FOOLCiRCLE

Yesterday was this years Kennett Square (KSQ) Brewfest. Per usual it is an event that I highly anticipate. Also, as always, this events has its good points and bad points, none of them ever too horrible.

This year I went up with Jody, Karen, and myself and we met up with Ann, Richard, and Cat. We got there basically right at 2:00 (when it started) and didn’t have any real problems finding parking or getting right in line and filing in. One of the six of us bought a designated driver ticket and was still given a cup for beer, go figure!

Initially I was on the hunt to try and find any of the beers from the connoisseurs tasting that the breweries may still have left over. I was lucky and got to try a few: Clipper City’s Weizen Dopplebock, Weyerbacher’s Quad (originally they were bringing their 12th Anniversary ale, drat!) Stewart’s 2005 Bourbon Barleywine, Iron Hill’s Russian Imperial Stout, Sprague Farm’s Effin’ Beer, and Southampton Brewey’s Grand Cru. So I guess I got to try maybe about a third of the beers from the connoisseurs tasting, which is about average with previous years, often if they have any left you have to know to ask for it though. This year the KSQ people in charge did a great job making sure there were plenty of port-a-potties, I don’t think I ever saw a line that was more than 5 people deep, versus last year where I’d have said 20+ people deep at some of them. They also did a bang-up job at bringing in more food, same stuff as last year plus I think two new BBQ pits were brought in, yummy! Two downsides that I noticed though (which happens all the time) were they supplied free bottles of water, very smart move, but they ran out of water with problably two hours still to go in the event, not good. Also, I’m not sure if the KSQ people in charge are getting greedy or what, but to me it felt way over sold this year. The lines were redunkulously long, especially on the far side where they had breweries lining both side of the aisle. Seriously it was a good ten minute wait to get from the back of the line to the front of the line for some of the breweries, maybe longer. Though I still got to sample my fair share of beers, I would have rather sampled them closer to my own pace. Favorite beers of the day I’d have to say were Arrogant Bastard from Stone brewery, Hoptimus Prime from Legacy (I think), and The 2005 Bourbon Barleywine from Stewart’s. Hands down least favorite beer, 60 Minute IPA from DFH. Typically one of my favorites, but that beer was infected with something nasty!

After the fest this year we went out to dinner again, but we totally avoided the Half Moon this time to hopefully avoid any fiascoes.  This time we went to a local place called El Ranchero which we discovered was one of two Mexican restaurants in Kennett Square. This was the more authentic restaurant (think menu written in Spanish first and English second) where the local Mexican population choose to eat versus the other is Mexican-style food served for everyone else (think La Tolteca probably). Some of the crew we were with seemed a little shady going in at first, but I think overall everyone really enjoyed their food. A little side note, Jody ordered this crazy torta (sandwich) that had everything on it; eggs, beef, ham, hotdogs, french fies, pickles, hot peppers – freakin’ everything.

After dinner things basically wrapped up and people went their own way. Overall I’d say it was a good time once again and am looking forward to next year already.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 10:43 am and is filed under Side Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.