I was only responding to someone who was there, so don't try to convince me about how fine an experience was had by all. You need to respond to and address the concerns of someone who is willing to shell out $40.00 for a beer fest. That someone did not come away pleased with what you provided. And to be perfectly frank $40.00 should buy one a hell of a range of beer samples and goodies and very good service.
snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:
were Very Important that night.
cheese.Pretty poor pickings for a high priced beer fest.
No, see, in werespectbeerbutwedontrespectyouland, it's *your* fault that you thought that this little event was less than, um, stellar. And if you didn't think the event was a super-swell way to be separated from your forty quatloos, then you deserve to be called a "punk-ass bitch" by said event's organizers.
Such an attitude might even have a certain dampening effect on one's desire to support such folks by attending future festivals or otherwise giving them one's hard-earned cash, but then, that's your call.
I went to four different beer festivals in October.
In Belgium.
I would've been very hard put to spend $40 at any of them, even after buying a couple of t-shirts. They all offered good to excellent selections; one had the very interesting Tuverbol, from Duysters, who normally market the Loterbol label. Tuverbol is a blend of 3 Fonteinen lambic and a more conventional ale. It's substantial at 11%, but perilously drinkable.
So one solution for satisfaction: invest in a round-trip ticket and go to a place where they do festivals right (well, mostly; coulda done without the tobacco smoke, but whatever). The ticket will cost more than forty bucks, but the results are likely to be so very worth it.
And another solution is to start touring the local breweries in ones home country. Here in the USA there are plenty of them and the owners are always glad to talk about their beer and provide plenty of samples with no lines.
Nothing to do with Belgiums, but...on that subject my wife and I took a trip to Boston and the surrounding states recently. I had never been to New England before (I'm in Central California) and though we had several agendas going I was there for the beer. I was not disappointed. I didn't make it to Smuttynose, but I had it on tap as well as in a bottle at a friends house and really like the porter and "old brown dog". Also hit a place in Vermont called Long Trail ales that I stumbled onto. Good people, good beer and a very nice little brewery. I wanted to hit Magic Hat, but they were on the wrong side of the state for this trip, so I picked up a Circus Boy, a Hocus Pocus and a 9 at the local market all of which I liked. My favorite had to be Watchusett...MAN, that was good beer. They had one called (as I remember...) St. Quinn's Irish Ale that was my favorite of the whole trip. Apparently the big local fav was a blueberry ale. I'm not big on flavored beer, but I had to admit it was good for what it was. We also made it to Harpoon which had several fine ales and some very knowledgeable people. All in all a great trip....the biggest disappointment was Samuel Adams actually. The tour was fun and I liked the history, but the thing was very corporate....which didn't stop me from drinking the free beer.
And the great thing about visiting breweries is you get to design the tour. On a business trip...just pick up the phone book. At home...just visit at your liesure.
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