These are some pictures from the Joe Canals West Deptford Beerfest from last week and a brief article from Steve.
As a first timer to any beerfest, this was about as great as one can hope for. As a volunteer I got there to help set up a few hours early. By the time I got there, nearly all the tables were already set up around the perimeter of the tent and the draft boxes were already being set up and filled with Ice. Around 6 pm or so, the brewery reps arrived to dress up their booths. Unibroue’s Bernard Johnson brought in a custom Kegerator. Philly Beer Scene’s Beer Geek of the Year Natalie DiChicco from Weyerbacher also added her own flair to her booth. Nick Johnson from Troegs also had his draft-box cover with a whole lot of Troegs brewery decorations. Also there were Pete Danford from Victory, Matt Przygoda representing Harpoon, John Bryan from Firestone walker, Bryan Petitt for Long Trail and Patrick Mullin from Sierra Nevada. (Sorry for the last screw up from my last article Pat)
Before we knew it, it was 7 pm and guests started to come in from the rain outside. Not an hour went by before the rain really started to come down and we were sure glad we had gotten those two large tents to encompass the event. But soon, we realized the other problem, the confined space presented another problem, moving around. The one thing we had neglected was the space around the pouring tables. About five feet was left between the outside line of the tables and the tables for people to sit at. Because of this, people talking clogged up the high way and you basically had to squeeze through to get where you wanted. However, that’s a very common problem at any event, so there was no real issue with anything that happened.
Barley Legal, my own homebrew club, was there representing homebrewing as a hobby. They themselves had a 7 tap draft box and even introduced a Gose (Gose being a traditional German Style made from salt), and they also had on tap a Molasses Porter, an IPA, a beer called “Fire in da Hole”, and a Doppel Weizen, as well as a few others. While there. they had a small tent behind their stand brewing a beer, which in the future will be on tap at Joe Canals West Deptford Growler Station.
Some notable Beers at the beer fest were some really rare beers not often found in this area of the state, if at all. One of my favorites was the Harpoon Brewery’s Leviathan Series Rye, which was released in September. Another noticeably rare beer was the Ithaca Dark Humor, a Brettanomycies Porter which a collaboration with the Iron Hill Media location. However, the top beers of the night was the Dogfish Head beers. Out of the 5 Dogfish beers on tap, there were two extremely rare ones. The first was the Hellhound, a beer released in early summer and gone the next day, and the second was a (2010?) World Wide Stout. The World Wide Stout was the beer with the Randall on it, and in it was fresh Breakneck Espresso beans from Crescent Moon, a local coffee shop right in town. Jay Rose was quoted as saying that it was the best beer that he’s EVER had in his long time being a beer geek.
The last hour of the night was filled with announcing winners for the two raffles of the night. There was a Magic Hat raffle for a #9 Beach Cruiser bike, but the really special raffle was the Utopias Tasting raffling. There was a total of 3 bottles of the 2011 Vintage Utopias and a total of 70 names were drawn. A friend of mine was lucky enough to have his name drawn twice in a row and a friend of Jay’s was the voice announcing the raffle ticket numbers, and hoarse withing minutes.
In all, the fourth annual Rotary Club of Mullica Hill’s Beer tasting was a great success and the fact that everything was in Kegs was a very large improvement from last year’s reports and I can’t wait for next year’s!
