Last weekend (10/12-14/07) Karen and I went up to Rhode Island to visit her brother and his family for they were Baptizing their fourth child, Christopher. So, since we were going to be there for the whole weekend I looked into what good “beer things” there were to do in the area.
I found three things I was interested in the very near area, all less than five miles from their house. There was a brewery, Coastal Extreme Brewery (CEB), a brewpub, Coddington Brewpub, and a winery, Newport Vineyards. I got to visit two out of the three, the winery’s tour schedule didn’t fit our time-frame, but we kind of knew that from the get go. I visited the CEB on Friday night. They do a tour and tasting every Friday night @ 6PM limited to 75 people. I got to the brewery about 5:30PM and there were only 4 other people there, when they opened the doors at 6 there were maybe 30 of us there. The deal is you get the tour (about 45 minutes), a pint glass, and a full pint “taste” of everything they have on tap (typically 4 beers) for $5, sounds like one hell of a happy hour to me. Plus on top of that they have reasonably priced growlers (one of my pet peeves), $10 for new jugs and a fill or $5 for just a refill, plus they filled growlers from other breweries too.
The tour was pretty typical as far as brewery tours go. It was given by one of the four owners, Brent, and lasted about 45 minutes. He started by pouring us all a beer, there Blueberry beer (the crowd favorite), and then got on with his spiel. It was very typical in the sense of he went over the ingredients used to make beer, the equipment they use to make beer, and the general brewing process. It was interesting that after eight years it seems as if they still run things about the same as they originally did. There equipment is small, all used brewpub equipment, but it appears as if they max it out. They also have a hand bottler and hand canner. The bottler does a case at a time (I think) and the canner does two cans at a time. They sell their bottles in RI, MA, and CT with like 75% of their sales in RI. They only can one beer and just for the summer time, luckily for them. After the tour was the tasting, they had the Blueberry, their Summer seasonal an IPA, their Winter seasonal a Porter, and a test batch which was an Irish Stout. All four were pretty good, I think the Porter was my favorite though. Before I left of course I got some growler fills, and of course I brought my own. I brought four growlers and got one of each beer, now all I need is some help drinking them all. Later the next day I stopped at a package store and bout two more of their beers they didn’t have, Frank and Gloria from their Cyclone series, a White and Pumpkin respectively. Overall I’d say these guys are a solid contribution to Rhode Island.
Saturday we had a lot of family stuff to do so I wasn’t even going to push the stop at Coddington Brewpub, but I figured it was worth inquiring about. So on the way back to the hotel at 10:30PM I asked if Karen would be interested in stopping, she wasn’t really but she decided to take us anyway. All I really wanted was the sampler, just to get a taste of their beers. Well, their sampler was eight 7oz. servings for $8, almost four pints for $8, geez these guys from RI do craft beer cheap on location. Anyway, in the sampler was a Gold, Amber, Blueberry, IPA, Pumpkin, Oktoberfest, Nut Brown, and a Stout. All of the beers were decent, but none of them were exceptional. The Gold actually was a little rough, it was way to grainy (not malty, grainy). My favorites were the IPA and Stout, go figure. Also, what’s up with New England and blueberries in their beer? This was the third New England brewery where they had a blueberry beer: here, CEB, and Sea Dog Brewing Co. in ME when I got to try it for the first time like 5 years ago from a trip to ME from Robert.
Overall it was a good trip, both family and beer-wise. I have to give thanks to BeerAdvocate for helping me out with ideas for stops in Rhode Island thanks to this thread I started.
Last Thursday (10-11-07) I went down to see moe. play at Ram’s Head Live! in Baltimore, MD. My night didn’t go quite as planned, but I had a great time all the same.
Originally I was supposed to go to the moe. show with five other people. The guy who bought the tickets wound up with an extra and asked if I knew anyone who would be interested in going the day of the show. My buddy Mike volunteered and seemed excited to go. Kind of unexpectedly the people I was originally supposed to go down with suddenly decided they were going to leave two hours earlier than originally planned and I was on my own. At first I was bent out of shape, but the more I thought about it the more it became to my advantage. I figured I didn’t have to work on their time-frame (they are notorious for leaving shows early) and I got to enjoy the show with Mike instead of being pulled between two different groups.
