"Big Brew Destination" beer event in Houston

Not when you're getting 24 ounces for 50 bucks. That's pretty absurd.

 

1 oz is what they do at GABF....

 

At least their extra cards are not ridiculous to buy - $2 for 12 more samples.

 

GABF has 600+(?) breweries so I think that justifies the 1oz pours. But $2 for 12 more isn't bad.

 

I agree with that sentiment about the number of breweries. I do prefer 2 oz over 4 oz, though, for these things....and over 1 oz as well.

 

I just got a ticket, going to be rocking the pretzel/salami/cheese necklace. Anyone know why the later event turned into an industry only thing?

 

lack of sales.

 

Well that event was different than what I expected, lots of brews were poured by volunteers who knew nothing about the brewery or beer. There were some awesome people from 8th wonder, karbach, buffalo bayou, st Arnold, and some others but for the most part it was not what I expected from a beer festival.

 

Every beerfest I've been to in Houston, the volunteers knew nothing about craft beer. At untapped they didnt even know what backyard was at first.

 

Serious question: How was the festival? I was going to buy tickets a long time ago, but held off due to certain reasons (website looked shoddy, no list of beers put out before event, 2nd session cancelled a few days before - likely due to lack of ticket sales, imo... no real press/advertising about the event despite its enormity, not one person/BA I know mentioned the event or whether they were/weren't going to attend).

Was anything fun/special/interesting poured at the event? Or was it mostly beers that I could drink over at Yardhouse? How were the lines? Did it seem like a lot of people went, or was it a ghost town? Would you go back next year?


Just curious because I haven't even heard a peep from anyone about how good or bad this thing was.

 

I don't think it was near what it was billed to be and the beer list wasn't very great. The local breweries seem to bring more than any of the larger national breweries (FW, Goose Island, Odell's, etc brought their shelf stuff only).

The lines weren't bad at all. Hardly had to wait more than 60 seconds at a brewery. There were a decent amount of people there, but things were spread out enough that the lines moved easily.

VIP was definitely not worth it. You got in an hour earlier, but it wasn't crowded enough later on for this to make much of a difference. The extra beers in the VIP section were ok but anything mind-blowing (Uncle Jacob's was nice, Rumpkin, then dropping down to things like Alaskan Smoked Porter).

Overall, I had fun, but the beer list was way weaker than Untapp'd, so I don't think I'd go to this one next year.

 

This event suffered from the things many beer events suffer from. From my interactions with them, the organizers have little passion for beer, and it shows. Beer has become marketable, but throwing a beer festival requires more effort than that. The marketing was poor, which surprised me since the organizers typically focus on advertising and marketing (and do fairly well at it). This only says to me they thought the event would just sell itself.

I'm just tired of half assed beer festivals where the organizers assume no one will notice the selection is mediocre (although I doubt they know that themselves) and the organization is lacking as well (they had almost a year to sell this). "Hey, it's craft beer and popular, so you should come!" should not be an organizer's basis for throwing a festival.

 

I should have prefaced my post by commenting that I also don't think I was their target demographic either. Many years ago I had a nice time at their first beer event in Galveston. But then I was just happy to drink shelf beers like Sierra Nevada Kellerweis (which is a great beer). Maybe I should be more focused on being displeased with the obnoxious beer drinker I've become, but people are becoming more savvy. Yesterday's beer event shouldn't be the template for tomorrow's.

 

i thought it was done quite well.

 

I'm sure it was done quite well from an organizational perspective. The organizers have been responsible for several well executed events, and I'm sure they will continue to do so. But I still stand behind my comments posted above. I just feel it could have been done better (their event format has not changed).

 

I totally agree with TexasBeerGuy, this event felt pretty gimmicky. It's like a taproom with 1000 taps and a bartender who wouldn't care if you ordered a bud light or anything else.

 

pro: no lines. decent selections. lots of TX breweries. lots of room to move about. that's about it.

cons: the marketing for this was indeed a joke, didn't hear a peep about it.
the volunteers were clueless- but this falls on to the brewery/reps.
i can see some saying there was not a lot of one-off/special stuff but i got 20+ ticks which i was surprised about.
and lastly- it was quite sterile.

i felt they are going the right direction. fix a few things and it has potential.