and distinctive vibe. After all, how often do you get to walk around drinking beer in the outfield of a professional baseball park?

Among the comments we heard from visitors to our On Tap booth:

“It’s not that I didn’t like Riverfront Park, but this has got a little more of a cool factor.”

“We took a picture this year and said, ‘Hey, look where we are.’  “

“In Riverfront Park, with all the fences, you kind of felt corralled in. Here, it’s more open.”

“It feels more exclusive, more quirky. If you’re going to have a craft beer event, it should be in a special location.”

By the way, our booth is in a different place than we posted yesterday. We expected to be along the third base line, by the restrooms (like the map in the program shows), but once organizers arrived they changed things up a bit; the restrooms actually are along the first base line, and we’re near the left field corner, between the booths for Malted Mutt dog treats and Montana Beer Finder.

Stop on by today to say hi and talk beer, and don’t forget to enter our drawing for $25 gift certificates to local beer stores.

As usual, there also are several changes to the beer information printed in the program. Unfortunately, Republic Brewing wasn’t able to make it this year, because of “unforeseen circumstances.”

A couple of the big imperial IPAs we expected to see also are MIA. Bale Breaker is pouring its regular (and outstanding) Top Cutter instead of the advertised Kiln Series #002, and Iron Horse’s Gary has been replaced by an imperial stout that’s part of the limited-release Brewlette series.

On the other hand, hopheads will be happy to hear that instead of its scheduled MangoWeizen wheat beer, Northwest Brewing has an imperial Crazy Bitch IPA, big sister to its standard Hoppy Bitch.

In place of the regular High Performance Porter listed in the program, Hopped Up is offering the orange vanilla version, which was generating a lot of buzz last night.

River City brought a surprise firkin of triple dry-hopped Riverkeeper IPA; there’s a little left for today, so don’t delay if you want to check it out (and you do). They’ll also be pouring River City Red through a Randall with Doma espresso beans until 4 p.m., and cinnamon and oak chips after that.

Iron Goat’s Simcoe/Citra fresh hop IPA will give way today to the SpoHop made with a variety of homegrown hops contributed by customers. And don’t miss the tasty Easy Green Fresh Hop Pale (Simcoe and Cascade) jointly brewed by River City and Waddell’s.

Waddell’s also is debuting its Connie Mack Reserve, a strong ale with a ton of flavor from oak chips soaked in Maker’s Mark.

If you’re into sours, look for No-Li’s lightly tart Green Bluff Sour Cherry, and the more intense barrel-aged Sour Cherry Saison from Ramblin’ Road. And No-Li’s cranberry-pumpkin Krumpkin (like Thanksgiving in a glass) comes with a little bonus: a bag of Krumpkin caramel corn.

Among the other beers we’re looking forward to trying as the festival wraps up today:

– The revamped recipes for Twelve String’s Roundabout Confusion, and tequila barrel-aged Imperial Mango Mambo hefeweizen.

– Big Barn’s pumpkin ale, made with gourds fresh from their Green Bluff farm.

– The two Randalls from Ramblin’ Road: an IPA through whole-leaf Citra hops, and a big Belgian quad over bourbon-soaked French oak.

– The all-Simcoe Alpha Madness fresh hop IPA from Pullman’s Paradise Creek.

– Orlison’s RyePL India pale lager, and Underground Pumpkin Stout.

– The bourbon barrel-aged Dark Star imperial oatmeal stout with pumpkin from Fremont Brewing, along with their organic Cowiche Canyon Fresh Hop Pale.

Hey, Eric – can we keep this thing going on Sunday, too?