craft beer festival

this past saturday was the craft beer festival in philly. after we learned that poot & co. were going to be there, we decided to pony up the $40 (per person) and tag along.

after waiting in a long line that moved rapidly towards the entrance, we were carded and each given a plastic beer glass. [i forgot my camera (darnit!) so i took these pictures at home and didn't have great lighting or space so they didn't turn out as i had wanted.]

in the large warehouse-type room, there were about 50 breweries around the perimeter of the room where the 1000+ drinkers were able to roam about trying different beers. somehow in the packed room, we managed to run into trish, jason, meg, and peter, and 2 of their other friends. it was fantastic. i hadn't seen them in such a long time so it was great to run into them where we'd get to hang out during our 12-4pm beer session.

i wish that a map and a list of breweries was handed out when we got there. that way i could have kept track of what i tasted. i drank quite a bit, and can only remember a fraction of what breweries i visited: triumph, yards, magic hat, iron hill, ithaca, rogue, brooklyn, dock street, independence, nodding head...i have an even harder time trying to recall the types of beers each of these places had, though i do remember a few.

magic hat had a vanilla porter that sounded like it could have had potential, but it fell a little flat and tasted flat as well. monk's was there serving a sour ale which reminded me of the sourness buttermilk has. it wasn't something that i could chug or even drink more than one beer of, but it had an interesting taste. i heard people not liking it too much. i guess it's an acquired taste. ithaca served an apricot ale which was very popular with the crowd. as i stood there getting my sample, i overheard this lady saying that the apricot ale was the only beer she was drinking the entire time (she must not have been drinking that much!).

i was most pleased with the smoked weissbock and local 1 that brooklyn brewery was serving. cavin and i tasted this at the brooklyn brewery dinner last month and while i thought it tasted different from when we first tried it, i think it was partly due to the fact that the first time around the beer was paired with food. plus, we hadn't been drinking all sorts of beer for hours beforehand.

next time i do a beer festival, i think i might try to keep track of all the beers i tried, and maybe even try to go in order from light to dark (though, that may be hard). oh, and i definitely would bring my camera. one last note: the shuttle ride back (aka big yellow school bus) to broad & patterson was hi-larious. just imagine how entertaining a bus full of drunk 21-35 year olds could be: "NICE SHOES, TWO SHOES! WHAT IS THIS, A GAP COMMERCIAL?!?!"

i guess you had to be there.