If a picture is worth a thousand words, it’s probably a good thing because my camera contains the greater part of my beer list from Friday’s gala once I became too lazy/inebriated to take useful notes, instead resorting to pointing the camera at whatever I was tasting.
Nonetheless, my takeaways from the evening: 1) People will happily wait in line in the rain just to come inside and wait in line some more (you know what for), which is confusing but hell, I get a head start for the other beers so I can’t complain. 2) My personal props to Cellarmaker and Rare Barrel with an extremely fine showing for their first Beer Week gala, not to mention Sour Sunday, now that I’m back home from the rainy Berkeley afternoon. Jen has made apt mention of these two breweries previously, and for good reason. It’s an upward trajectory for them both. 3) Beer is (obviously) fun, and so this event is (obviously) fun, regardless of the rain or shitshow-esque lines. The images speak for themselves.
My personal favorite for the night: Collin from HenHouse, winning it:
In the meantime, I’m going to hook up the camera again and remember the rest of what I tasted…it’s all somewhere between Colin and Liney the Longer at the opening.
