Burb’s Eye View: Checking out the happenings at OktoBURfest

This past Saturday, the city of Burbank held possibly the largest public beer tasting in its history, teaching the ale-and-lager-loving public there’s a complex spectrum to the craft-beer movement in Southern California, and Burbank may be the perfect hub to capture its hop-infused magic.

It was OktoBURfest in name only. With no oompah bands, schnitzel or any other signals to indicate this as a celebration of German culture (save the bag of pretzels you get when you walk in), if you wanted Bavaria you had to bring it with you.

Chris Bahr from Studio City, for example, arrived resplendent in lederhosen from a trip to Garmisch in upper Bavaria. Later, I met a man pouring samples from Weihenstephan, the oldest continuously operating brewery in the world, and that’s just about the extent of the German experience of OktoBURfest.

But the crowd was fine with that. The event sold out mid-afternoon, offering 1- to 3-ounce samples of at least 50 different beers under the watch of uniformed Burbank police officers.

By last count about 25 different breweries showcased a few samples of fall seasonal and best-sellers. I started with a doppelbock from Epic, but soon visited the Bruery’s booth for an equally dark Autumn Maple ale that’s made with maple syrup and 17 pounds of yams per barrel.

Having my daily amount of vegetables covered, I ran into a booth run by city employees volunteering for the day.

“Neither of us drink — we’re the best people to pour,” Ellie Knapp said, jokingly.

Some beers were hard to grasp by name alone. The Sabre-Tooth Squirrel by Smog City Brewery in Torrance was, as the gentleman pouring the sample for me explained, “cute and cuddly, but with a hoppy bite to it.”

Several breweries offered their spins on Oktoberfest, and during a sip of Victory’s version, I met Luis Gomez and daughter Jessica of Burbank. Prior to Saturday, they hadn’t put too much thought into how different beers can be.

“Before it was whatever’s at Ralphs, but now I know there are all these flavors,” Luis Gomez said.

“I think it was a great experience for both of us,” Jessica Gomez said.

She tried several different brewers, but had absolutely one favorite: the Bruery from Placentia. Earlier she sampled a secret tasting of the bourbon barrel-aged Black Tuesday imperial stout, a beer whispered among the booths and tables for its outstandingly strong, brandy-like taste. It’s also got more alcohol than a glass of wine.

The Gomezes left and got on with tastings elsewhere. The stout, meanwhile, made my taste buds numb.

The drink overpowered the senses and ruined whatever came next. A brown ale tasted like rusty nails. A summer saison imbued with herbs and lemon peel scraped the senses with a stinging sourness.

Two bottles of water later, I was able to cleanse my palate, which was about the time I ran into Steve Hawk’s mustache.

The Burbank resident is a co-founder of the Beerbank Burclub, a gathering of beernoisseurs who meet occasionally to try new and rare beers or multiple vintages of the same beer. A man was asking him about his large, white mustache, which “was horrible … (until) I got old,” Hawk said.

I was transfixed … but more so by the fact that he was manning a tap for Stone Brewery. Over a taste of pale ale, he explained he helped form the group after a bottle-sharing beer party his wife threw for his 60th birthday. The group now meets regularly and organizes through its Facebook page.

He was happy to see OktoBURfest grow so much since it began last year — the event expanded from nine breweries to just over two dozen.

There’s still plenty of room to add in a food booth or two for next year’s event, or maybe a German band … something to say Oktoberfest beyond the drink with which it’s most commonly associated.

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BRYAN MAHONEY writes about Burbank neighbors and the place they call home. He can be reached at 818NewGuy@gmail.com and on Twitter at @818NewGuy.