As with the passing of the season, another Summer Brewers Guild Fest has come and gone and rather than compose the typical hackneyed wrap up of the event - which is, in my opinion, something that essentially defies words - I decided to do a brief overview of beer fest and focus on the photography, of which the very talented Adrienne Ziegler wonderfully obliged.
You can see Adrienne's work here and with the newly discovered world of scribd.com, you can see the layout we did here.
Now I know what you're all saying, "Austen, doing a beer fest wrap up nearly a month later is pretty lame." Really? Is that what everybody thinks? Well then, all I can say to that is sticks and stones and I am giving you raspberries as we speak.
In all seriousness however, you're probably right - it is quite lame. But, by way of excuses this summer has been crazy with a capital "C" for Heritage news staff. I edit and partially write the coverage for the Belleville and Ypsi papers and starting in June with the Strawberry Festival, it has been a whirlwind of mind-boggling activity that, at this point, has become a blur punctuated with too much coffee and not enough sleep. We had the Strawberry Fest, Ypsi's Fourth of July Parade, primary elections, beer fest and finally the Ypsilanti Heritage Festival which is set for this weekend. As I look back at this summer, I have no idea how me and my wife...oh, what's her name? (Ah, I'll think of that in a sec) even saw one another.
Anyway, long story short I've been too busy for beer over basically the past month. And when I started this blog, I vowed to myself not to fill in the blanks with petty nonsense just to say I wrote something today. This is a "serious" blog dedicated to serious craft beer lovers, and I'm here to give you substance! Not filler.
So, here we go - back to beer.
The summer beer fest was, of course, amazing despite the inclement weather. To quote probably every cliched news story (including my own) "...the weather didn't dampen peoples' spirits." And it didn't!
My best friend since I've been 14 and fellow partner in beer attended the fest on Friday, just like we do every year unless extenuating circumstances call for us to go on Saturday. I have found from past experience that Saturdays tend to be more crowded, lines are a bit longer but even aside from that, the heat and humidity causes me to shy away from the Saturday event because it is held from 1 to 6 p.m. whereas Fridays go from 5 to 9 p.m., it's typically a little cooler. I don't like heat and heat doesn't like me.
Well, imagine how smart I felt when we arrived at beer fest promptly at 5 p.m. to the most excruciating humidity I have ever felt in this state. Everybody, and I mean everybody, was dripping with gross sweat and my shirt felt like it had been dipped in candle wax and plastered on my chubby, beer-laden frame. But, even with all that, beer fest is still more fun than should be legal. I mean, it felt like 110 degrees easy with everybody dripping sweat and simply nobody cared.
It was about an hour and a half after we got there that the rain hit, and boy did it hit hard!
There has been much written already in various papers, blogs and forums about the rain so I won't rehash all of that. Needless to say, it wasn't a gentle spring shower.
So how many people left because of the rain you ask. Well, according to Scott Graham, the executive director of the Brewers Guild, maybe a dozen probably less. Wow. Here we are staring into the face of possible tornado-like weather, and what do people do? Well, they hunker down under the tent of their favorite brewer and let the good times roll.
As a matter of fact, Scott said people we're still buying tickets as the rain was coming in.
"Actually it amazed me that I saw people still walking up and buying tickets. They never stopped buying tickets," Graham said when I talked with him a few days after the fest.
Beer is community. Beer transcends. And I think this fest proves those points year after year. If you are staring into the face a possible tornado (and I believe that a tornado did actually touch down in Saline that day), and you're first thought, "Damn! I gotta get my ticket before they sell out!" Than you, my friend, have arrived and you will always be in good company.
Oh, and by the way, my wife's name is Susan...just kidding honey! I remember it most of the time.
See Back to Beer, Part 2 for beer highlights and reviews from the summer beer fest coming Wednesday
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