The show was pretty good, I can barely remember the last time I saw moe. (maybe 1/20-21/06), it seems so long ago, anyone care to remind me? I found a copy of the show already on archive.org, so you can listen to it or download it if your interested. Anyway, here’s the setlist:
Set I: Shoot First> Tailspin, Stranger Than Fiction> Time Again, Faker> Head
Set II: The Ghost Of Ralph’s Mom> Wormwood> The Ghost Of Ralph’s Mom, Water> Kids, Sensory Deprivation Bank> Down Boy> Recreational Chemistry
Encore: Akimbo
I had a blow out on the way home too. It was about 3:30AM on my way home on 495 and I was on the phone with the DJ from WMMR because I just called in and won a package of Eric Clapton stuff, and as I was talking to him the belts in my drivers side front tire blew. I got out and checked and the tire wasn’t flat, the belts had just busted through. So I decided to drive at about 30MPH the last five miles home. It was bizarre.
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.
On Friday Robert, Mitchell, and myself went down to Dogfish Head (DFH) to do the whole brewery tour and happy hour thing. Of course I didn’t realize it was the Friday of Labor Day weekend, but in all honesty it wasn’t so bad.
We got to the brewery just before 3PM which is what time the tour starts. Mitchell has never been before and Robert & I have been a lot, maybe 10 times. Every time we go it is amazing how much things have changed. One of the first times we went the head brewer Bryan Selders gave the tour, they were still using the old 50bbl system, they had open fermenters, and about half of everything else they have now. This time I believe it was Fred Mazzeo who gave the tour, the new 100bbl system was up, the warehouse, fermenters, bottling-line, quality control lab – everything, was just, well, just right – Cheers to DFH! Per usual they had samples to try, this time we got to taste the 60 Minute IPA (one of my personal favorites) and the new Golden Era “Imperial” Pilsner, which is a remake of the beer formally known as Golden Showers, which is sort of a remake of the beer formally known as Prescription Pils. As you may be able to guess, DFH ran into a little bit of naming issues with those last two names. I picked up a 4-pack of the Golden Era while there for $10.
After the tour we were off to the brewpub. The tour typically runs 45-60 minutes, and the brewpub does happy hour from 4-6PM. So if you take the tour and drive out to the pub (30 minute drive) you can still hit most of happy hour. Happy hour used to be $2 everything that was made by DFH (beer & spirits) and half price appetizers, great happy hour, but now it is $1 off everything (beer, spirits, and food), not such a good happy hour. On “special” at the pub they had a beer called Fluckey Fest and 90 Minute IPA pulled through Randal – nice! The Fluckey Fest was a beer that was made with 51% malted barley and 49% Chardonnay grapes and fermented with Champagne yeast. Sounds really interesting, and it was interesting, but not my cup-o-beer. Reminded me a little of the original brewing of the Chateau Jiahu, which later tasted very different in the bottled version. After adopting the corner of the bar for several hours, the general manager Jim Boyd offered us a new combination DFH has been working on. It was a glass of their Chicory Stout with a shot of their Dark Chocolate Vodka served a long side. Basically he asked us to take a sip of each separately and notice the flavors they each portrayed, then to mix the rest of the vodka with the beer and appreciate the new flavors that were brought together. It was actually really good and made me think, is DFH going to try and market this as a drink, the first vodka infused beer? Someone asked about the spirits while on the tour and they made it very clear they were not aloud to have the spirits at the brewery because the ATF was concerned they may try to make a super-infused beer and right now there is no laws or taxation concerned with that, so they don’t want DFH to be tempted. Sounds like just the thing DFH will try to make happen.
I think only DFH makes people this happy and ghey!
After DFH we cruised around Rehoboth Blvd. and the boardwalk for a couple of hours, watching a little girl beat her dad at chess, grabbin’ some Grotto’s, and making general fools of ourselves. All through out the day, from before the brewery tour to up until two days later we began to talk about creating a tournament between the greatest front-men of all times. Yes, I know it sounds silly, and a little dorky, and way over thought, but remember who’s talking here. In the beginning it was a big 64 player seeded tournament that I believe we were going to try and do that night when we got home. Instead it turned into a giant 128 player unseeded randomly drawn tournament that was crazy and stupid-fun. I think the final list had about 145 or so on it that got weened down to 128. Basically it went like this, we finalized the 128 frontmen that were to be involved. All of their names were put into a hat together and names were drawn out two at a time to see who the match-ups would be. After the initial 64 match-ups the tournament would play out like any normal tournament. We did include our own rule as to keep it interesting though.
