Five to Try at Beer Fest

Bottom's up, Richmond.

The first World Beer Festival in Richmond comes to Brown's Island this Saturday, June 12 for a day of beer tasting from over 75 breweries offering 177 beers.

From porters to IPAs to fancy wheat beers and fine cask ales, the beer will be flowing at World Beer Fest.

For the past 10 years, the festival has been hosted in Raleigh and Durham, NC, where it has sold out tickets and has nabbed mentions from Forbes.com, USA Today and Wired. The one-day festival is hosted by All About Beer magazine.

As Richmond gears up for its first World Beer Festival, we asked organizers to pick five beers to try at the festival.

"It's very unfair to pick five," Julie Johnson, editor of All About Beer said jokingly. "I agonized over these. But each one is an example of a trend going on right now in the specialty beer world."

5 Beers and 5 Trends to Try:

1. Watch Words Imperial or Double.

Example: Brooklyn Blast Double IPA

"They've taken the India Pale Ale style and made it a lot more muscular. They've raised the alcohol content. They're not for everybody...they can be extremely bitter. But they're also very exciting beers...because they have this huge character, a good dose of alcohol and they're still a sophisticated, balanced drink."

Watch words: Imperial or double

"Look for those words at the festival. It means the brewer has taken a classic style and decided to double it up."

2. Trend to watch: Inventing a New Beer Style.

Example: Urthel Saisonniere

"Belgium is the current darling of the brewing world. Urthel is a new brewery [from Belgium] that has a woman brewmaster, which is very rare.

"The 'Saisonniere' is an example of a brewery inventing a new beer style. A 'saison' is a traditional farmhouse beer from Belgium. It's very spicy, a beautiful food beer. What they've done is add a lot more hops...to create a trendy, more bitter beer."

3. Cutting Edge: Soured Beer

Example: Van Steenberge Monk’s Café

"This is a deliberately soured beer. It's a trend that's just beginning.

"I love soured beers. They're some of the most refreshing beers. You have to close your eyes and forget everything you know about beer flavors. It should be very complex and have lots of layers. Lots of tart character overlaying a more complex malt background.

"Be alert to the possibility that American breweries are going to be flirting with soured beers. It's terribly cutting edge."

4. Bourbon Barrel or Barrel Aged Beer

Example: Bluegrass Bourbon Barrel Stout

"Take a wooden barrel that spent the last 15 years aging bourbon or scotch or wine, put your young beer in there and let it sit. It extracts some of the original spirit's flavor in the wood.

"This is most impressive when you take a big dark beer [like the Bluegrass Bourbon Barrel Stout] and age it in a bourbon barrel.

"It's a very assertive beverage, a gutsy beer and the result is pretty heady.

"'Bourbon barrel' or 'barrel-aged' beer means that the brewer has taken an extra step to give young beer added flavor."

5. Session Beers

Example: Full Sail Session Black Lager

"We've been infatuated with really strong beers, hoppy beers, beers aged in whiskey barrels, but a certain group of beer fans will say, 'What do I drink if I want more than one?'

"The term is a 'session beer.'

"That's the backbone of pub life:a good beer that you sit down with and that doesn't dominate the conversation. Craft brewers are trying something that was not in their nature: which is to dial it back, but to keep all the flavor and character that is part of the craft brew revolution.

"Session lager is more full-flavored. It's a black lager that is lovely, full-flavored but not so heavy that you can't have a couple through the evening and enjoy the conversation."

So there you have it -- just five examples from the 177 beers that will be on tap this Saturday at the World Beer Festival.

And don't worry, you don't have to drink them all.

"If you don't pour out a couple of beers in the course of the festival, you're not really trying," Johnson says. "There's no rule that says you have to finish them all."

Tickets are $40 a piece for a four-hour tasting session.

The festival will be broken up into two four-hour sessions. The first session will be from noon to 4 p.m., and the second session will be from 6 to 10 p.m.

Check back Monday for a slideshow of the festival.

And to get a preview of the tasty beers, check out our slideshow from the World Beer Fest press preview and tasting a few weeks ago.