As usual some of our group headed over early and sat in line and decided our plan of attack. For the second year in a row we were sitting in the rain trying to do this, needless to say it was a bit hard to do. A friend of my wife and mine is a brewer and had a couple extra brewer passes; all we had to do was help pour some beer for him. No problem! My wife passed on going in early, so I went in with another friend to see what it was like before the mass of humanity was let into the grounds.
We made the rounds to all of the tents and tried a few beers that probably we could not have had because the line would of been to long. A couple of highlights were Omar, of Surly fame, pouring a couple of beers for us, including Darkness and the Real Ale tent which had some great beers in it.
When the event opened we met our group and set up base camp. Then made our way over to pour some beer for our friend, luckily he was located in a great position in between Great Lakes and Founders. So needless to say I enjoyed pouring beer and sampling beer from our neighbors. Plus our friend had a collaborative brew he was officially serving for the first time at the Great Taste, Black Zemon. It is a wonderful Black Sassion with crystallized ginger in it.
My favorite beers of the day were an Imperial Raspberry, aged in a red wine barrel from Shoreline Brewery, Goose Island's Broad Shoulders Barleywine, Jolly Pumpkin's Kriek Darkness and Black Zemon. It always amazes me that year after year one of the first beers I have is Darkness and I have a had time finding anything better than it, but this year I did find some that were better in my opinion.
It is a 5 hour long event but the way the time flies it only seems like a couple of hours before the event closes up. Seems like I never make it to all the beers I want, but needless to say I can not complain about a beer or two I did not get to drink.
After we helped our friend pack up we made our way back to the hotel and wound up crashing for the night while a number of our group made it downtown to wrap up the night. The next morning some of us went to Great Dane in Fitchburg for brunch and then headed home.
It was a fun weekend and I look forward to the upcoming beer events over the next few weeks. Next up bus trip to Milwaukee on Saturday for several visits to breweries and brewpubs.
QC Beerguy
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