Flavors flow at Freefolk IPA Festival

With India Pale Ales accounting for the largest share of the American craft beer market, The Freefolk Brewery in Fayetteville celebrated the style by holding an IPA Festival this weekend. Not only were Freefolk IPAs featured, but its taps also contained a variety of guest beers from other West Virginia brewers.

Freefolk taproom manager Summer Lee, who many of us got to know from her stint working at Bad Shepherd Beer Co. in Charleston, said Freefolk wanted to highlight its beer along with other IPAs from around the state.

“We wanted to attract people from outside the area who might want to try IPAs from breweries that they don’t often find in their local market,” Summer said. “Customer response has been positive overall. Seems like everyone is enjoying themselves.”

Freefolk IPAs on tap were:

• Ryed the Wave: a brand new darker-colored Rye IPA
• Rooster Tail Red: a popular Red IPA from the past that was recently rebrewed
• Orange Oswald: Citra SMASH IPA even popular with those who normally are not IPA fans
• Fayetteville Fog: a very tasty easy drinking, hazy-juicy style IPA
• Trucker Speed: the brewery’s flagship piney Imperial IPA

Guest IPAs included:

• Ninja Dust White IPA from Bad Shepherd Beer Co.
• Electric Petting Zoo Hazy IPA from Bad Shepherd
• Saved By the Smell Session IPA from The Peddler
• Your Best Hoption Double IPA from Chestnut Brew Works

More than IPAs at Freefolk

A nice find in addition to the IPAs was the continued availability of Freefolk’s Smokehole Bergamont Gruit in 22 oz. bottles. The gruit was brewed without hops. Instead, it is bittered with a potpourri of herbs including wild yarrow, marsh rosemary, and myrica gale. It was then flavored with sweet woodruff, bee balm flowers, lemon zest, and honey. The label art, done by brewery co-owner Jaime Lester, pictures the endangered Smokehole Bergamont plant, which is only found in West Virginia. “It’s had a positive response,” Summer said about the beer.

Freefolk Photo Gallery

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