It’s October which means it is time for World Beer Fest in Durham. Raleigh in the spring; Durham in the fall. As usual I drove to Fredericksburg and met up with Mark and Michelle for the drive down to my sister’s in Raleigh. We have developed a pattern of attending the afternoon session in the spring Raleigh event and the evening session in the fall Durham event. After arriving we had lunch at Lynnwood Grill which is pretty good. After hitting the store for post fest beer we arrived at Eric’s in Durham around 4:30. Eric, my sister’s bridesmaid next spring, is another regular member of our beerfest gang. His place in Durham makes for a perfect home base before and after the fest.
Each year we get a little wiser. This year we actually had reliable transportation waiting on us. We made him wait over 30 minutes while three people showed up late (and ended up driving themselves) and one person searched for her lost ticket. The temperature was perfect. The Durham venue is not as nice being on a baseball field. The Raleigh location is in a decent downtown park. Others in the group thought the crowd was a little more spread out this event but I didn’t notice any difference. It is always crowded in the beginning and as people start catching a buzz and getting tired the lines get shorter. A good time was had by all. We ate some food during the event which is not normal for us. The samosas were excellent.
It is not uncommon for some breweries to run out of beer at the end of the evening session but it seemed like there was less than half of the booths open at the end of the night. That is not cool at all. Even in the beginning I was looking forward to some St. Bernardus Grotten Brown but there was none left. I took a few more videos than normal this time and am going to try to more short videos in the future. As the evidence shows we were feeling quite good at the end of the fest. We also scored lots of good cheap food. I got 3 more somosas for a dollar each. Another in our group got a few for free minutes later. And Mark got a free gyro.
We had to wait a few for our van ride home but it wasn’t long. My sister’s friend who just recently had a baby had her first crazy night out in a year and she was making herself feel better over the garbage can. When the van did pick us up Mark did a great job smoothing over the driver as the sick one made good use of the passenger window.
Back at Eric’s place the party continued. I busted out some Allagash Black which probably wasn’t the best choice after 4 hours of solid drinking. The crew did well to continue partying till late. A game that Eric had similar to the old-school Pyramid game show kept the group entertained. Eventually we all passed out.
The next day after some mimosas we cruised back to my sisters, played some Wii, and had lunch at the Flying Saucer. Is it legal to have such a wait staff? Michelle and I drove home while Mark stayed in Raleigh for work.
They are going to have a beerfest in Richmond next year but two a year may be enough for me.
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