How many BEER FESTS do you average per year?

Scene outside of Atlantic City Beer Festival prior to the second session of the day:
A young man lies unconscious on a shallow run of concrete stairs, covered in vomit, and with urine pooled beneath him...
his friend is nudging him with his foot, saying "Dude c'mon, you've got to rally! Second session!

 

it sounds like a lot of people have had bad experiences. I go to about 6-7 a year of varying kinds. Anything with a big corporate sponsor (beer or otherwise) and shows people with pretzel necklaces in their marketing of it are generally the off putting ones. Ones thrown by breweries are generally good...and at least more focused on good beer. A lot of the events are also great networking and catching up with friends and people I've met drinking along the way.
All in the Washington DC area that I have been to in the last couple years:

DC Craft Beer Fest at Nat's Park. first year sucked with the lines, some decent beers. Last year was much better with shorter lines and some good beer options. Not many brewery employees and reps there b/c the venue has a union that requires it have a certain amount of their employees pouring..and they don't know anything about beer.

Brew At The Zoo is awesome Getting the VIP ticket for it is so worth it...brewery employees are reps there. Killer atmosphere and food.

Snallygaster. Killer Line-up...long lines for the whales at the beginning. Can get quite expensive though. I enjoyed in through.

Mad Fox Hoppy Octoberfest. Held at a brewery and local breweries from all over bring IPAs and Marzens. Smaller festival, laid back and enjoyable.

3 Stars Holiday Extravaganza. Cheap entry with nice glass included. all beers $5.50 for 13oz. Inside the brew house and was a ton of fun with lots of one off beers. I would have liked 4oz options on some of the beers.

SAVOR: expensive....but amazing...food went way to fast though...only bummer about it.

Beer Bourbon: Bottom of the barrel in terms of festivals...this is the epitome of all the complaints above probably.

 

to be fair, the flatulence usually doesn't start until later in the session. My friends and i also refer to any beerfest as The Fart Locker.

EDIT: cask ale events are the wurst closely followed by any sour/funk fest.

 

.67

I went in 2012 and 2013 to the World Expo of Beer in Frankenmuth, but didn't go last year (only because I had no one to go with) ... but I'm going this year.

It's the only one I bother going to. I was impressed in 2013 with Founders (and some other brewers) as they tapped some big boys.

 

I used to go to 2-3 annually, but that stopped about a two years ago. I stopped going because I volunteered to help set up one of the beer festivals one year. For helping set up I got a free entry into the festival when it started. I was unemployed at the time so it was a good deal for me back then. Anyway, we had to get the beers out of a truck that wasn't air conditioned. I was like ok, that's not good for the beer. During the course of helping set up, I was talking to one of the regular guys that just goes from beer fest to beer fest and sets up. He was telling me that all the beer that's not drunk during the festival goes back into the truck and gets used at the next beer fest. I guess their operation goes from beer fest to beer fest in Florida. He was telling me the beer can site for months inside the truck before the next beer fest. And this is Florida mind you, were it's humid and hot as hell in the summer. No wonder the beer at the beer fests around here are skunky as hell. The only fresh beer is beer from a vendor. So if a brewery has representatives there handing out their own beer it's fresh. The rest of it is swill and probably skunky. After learning what a shady operation it is, I haven't gone to a beer fest since.

 

2...ACBF and Extreme Beer fest.

 

Active family life, kid's activities, etc.,. = no beer fests. Give me like 8 years and I'll be all up in them though......

 

The biggest issue I have with beer fests is driving/travel. If its one close to home, who's driving? If its in another place, how much is hotel, flights, etc...? I still have fun when I go, but I don't have any plans to hit any this year.

 

I chose 2-5. Ive only gone to 1 so far, but now with a career change i will start having weekends off to go to more. Already have American Beer Fest and Extreme Beer fest planned for this year.

-xICooRsYIx

 

glad you could make out what i was trying to say, proofread fail on my end