BrianMSTL

2nd Shift Cask Festival - 2020 January 19th, 2020 2nd Shift Brewing Company Cask Festival With something going on nearly every weekend, it's hard for St. Louis beer-lovers to get bored during the winter months. For example, this past weekend, I attended my second beer festival of 2020, and it is likely one of my favorites.  On Sunday, 2nd Shift Brewing Company held its annual Cask Festival, which brings together a number of their closest friends and some fantastic small-batch beer. For those that are unfamiliar, Cask Festival is a smaller beer festival where 2nd Shift invites their friends to bring small cask just for the festival. During this event, you will likely find variations on existing beers brewed with unique new ingredients or a brand new beer brewed just for the festival; either way, you are in for some exceptional beer choices. One unique thing with this festival is that it allows each attendee a unique opportunity to pour their beer; while sampling...

2019 was quite a year, I visited my first brewery outside of the United States during a trip to Mexico, visited the Great American Beer Festival, and visited my milestone 200th brewery. Over the year, I was able to visit 55 new breweries and sampled over 848 unique beers from 287 different breweries. The Great American Beer Festival in Denver, along with several beer festivals in my hometown of St.Louis helped me sample so many different styles of beers. Despite the massive variety, my most common beer style of the year was likely a toss-up between the many IPA varieties and Saisons, however towards the end of the year, I started to venture more into stouts, which is something I usually have stayed away from. St. Louis, MO (Metro Area) St. Louis is my hometown, so I would make an effort to visit every brewery within the region. I think as of this year I have visited most, but there is always something new opening. St.Louis is easily one of the best beer scenes in the country. ...

Starting 2020, I figured it would be an excellent opportunity to start over; my goal late last year was to begin to contribute outside of Twitter, Instagram, & Yelp; however, work and life seemed to get in the way. For those that do not already know or follow me, allow me to introduce myself. I was born and raised in St.Louis, so both baseball and beer are in my blood. Over the last nine years, I have been relatively active in Yelp, which is an online review site. During that time, I had met many people whom I am fortunate enough to call friends. Yelp does encourage community, and if you are looking to share personal experiences about food, beer, cocktails, or anything else, I highly recommend it. About three years ago, I decided to branch out from Yelp to Twitter and Instagram as another platform to share my experiences. Initially, I started to mirror my Yelp experiences, but I quickly grew past that and started to explore my passion for craft beer with occasional food and ran...