Our rule kind of went like this, in the first round each of us were given three “power nahs” in which we were able to say “nah” to any match-up that was pulled out of the hat. If we used a “power nah” then that match-up would be thrown back into the hat to be re-pulled in a different combination later. This was typically used to keep heavy hitters from going up against each other too early. For example, if Robert Plant and Mick Jagger went up against each other in the first round then someone might use a “power nah” to throw their names back into the hat so a big decision like that wouldn’t have to be made too early in the game. After the first round each of us was also given two regular “nahs” that could be used in the second, third, and fourth rounds. What these “nahs” did was basically give the loser of a match-up a second chance. The winner of the match-up had to get a 2 out of 3 vote to stay in verses the normal 50/50 chance – make sense? Click the tournament picture and you’ll find the results of a few hours of us being idiots with Robert, Mitchell, myself, and later Wooly as a spectator. Now remember, none of us fully agree with this, this is just what happen when the three of us ran this tournament. It would probably be different with any three people and obviously with any random drawing. Oh, please excuse the misspelled names, I know I can’t spell.
I know Erik Mitchell and the Band sounds a little awkward, but I know he doesn’t want to be referred to as The Erik Mitchell Band, but I think there should be a designation between Erik Mitchell playing by himself and with the band. Can I say Erik Mitchell any more times?
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View more pictures from these two shows here, including multiple, short, poor quality video with poor quality audio (I’m sure they love this)!
Regardless. Fortunately, Karen & I have gotten to see Erik Mitchell and the Band play twice in the last three days in Delaware, it doesn’t get any nicer than that! First, we got to go see Erik, Robert, and Corey play over at the Brandywine Zoo in 103F weather. Erik and Robert have played there acoustically a few times this summer already, but this was the first time they were allowed to plug-in, so they did it up and brought Corey down to help rock the animals. It was really a lot of fun hanging at the zoo and watching the band play. But, I will remind everyone that it was 103F on Saturday, so it was very still and very moist fun. I honestly felt kind of bad for the band, the only one that didn’t look like he was going to melt was Corey. After the zoo and a short air conditioning break we all met back up at Mitchell Square Gardens and had some good grub, some good beers, some good company, and some good ol’ cornholin’!
Today at Rockford Park was just as much fun as on Saturday, only a little shorter and a little cooler. Not only that, this time Mitchell was able to muster up John Conahan to come down and sit in on keys with them. John adds a nice dynamic to the flow that these guys kick out and the harmony vocals are typically pretty nice too. Not that he didn’t contribute in a positive fashion this time, but his keys sounded a little “sharp” sometimes tonight. I hope that this four-set looks into playing more shows together because they seem to work together well, some more in Delaware would be especially nice for us locals. It was neat seeing a show at Rockford Park, I didn’t even know they had a summer concert series, go figure. Plus, they open the tower during the performances so we got to climb to the top and check things out, great view of Wilmington all around.
(Plug time) To read and hear more about Erik Mitchell and his band check out some of his websites for all the information you’ll need including set lits, upcoming events, music to listen to, and music to buy.
Last Friday Robert & I went down to Fordham Brewing Company in Dover, DE before work to pick up some base grains and a very fair price. We left around 6:30AM so we could stop and get breakfast, get to Fordham, and still make it back to work by 9:00AM.
We already knew where we where going to go for breakfast, Helen’s Famous Sausage House of course! If you have never had a Helen’s sausage sandwich before and you are a breakfast sandwich person, then you are missing out on one of the best breakfast sandwiches ever (heart-attack on a roll). A Helen’s sausage sandwich is two homemade sausage links that are larger than hotdogs deep fried with a fried egg and Cheese-Wiz on a hotdog roll. It is so obnoxious, that I typically take off one of the links and eat it first, then eat the remainder as a sandwich. It is an awfully good treat, but typically my digestive track is correct for the rest of the day.
