Yesterday was the Oklahoma Craft Beer Festival and you know what that means! The 4th annual Barrels and Mash awards, but this year Kris was out of town eating tons of pizza in New York, so that leaves the awards up to me! Yikes! So, I dragged one of my extravert friends, Cara, and her husband along with me for the ride!
Quoting from Kris last year, “Reviewing last year’s awards I realized I attempted to remind my future self to actually bring some type of physical awards for our lucky winners, but 2018 Kris failed miserably at this. Let’s all root for 2019 Kris to now screw it up next year.” So… cross your fingers yet again for the year 2020 since he missed this one!
Here’s Kris having fun in NYC!
You can find the past awards here.
Anyways, let’s get into it and present Kate’s version of the planet Earth’s most coveted awards!
Best Overall Brewery: The Big Friendly
Joe Quinlin of the Big Friendly Beer Bus wins something every year! Last year his cherry beer was a smash hit and this year was no different. The Marshmallow Moonshine beer was velvety, and super well balanced and I would like to drink a ton of it please. His brother also had a pretty great Kvass, and there was a lovely lavender beer that was also perfectly balanced.
Joe, his brother Will, and their buddy John, will be opening a brick and mortar of their fabulous beer bus in the Wheeler district, and I’m super excited see it open. More on that here.
Best Tent: Prairie Artisan Ales
I mean look at it, it has fun colors and dogs on it, what could be better? Also, that Rainbow Sherbert beer was delish. Plus, mullet for bonus points!
Best Refreshing Beer: Angry Scotsman’s Gateway to Helles Lager
Ross from Angry Scotsman is super great, and so is his beer. I strongly needed a cleanser after drinking what seemed to be some sort of cleaning product… and that lager came in fresh and delicious, and helped cleanse my palate. So, thank you Ross!!!
Best Attention to Detail: Canadian River Brewing
All three beers from Canadian River were solid. On top of that, this super nice lady who look my glass to fill, spent extra time rinsing it, before filling it with their beer. I really appreciated her attention to detail on top of being super nice. So, they win the attention to detail award and if I’m ever in the area of their brewery I will definitely stop in.
Fullest Glass: Cabin Boys
Props to Cabin Boys for not holding back when it came to filling those glasses!
Best Sparkling Booze Water: Henry’s Hard Seltzer
Trust us, we did a really funny showdown between all the sparkling booze waters. And, I may have made a rep mad at one point for saying that I’m really into fun shitty drinks right now… HA, but I am and there’s nothing wrong with drinking something basic every once in a while… So, I deemed Henry’s the best because I was less sweet than all the rest. So, there you have it along with my feet…
Most Interesting : Battered Boar
Most interesting…
(if you’re into Pine-sol or other cleaning products.)
Well there you go. Another OCBF is in the books. We’ll try to remember some kind of actual trophy thing AGAIN next year. We hope you all had as much fun as we did at this year’s festival, a huge thank you to Cara for taking notes and photos! And we’ll see you next year!