Last weekend my wife and I attended the ilani Brewfest that took place at the ilani Casino Resort in Ridgefield, Washington; I’d received a media invite to stay at the resort and attend the fest, and in my previous post I wrote about the hotel and resort itself. Now I’m reporting on the events we attended and reviewing how the Brewfest went overall.

While there were a number of events taking place throughout the weekend, we attended two: the Celebrity Chef Dine-Around Friday night (the 16th), and the second session of the Grand Tasting Saturday night (the main Brewfest event). Many of the events were built around celebrity chefs, which is frankly probably a broader appeal to the general public than craft beer; on the other hand, unless you watch a lot of Food Network and/or other cooking competition programs such as Top Chef and Next Level Chef (or are very online in certain circles), it might not mean anything to you.

Whether you recognize the chefs or not, the inclusion and focus on them made the weekend as much about food as about beer.

Celebrity Chef Dine-Around

Both this and the Grand Tasting took place in the newly-opened expansion of the Cowlitz Ballroom of the resort (the heart of its meeting and entertainment center). For this event, the description from the press release said:

Foodies have the chance to see locally and nationally acclaimed celebrity chefs in action. Each chef will demonstrate the preparation of signature dishes and pair them with premium craft brews, wines and cocktails.

In practice, this was laid out in which each chef had a “station” where small-bite plates of their respective dishes were served up along with a drink, typically in 1-2 ounce sample pours. Each of these stations essentially had two options: meet and greet with the chef (with accompanying line), and sample the dishes. In most cases these were separate—you could either wait in line to meet the chef and take a picture, or get the food. In a few cases these were tied together, so you needed to wait in line to meet the chef and then try the food.

I think the drinks were available regardless, and they were a mix of local and not-so-local beers, cocktails, ciders, and wines. They were small enough pours that it was frankly easier to grab one in passing than to give much thought to pairing it with the food being served at the same station, at least for me. That’s how it goes, sometimes.

The food was great, however, and there was a lot of it; we sampled maybe a bit more than half of the options before filling up, though we wanted to try more. No regrets, though, we were quite happy with the food we sampled.

We even spent some time in lines for the meet and greet with several chefs: Antonia Lofaso, Jet Tila, and Robert Irvine (the most well-known names). There were others we’d have liked to meet as well (I was hoping for Gregory Gourdet in particular) but time got in the way (the lines were long); some of the others present included Beau MacMillan, Brian Duffy, Melissa Cottingham, Tracey Bloom, Doug Adams (co-owner of Grand Fir Brewing in Portland), and others.

We didn’t spend all our time in lines, of course; we would alternate one of us waiting while the other went around for more food or drink, or taking a breather and eating at a table out of the way.

Okay, enough verbiage—time for an album from that night:

Grand Tasting

The actual “brewfest” parts of the ilani Brewfest weekend were the Grand Tasting sessions, which did focus much more on the beer (and wine, cider, cocktails, and liquor), though there was a celebrity chef component as well. Here’s what was described in the press release:

Attendees can enjoy hundreds of outstanding local craft beers, foreign and domestic beers, seltzers, ciders, spirits, and ready-to-drink cocktails while experiencing live celebrity chef demonstrations.

In proper beer festival style, sample pours (of whatever drink) were limited to 2-3 ounces and were metered (spirits were one ounce); however, instead of tickets or tokens, fest-goers received a punch card on a lanyard with 24(!) punches available. Most standard pours only cost one punch, with high-alcohol ones costing two. I assume you could purchase more if you wanted, but that’s a generous amount of sampling.

Local Washington breweries were well-represented, and those are the ones I tended to focus on, though I also sampled some Elijah Craig bourbon and tasted some wine and ciders. There were non-local/regional breweries present as well. Non-beer alternatives were plentiful; cideries were well represented, I thought, as well as several local distilleries—all great options for gluten free folks, or those who simply don’t like beer. The fest featured a decent selection of non-alcoholic options, which I expect could grow in future years.

The celebrity chef part of the event came in the form of cooking demonstrations. The stage end of the ballroom was set up as a kitchen and seating was available to those who wanted to watch the various half-hour-or-so presentations. We watched part or all of some of these (you can hear most of them while just browsing through the ballroom as well), which really were a combination of cooking, entertainment, and Q&A (emphasis on entertainment).

On to the beer—I don’t have extensive notes but I did check in my tasters on Untappd, so here is the list of what I tried:

• Boombox Head IPA from Hellbent Brewing of Seattle. 6.8% ABV, 60 IBUs.
• PILZNER from Trap Door Brewing of Vancouver, Washington. 5% ABV.
• Dude It’s a Hazy (IPA) from The Heavy Metal Pizza & Brewing Company of Vancouver. 6.5% ABV, 30 IBUs.
• Stormcrow Tiramisu Inspired Stout from Loowit Brewing of Vancouver. 6.6% ABV, 29 IBUs.
• Overdrive India Red Ale from Matchless Brewing of Tumwater, Washington. 6.8% ABV, 50 IBUs.
• The People’s Pilsner from Brothers Cascadia Brewing of Vancouver. 4.9% ABV.
• Plankhouse Porter from Ridgefield Craft Brewing of Ridgefield, Washington. 5.4% ABV, 29 IBUs.
• Coconut Royale Imperial Stout from Trap Door. 9.9% ABV.
• Tangy Twister: Calamansi Coconut Ale from McMenamins, though I don’t know from which specific brewery. 5.16% ABV, 15 IBUs.
• Whiskey Sour from Heathen Brewing of Vancouver. 5.3% ABV, 10 IBUs.
• Copperline Amber Ale from Backwoods Brewing of Carson, Washington. 5.5% ABV, 20 IBUs.

My wife sampled a variety of ciders, cocktails/liquor, and wine, including some Heathen Estate Wine from Heathen Brewing.

There were a variety of vendors as well, selling specialty foods, arts and crafts, clothing, and more. There was also a fair amount of swag available, so naturally we came home with extras (I particularly like my new Evan Williams Bourbon t-shirt and hat). My wife found gifts to purchase (thinking ahead to birthdays and the holidays), so that’s a plus.

Food was available for purchase, aside from some samples that were offered, and each of the chef’s demos also served up small plates of the foods they were showcasing to the seated audience. One of the food vendors was selling a massive plate of nachos which looked really tasty.

Needless to say, it was packed—very well attended, but despite the crowd it wasn’t too hard to move around, mostly, and the lines for any particular brewery or vendor, when there were any, were relatively short. Overall I’d judge it to be a fairly successful brewfest in a unique venue; and I will say that it was nice to be able to not have to travel anywhere afterward since we stayed in the hotel. I believe we will attend this one again.

Time for more pictures!