What beer are you drinking now? #1065

Good morning, BAs! I'm hitting up a brew new to me (check out New Beer Sunday!) before I run off to a crappy sports bar to watch good football and drink mediocre beer. Today I also officially give my doggies up for boarding with a wonderful person who is helping me out during my deployment workup. I might see them a few times in the fall, but for the most part they're going to be gone for a year. Better than giving them up permanently.

So, without further storytelling, here's my new beer for the morning: Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien Grand Cru:



Now that I've posted what I'm drinking now, here's what went down yesterday. Like many of my fellow BAs, I attempted to hit up Zwanze Day. I say attempted, because....well. I drove an hour up to Armsby Abbey. Based on their own updates, it seemed like I would be able to grab some food and start drinking Cantillon around noon, hang out for a while, and come 3:00 pm get some Zwanze with some good folks.

.....they got at least twice as many people as they anticipated. There was no ticket system, no way to sort out the madness. People who showed up for brunch just sat inside for hours; by about 1 pm, every single seat was taken for people who were all determined to hang out for Zwanze.

This left dozens of us basically SOL.

After waiting in line for more than two hours, we got briefed (by the owner, it seems) that, he's sorry, he didn't anticipate this kind of showing, and that we had zero chance of getting Zwanze, and might possibly be skunked out of Cantillon entirely.

At this point, my stomach was eating itself. I couldn't spend another two hours waiting in line, just to eventually land a seat, and probably an hour later, get some food. So, I did what probably 50 or so of us did: I left. I had zero real choice.

So, I made the best of it, and explored Worcester. I hit up Wormtown:


Wormtown Be Hoppy

And The Boynton:


Avery Maharaja

Finally sated, I headed back to Armsby. There was quite a crowd (standing room only), but there was a bit of good beer left.

The board at Armsby Abbey:


I managed to at least try two Cantillons (both of which were new to me):


Cantillon Iris


Cantillon Cuvee des Champion (Gilloise)

And finished off with one of my favorite all-time beers (my first time on tap):


Prairie Bomb! (tough to decide between that and KBS for a finisher)

All in all, while it was massively inconvenient and disappointing, I made the most of it, and I'm still glad I went. I don't blame Armsby for the massive crowd that showed up, although perhaps they could have anticipated it. I think they handled it graciously and about as well as they could have at that point.

However, if they don't change things up for next year, then that's inexcusable. They know what to expect now. You can't have people driving from many hours away (my hour commute was not all that bad), standing in line for hours without food or drink, just to say, "Hey, sorry, but you are 100% fucked." That's bad for the community, and bad for business. So hopefully they change things up a touch for next year, anticipating the number of people who would like to attend.

Getting some practice in this morning.



Cheers, and enjoy your Sunday, BAs! Sorry for the damn novel I wrote above.