After Helen’s we continued down to Fordham. We met up with Walter the head brewer there and bullshitted for a little while. We talked about what’s new at Fordham, how things have been in the last year, and when am I going to come down and volunteer again. While we were there (at 8:00 in the morning) Walt offered us some beer samples after a very brief and informal brewery tour. We tried two beers, my favorite their Tavern Ale which is only sold on tap and is a cross between an American and an English Pale Ale and there new summer seasonal which was a Hefeweizen aged on raspberry puree. The summer seasonal was pretty good, definitely something Karen would have liked, but it is unfortunate for them that they missed some sort of labeling approval and could not bottle it this year, so it is only available on draft.
Some of the news I picked up down at Fordham is huge for them. First off they hired two new employees, both brewers, one from Old Dominion in VA and one from the American Brewer’s Guild. Also, Fordham has “bought out” Old Dominion, now owning Old Dominion in VA, Fordham in DE, and all the Ram’s Heads in MD, and reforming under the mother company name of Coastal Brewing Company. On top of that, Anheuser-Busch apparently “bought out” a large chunk (49% I believe) of Coastal Brewing. Supposedly it has to do with a distribution deal, and Fordham and Old Dominion products should soon be available minimally up and down the east coast wherever Anheuser-Busch products are available – which is everywhere. I believe Walt said that Fordham currently produces around 7,500 bbls of beer annual right now and A-B promised them an increase to 250,000 bbls of beer annually in the next five years with the majority of the production coming out of Dover, DE. Take all of this with a grain of salt because it was all spoken about very conversationally and I am only putting down what I think I remember. So enjoy the tasty nuggets!
Karen and I headed over to Stewart’s Brew Pub in Bear, DE for their 12th Anniversary party. The main theme for the party was that Stewart’s was going to rock out with 12 Barleywines.
Before we arrived at Stewart’s I wanted to stop by Garret’s house so that I could try our almost one year old barleywine on tap. Not only would I get to try a draft variation but I could also compare ours to all of the ones Stewart’s would have. Garret has split his half of the Gnarleywine into two half sized kegs. One keg he left alone and let the beer age, the other keg he added oak wood chips that had been soaked in bourbon. The Gnarleywine at Garret’s from the kegerator is basically the same as what I have in bottles, except his is carbonated and mine is well, not. I thought the flavor and aroma were as expected and the carbonation did help the mouthfeel. I hadn’t had one in a few months and was really surprised at how hot the Gnarleywine still seemed. He then brought up a taste of the Boubonized Gnarleywine and though the keg seemed to have lost pressure and lost carbonation I thought it was incredible. I thought the oak and bourbon notes really tied together the hotness that the Gnarleywine had so that it seemed more appropriate. I think the BGNW is where it is at.
After Garret’s we headed on over to Stewart’s. It was pretty busy, but not obnoxiouly so. We decided to order the 12 barleywine flight so that we could sample them all. They had 4 vintages from Stewart’s and 8 guest barleywines. My favorites were Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot and most of the Stewart’s vintages and Karen’s was the Young’s Old Nick from England. We also picked up some sandwiches while we were there. After the barleywines and dinner I wound up talking to an old friend I hadn’t seen in like 10 years, Wyatt Creswell, while enjoying one of Stewart’s delicious American Brown Ales. Very hoppy (in a good way) for an American Brown yet still rich and malty – nice. Overall I’d say the Stewart’s 12th Anniversary party was a success. I need to remember to check out some of their other events.
This weekend, July 20-22, was the annual event at Brewery Ommegang called Belgium Comes To Cooperstown (BCTC). This was their 4th year holding the event and my first year attending. I must say, all of the good things I have heard about this event are true, it was a really great time!
Click HERE to see all the rest of the pictures. Sorry there isn’t many, I kept forgetting I had my camera with me.
