As you may now, I turned 47 today. My Dad has the same birthday and turned 74. It’s Flip Birthday! (I have no idea what that means) Anyhoo, off to the Willimantic Beer fest we went. They had 70 brewers present, not the “more than 30” they advertised, although technically 70 is more than 30 so I guess they weren’t wrong, but still, 70 is way more than 30, especially when you’re determined to hit them all and you have four hours to do it. It’s totally cool though, because everyone gets a small glass and they’ll only serve you 3 oz. at a time, so that’s only 210 oz. which means in four hours you’ve only had 13 pints and…

Oh dear God.

That math is fucking terrifying.

Here are some highlights from the Beer festival:

1) The Food
Oh, yes they had food, and it’s extremely important to fill up on the right kind of food at a beer festival, lest you be passed out in a pool of your own vomit 2 hours in. Our favoirite was the pork belly steam roll with kimchi from Cafemantic, followed closedly by the sheperd’s pie puff pastry from some cafe whoese name I understandably forget. Both were delicious, both were loaded with alcohol absorbing carbs, both could be consumed with one hand while we drank with the other.

2) The Weather.
The weather sucked. Might have cracked 48 and on and off rain the whole time. Someone dumped a chest of ice out a couple of hours in and none of it had melted before we left. But the people who keep on drinking in those conditions are the true heroes and the world needs heroes am I right, or am I right? Anyway, I’m your hero; I kept drinking. While wearing rain gear.

3) The Beer
Best beer I had was one from the local brewery, Willibrew’s Pre-Prohibition Porter. I lack the ability to translate what I think tastes good to words like Make It Snow, so take my word for it, this is a really good beer and you should all road trip to Willimantic to get it. Plus,

Or at least heroin.

Among the other brewers who showed up we had Lagunitas, (tried their red, 13, delicious), Ballast Point, (tried their peppermint variety, threw it on the ground, tried their ginger, finished it but did not go back for seconds), Stone, (tried 3 different varitities, enjoyed them all and stole a full bottle of their red when they weren’t looking). None of there are local to Connecticut but do show the reach this festival is getting in only three years.

On that note I’d like to mention that the mayor of the town gave the owner of the Willimantic Brewing Company the key to the city, then managed to mispronounce the name of the city.

4) The marching band. I’m pretty sure half of these people hadn’t met before today. One of them was playing drums on a plastic bucket and broke the bucket and kept playing. At the end two bands combined into one and played “When The Saints Come Marching In” which is a fantastic song to hear at a beer festival but unfortunately one which a band can’t possibly top and should end with. Fortunately, they did.

5) Local beer highlights. The porter mentioned above. Beer’d out of Stonington, CT, had a brew called Hobbit Juice that was decent but had a name that deserved to be tried. I unfortunately do not recall the name of their stout or IPA but both were very good. Smuttynose isn’t a microbrew, (out of NH, easy to fin around here), but their IPA was very good and their Old Brown Dog and Finest Kind IPA were very good. They didn’t have the Robust Porter today but in my opinion that’s their best.

6) WHAT’S ON TV TO NIGHT
a) Game of Thrones
b) Red Sox reenact the Red Wedding on the Yankees
c) who cares, I’m drunk.

Yours in the comments.

OK, I have no idea what happened with that link, and I care even less. The point is, if you want heroin, come to Willimantic. But stay for the beer!