American Craft Beer Festival 2009 Part One: Practicalities

Last weekend, the Alstrom Brothers threw one heck of a party, and the Punks were in attendance. We thought we'd throw out a few quick thoughts on the practicalities of attending beer festivals. In our next post we'll reveal some of the gems we unearthed. If we don't get to your favorites, cut us some slack, with 300 beers at the festival, we could only cover so much ground. But we look forward to hearing comments from those in attendance.

So I, being the only one lucky enough to be a Boston resident, made it to both evening sessions, the first night with wonderful new friends from out west, the second with Mike and Helen. The first thing we'd like to point out is that, if possible, you should attend the Friday session. I guess out of towners (like Mike and Helen) can't generally attend on a weeknight. As a result, the crowds were much smaller, meaning significantly shorter lines, less trouble navigating the facility, and potentially friendlier staff since they weren't being mobbed. In fact, if we have one critique of the festival, it's that they seem to have sold too many tickets to the Saturday session, and were only using about a third of the facility. At times it was impossible to move, let alone take notes.

The second thing to note is that if you are a serious festival goer, you might want to bring a secretary to take your notes (might as well ask your designated driver...in for a penny in for a pound, just make sure to get them something nice). I found it very difficult to juggle my tasting glass, beer list, and pen all at the same time. It also helps if your notetaker is in the legal profession, as they'll be familiar with shorthand and are used to taking extensive notes. Our Friday notes read like the back of a napkin at 4AM; our Saturday notes like a court transcript.

Oskar Blues was also distributing necklaces with a beer can on them. We didn't figure it out until it was too late to be useful, but this is not a spitoon, and not necessarily a fashion accessory either. We did, however, see people keeping their taster in it while they took notes. Very handy, indeed.

Finally, if you're going to any beer festival, always remember that it's a marathon, not a sprint, so pace yourself. This is often repeated, and with good reason. To that we would add, it's not about "getting your money's worth" either. When we ran the numbers we decided we had paid the equivalent of over six dollars a pint (remember you are only getting two ounces at a time, and you have to wait in line for that even). You're not here to drink lots of beer cheaply, you can do that at home. You're here to taste beers you can't find anywhere else. This also means you should probably shy away from your old favorites for a change and try to find some new ones. So take your time and get searching.