Last updated on December 9, 2021 by Jeremy
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When it comes to Pittsburgh beer festivals, for a while we felt like we had seen it all. We’ve been to Beers of the Burgh (focused on 100% Western PA), Rose All Day (all about rose beer, wine, and other spirits) and even the Good Wood Festival (where it all has to have seen inside a barrel) to name a few.
It’s only on the local beer website and podcast, Fueled by hops, launched a beer festival in 2021 of which we realized we were missing a category. Drink the Cookie Table focused on all things dessert beer and brought together popular local and national breweries to share their most devious sweet creations, all under the brand of Pittsburgh’s favorite wedding tradition – the Cookie Table.
We had the chance to attend Drink the Cookie Table as guests of our friends at Fueled by Hops, and to share a little more about what it was in this one to get you excited when it comes back (hopefully -the) the next one!
22 breweries featuring the best dessert beers
During Drink the Cookie Table, Fueled by Hops brought 22 breweries to Spirit in Lawrenceville. The event had an almost equal mix of Pittsburgh breweries (like Abjuration, Cellar Works, Inner Groove, and 412) as well as regional and national breweries (like The Answer, Fourscore, Pilger Ruh, and Aslin) to name a few. -a. This allowed us to try new creations among local favorites as well as discover some regional gems that we will have to visit in the near future.
At first you might think 22 breweries might seem a bit light for an Oktoberfest, and while it might be true for other festivals, for a brewery as beer-dessert-oriented as Drink the Cookie Table (and the smallest space inside Spirit), the selection was perfect.
Part of that was just the practicality of it all – you can only drink a limited amount of 10-15% ABV dessert beers before you tire the palate and / or overload on alcohol. But the other part was that we got to taste more or less all the beers at the festival (minus the nutty ones for Angie due to her allergy). As one of our biggest regrets at other beer festivals is simply running out of room to try new beers, it was refreshing to be able to taste more or less everything that was on offer in one session.
Beyond that, one of the biggest highlights of the event was that many unique beers were also brewed specifically for the festival. These were often collaboration beers between local breweries and bakeries / other dessert producers and featured flavor profiles that we really had never seen in beer before.
Altered Genius has teamed up with The Pie Place for an apple pie beer. Monday worked with Sarris Candies for a dark chocolate stout. Tattered Flag collaborated with Thicc Bois Glass for a salted caramel and pistachio stout macaroon as well as a sour fruit and lactose beer. Inner Groove and Oakmont Bakery were natural partners for a chewy cherry beer with the bakery’s popular cookie. We could go on.
Of course, some breweries also brought in conventional favorites like an IPA orange milkshake from The Answer and the famous fruit whips from Cellar Works that rivaled the event’s top collaboration beers.
In fact, while the event seemed quite crowded due to Spirit’s small size in Lawrenceville, it was only at these specific breweries that we noticed a sizable line for pourings. Pittsburgh beer fans know who serves rare, hard-to-find beers at every festival, and the line-up for The Answer, based in Richmond, was really the only sizable wait we had during the entire event ( it was a good idea to get in early because a few kegs were closed later to reserve beer for the second session). But when it comes to crowd control, despite feeling a bit tight, the level of beer to the guest was also more or less perfect (a perk of offering two sessions!).
Overall, although this is a smaller festival than others in the area, Drink the Cookie Table has come together to show us that we can still use more beer festivals with different themes. . Dessert beers might not be everyone’s favorite style of beer, but it was a nice event to see what brewers could come up with under the sweet beer umbrella, especially in tandem with bakeries. local. As we hear this one will return in 2022 and beyond, well, we look forward to more sugary beers as well as our usual cookie bag as we walk out the door!
Drink the cookie table is presented by Fueled by Hops and in 2021 was hosted at Spirit in Lawrenceville. We were invited to Fueled by Hops for this review. As always, all opinions are ours.
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