World Beer Fest — Costumes, Brews and Conviviality

“You go to a beer event and everyone’s having a hell of a lot of fun.”

That’s how Daniel Bradford, producer of the World Beer Festival, described things to me last weekend when I interviewed him for Dive’s cover story. He wasn’t talking specifically about his festival at the time, but he might as well have been. As I found out when I attended the event at the Durham Bull Athletic Park on Saturday, the World Beer Festival is nothing short of one huge hell of a lot of fun.

I was expecting to find beer at the festival, in large quantities and high qualities. What I wasn’t ready for were the outfits: women walking around in hilarious, garishly colored dirndls, men in ten-gallon St. Patrick’s Day hats, people wearing necklaces made out of pretzels or cans of Old Chub. One guy had on a Roman general’s helmet. Another was dressed like a corporate exec on his lunch break. In costumes of work or play, everyone was kicking back and enjoying the beautiful afternoon beer session.

Bradford had also described the festival in our interview as ‘convivial,’ and once again he was on the money. I must have talked to twenty total strangers there, sharing beer advice, batting errant beach balls and generally ignoring that fact I didn’t know these people at all. I got tips on the best brew pubs to check out in Richmond, and might or might not have flirted with married women in front of the Lone Rider table. No one that I saw was sloppy drunk, but no one was uptight either. In fact, it was an uptight-free zone, as if all buzz-kills had been weeded out at the gate with the minors.

Free water was available for the dehydrated and free food samples were available for the hungry. Specialty hot sauces and mustards paired perfectly with the beer. And my God, was there beer. So many beers! Too many beers! Bradford had mentioned in our interview that it’s a good idea to come to the festival with a strategy and use the program to guide your way through all the new beers you want to try, because you simply cannot try them all in one 4 hour session. Being the stubborn mule that I am, I deliberately threw all strategy to the wind, retaining only the method of curiosity: when I saw something I wanted to try, I tried it. And while I tried lots of new and incredibly tasty beers, I made it through only a small portion of what was being offered.

The highlight of the festival for me was the seminar on sour beer. Sitting around with a representative from the New Belgium Brewing Company, we tried four different types of sour beer and heard all about how developments in sour brewing represent one of the most exciting frontiers in the beer world. One of the beers we sampled, New Belgium’s “La Folie,” tasted like a wonderful bite right out of a lemon. And because some of the beers in the seminar aren’t available in North Carolina markets, it was a good opportunity to see things that are off my radar the rest of the drinking year.

In an interesting coincidence, I ran into my old Brew Ha Ha colleague Benn Wineka at the Big Boss table. Ben wrote for Dive last year and has since been working for Big Boss in Raleigh, but he took some time out for a chat and a photo. We should have more on Big Boss later in the week, as I try to make the trek out to their upcoming Foodtruck Harvest Party on Thursday. Until next time, I leave you with a list of my five favorite beers from this year’s World Beer Festival, and wish you, as always, happy drinking.

1) New Belgium, “La Folie” sour brown ale (Texas). Complex, tart and refreshing. If you ever have an opportunity to try this beer, don’t ask questions and just take it.
2) Craggie Brewing Company, “Antebellum Ale” (Asheville, NC). Based on an 1840’s recipe and spiced with ginger among other things, this was one of the most interesting brews I tried.
3) Weyerbacher, “Simcoe Double IPA” (Pennsylvania). Straightforward and strong, the way God intended IPA’s to be.
4) Blue Point Brewing Company, “Rasta FaRye” rye ale (New York). A good beer, represented by some of the nicest folks at the festival.
5) Fullsteam Brewing Company, “Working Man’s Lunch” stout (Durham, NC). Not only is it local and based proudly in historical southern flavors, but you can actually taste the RC Cola in this beer. Amazing!