This year Ommegang limited the number of tickets being sold to 800 tickets (previously I don’t believe there was a cap). Of those 800 tickets, 200 of these tickets were to be VIP tickets. VIP ticket holders were entitled to a 750ml bottle of Ommegeddon (there newest beer), a special 6 course meal paired with beer Friday night, camping Friday night, a ticket to the BCTC beer festival event on Saturday, and camping Saturday night for $120. Not a bad deal in my opinion for a weekend of fun, but unfortunately these tickets sold out in 5 days. The other 600 tickets included a ticket to the BCTC beer festival and Saturday night camping for $90, a little bit pricey but could be worth the cost. These tickets sold out also before we got a chance to purchase them. So about two weeks ago now I contacted the brewery to see if they still needed volunteers for the fest. They said they did and we were on our way. For the volunteers included was camping Friday and Saturday and a ticket to the BCTC beer fest on Saturday – plus the deal was for every four hour shift you volunteered you were compensated with a case of Ommegang beer! So all of this for the cost of our time, I think we scored!
We had been in contact with the brewery previously and signed up for a volunteer shift both on Friday and Saturday, that way guaranteeing we could camp both nights plus so we both could score two cases of Ommegang beer each. So, it was Robert and I who decided to volunteer for Ommegang. I took off from work on Friday and Monday and he was already off. We left the house on Friday around 6:30AM (just slightly behind schedule) to make the 5ish hour drive. We needed to be there by noon to start our first shift. Both days we had 12-4 shifts, not bad. Everything went fine on the drive up except for the hour of stand-still traffic we hit on the North East Extension of the PA Turnpike thanks to an environmental spill. We made it to Ommegang right at noon and luckily for us they were not quite ready for the volunteers so we were able to pitch our tent and throw our gear down before starting our shift. On Friday I got assigned to traffic control. Essentially we (myself, a guy from Milwaukee we met named Craig, and Robert for part of the time) had to direct the different cars where to go depending on what they were there for. Of course we were told conflicting information from different employees, but eventually Craig and I agreed on what we were telling the cars so at least from our end it started to go smoothly. One of the groups I checked in was the crew from Stewart’s in Bear, so it was good to see Ric and Natalie to know some familiar faces. About a third of the way through our shift Robert was reassigned to do another section, basically they said they needed some muscles and he volunteered, so he got the job of being the ‘hey-can-you-move-this’ guy.
After our shift on Friday we went back to the beer booth to get out vouchers for our case of beer, it was very much like getting your paycheck, and when we went to the store to acquire the cases it was very much like blowing your whole paycheck at the bar, bizarre. Anyway, we were allowed to choose from the Ommegang (Abbey Ale), Rare Vos (Amber Ale), Hennepin (Saison), and the Witte (White Ale). We also found out we could upgrade by paying extra to the two “bigger” beers they have the Three Philosophers (Quad) and the Ommegeddon (Belgian Farmhouse-style with Brettanomyces). We got paid with the Ommegang and Ommegeddon for that shift. After we were done there the Friday night fun began and we started drinking some top notch beers with fellow campers and playing some Cornhole until dark. After a dinner break, we began walking around the campgrounds and hanging and drinking with all the great and diverse people that were there. We probably crashed around 2AM calling it a night.
Saturday morning came around early, we were probably up between 7-8AM, partially because that’s how camping goes and partially because there was a mandatory meeting for the volunteers from 9-10AM on how to tell if someone is drunk and how to deal with them. The meeting was a pure waist of time. The lady in charge could have honestly made her point much clearer if she would have said what she really wanted us to hear and been done in 10 minutes instead of drawing it out with stories and losing most of out attentions. After the meeting we had about two hours before our shift began. I’m glad we had that break for while we were sitting in the meeting I had delayed-hang-over set in and I really needed those next two hours to drink some water, eat some food, and find my face.
