Beer!

Well I survived the 15th annual Great International Beer Festival, and I must say...it was a good damn time! Right off the bat, those beer fest organizers kept us in suspense. We arrived at the Rhode Island Convention Center about a half hour before the event started and immediately entered a line. Completion of that line, which had an ID check and ticket stub collection, was surely the entry to the beer. Nope! More suspense! We assembled into a second line! Ok, it was all coming together then...we were to wait in that line and dispatch in groups up the escalator...to the beer fe--no! A third line!! A-ha...tricky beer fest organizers!

Okay, so maybe it was a little annoying that we waited so long, in 3 consecutive lines, to enter the festival but it was well worth the wait. We were handed a sampling cup, which we sized up to be about 4 ounces (okay alcohol math folks...that means 3 samplings = how much? that's right! 1 can of beer!) 8 glorious rows of beer booths were set up, and we were like giddy children who were experiencing a candy shop for the first time. Thankfully, we were some of the first people to enter so we were able to enjoy some good beer before the long lines formed. And...well...yea, I guess that was pretty much all we did for the following 3 hours (aside from breaking for chicken fingers and bathroom breaks). Here are some of the beers we had:

• Blue Point Brewing Company - Toasted Lager


• Brooklyn Brewing Company - Brooklyn Local 1, Winter Ale


• Guinness - Draught (c'mon...I can't pass up Guinness!)


• Harpoon Brewery - Hard Cider, Raspberry Hefeweizen


• Leinenkugel's - Sunset Wheat


• Magic Hat Brewing Company - Roxy Rolles


• Narragansett Beer


• Orlio Organic Beer Company - Common Ale, Black Lager


• Oskar Blues Brewery - Dale's Pale Ale, One Nut Brown Ale


• Otter Creek - IPA, Copper Ale


• Olde Burnside Brewing Company - Ten Penny Ale


• Pennichuck Brewing Company - Oktoberfest, Espresso Russian Imperial Stout


• Saranac Beers - Pomegranate Wheat


• Stone Coast Brewery - 840 IPA


• Hooker Beer - Imperial Porter


• Woodstock Brewery - Old Man Oatmeal Stout, Pig's Ear Brown Ale

That is a majority of the beers that I remember we tried (keep in mind, multiple beer samplings ≠ precision in memory) Of those, Hilary and I decided that one of our favorites was the Pennichuck Espresso Russian Imperial Stout (unfortunately, it's not widely distributed). Souvenirs of the night include a tee-shirt that I purchased ("Working is the curse of the drinking classes" - Oscar Wilde) along with a pint glass ("Give me a woman who truly loves beer and I will conquer the world" - Kaiser Wilhelm) -- It seems that I'll be conquering the world. Celebrity sightings of the night (although we did not see him at the festival but rather the bar that we went to afterwards) were limited to Randy from Real World: San Diego.