For our shifts on Saturday Robert and I were assigned as beer pours for the first half of the fest. So the actual beer fest part of the whole weekend was scheduled from 2-6PM on Saturday, our shift was 12-4PM. So by volunteering we worked half of the tasting time but got to drink half of the tasting time too. There were some volunteers that did the same thing but flipped, I’m glad that isn’t what we got. Anyway, from 12-2 we were suppose to help set up and from 2-4 pour beers at the fest. Each volunteer was assigned to a specific brewery – Robert got The Tap Brewpub and I got Troegs. Well, The Tap never showed up and Troegs rolled up with a posse of about four people so they didn’t need my help. So instead for the first two hours we just randomly helped who ever needed help, mostly hauling bags of ice and standing around. At two o’clock I went back to Troegs to see if they need help pouring and of course they didn’t and Robert hooked up with the guy from Shelton Bros. Distributing and helped him pour Jolly Pumpkin beers for two hours. So from 2-4 I basically walked around again, refilled ice for a few people, took out some trash, and basically killed time until four. At four Robert and I stripped off our volunteer shirts, grabbed our beer case vouchers, went to pick up our beers (Three Philosophers and the Hennepin this time), ran back to the car to drop them off, and ran back to the fest to play catch-up. In all honesty, two hours of drinking huge Belgian-style beers was probably better than four because I was starting to “loose my edge” after two hours. Some highlights of beers I can remember are the Gorm Noire from Three Floyds, the Hop Goddess and Ink Well from Offshore, the 06.06.06 Vertical Epic from Stone, and everything from the Lost Abbey.
After the fest we moseyed back to the camp site, grabbed some more beers and the Cornhole sets and started all over again. We wound up finishing the last Cornhole game on Saturday a good 30 minutes after dark. It was pretty sweet having the set with us because we got to hang out with several other people who we may not have met otherwise, everyone was totally into the game. We also happened to run into the Unibroue representative while playing and he had me follow him back to his car and he hooked us up with six 750ml of Unibroue beer, Chambly Noire, La Fin Du Monde, Maudite, and some others. After it got dark it was time for wondering around the camp grounds again. While we were wondering around we saw a game similar to Cornhole but very different at three different campsites. It was like mini-cornhole played with metal washers instead of corn bags. The boards were smaller and closer together too, plus two of the three sets had three holes on the boar instead of one, it looked quite interesting. We wound up kicking it with the Iron Hill compound, the Stewart’s crew, and the employees from Ommegang mostly. After a while (near midnight) a cool band took the stage, there was live music from 2PM-2AM. They were called Mecca Bodega and they threw down some serious percussion good time dancin’ fun. We kicked it in the music tent during most of there set. After the Mecca Bodega throw-down we meandered back to our tent to hit the hay about 2AM.
When Sunday morning arrived it was between 7-8AM again. So a whopping total of about 10 hours sleep for the weekend, nice! Fortunately, besides being a bit tired, we both woke up feeling rather fresh. We took our time eating breakfast, drinking coffee, and breaking down camp. While we were breaking down camp two separate other campers that had volunteered came over and asked us if we wanted one of their beer vouchers because they didn’t have enough room in their cars to bring home the beer. Of course we took the vouchers and thanked them several times. We redeemed these two vouchers for the only two styles of beer we hadn’t acquired yet which were the Witte and the Rare Vos. So we wound up scoring one of each style beer Ommegang makes, sweet! To be fair and because we wanted to, we decided we were going to split each case, so we actually got a half case of each style a piece. Packing the car was interesting, but we got it all to fit. It was funny, driving the car I could really feel the weight of everything we had, but after a half an hour or so on the highway it felt “normal”.
All in all it was a great weekend and I would totally go back again. In all honesty I feel as if volunteering was definitely a good choice and would probably do the same next year. Robert has already talked to Ommegang about trying to get Erik Mitchell and the band booked to play next year, so that’s really cool, especially since the person we need to talk to is one of the ones we were hanging out with a lot. For me, this is now the fest that all the rest will get compared to, thanks to Brewery Ommegang!
On Friday the 13th a bunch of us went out to Rox’s Bar in Marshallton, DE to see our buddy’s band play, The Kinda Blue Band. I have never been to this place before nor have I even heard of it, so my expectations of what the evening were going to bring were all over the place.
The night actually turned out to be a lot of fun. Above is Dave Carson on bongos, Glenn Wiltsee on bass, and John Zdimal on guitar. This is the band that played our wedding for anybody who was there and remembers these guys. This was a new venue for these guys to play and it seemed as if both the band and the owner of the bar thought things went well. The band was asked to come back already, but there is not set date yet. The guys also added some new songs to the mix, I’m sure I didn’t pick up on all of them but there was definitely some Bob Marley thrown into the mix. As the night progressed and the libations continued to flow the girls started to really to have fun. I’m including what I think is a good picture and hopefully it won’t embarrass anyone.
