So I finally made it to the World Beer Fest in Durham. Jen and I tried to go last year but couldnt find tickets in time. Luckily, I got some this year at the last minute, they were $25 each, but well worth it. 150 Breweries from around the world featuring 400 different beers, and let me tell you, we tried our damndest to try’em all.

There was a 30,000 sq ft tent in the old Durham Athletic Park which housed the beer. THat tent was surrounded by smaller tents offering food, soda, plasma TVs for us football fans, and some live music. It was a great setup, but wow was it muddy. It had rained for about 2 days straight so needless to say the field was a little sloppy and there was some big mudholes in and out of the tent area. Jen was a little bit smarter then I and wore her rubber boots, with her jeans hiked up Huck-Finn-Stlye she got a lot of “Damn thats a smart idea” comments. I wore some old shoes so I wasnt worried about the mud, it was walking around with wet feet that was uncomfortable and after our pass down the first muddy isle she had the idea to grab the marketing info bags from the Carlson Wagonlit promotional booth, dump out the contents (Except for the lifesavers), and put them on my feet and then put my shoes on. *Cue the Guiness guy* “BRILLIANT”. I was care free the rest of the way, I guess I’ll keep her for another 2 weeks for that one!

Anyway, back to the beer. You walk into the stadium and they hand you a glass for your journey. Its about the size of a large juice glass, nothing big but it was a good size. We tried to keep tally of how many beers we drank, which ones we liked and score them on a 1-5 scale (5 being the best). That lasted for the first 52 we tried! We drank lots of North Carolina Beers, some other US microbrews such as Flying Dog and Rogues (Dead Guy Ale, was nasty!), tons of foreign brews that we’ve never heard of before. Jen found a new favorite, ‘Madonna’ A Belgian White (Witbier) brewed by SC Martens SA in Galati, Romania. Even after all those beers my favorite remains Anchor Steam, for my money there is no better beer.

Some beers we suggest staying away from, or if you must have them, use them for toilet water….. Rogues Dead Guy Ale (it got -1 on the JE Rating), any beer from the Fischer Brewery, Greece (.1 JE rating), and the beer we had from Green Man Brewing Co. in Asheville, NC (we only had one of their 5 but it was bad, 1 JE Rating).

*thanks to Scoogle and Riley for giving us a ride there, and my dad for picking our tipsy, muddy, butts up!

All in all it was an amazing time and we are definitlely going back next year!
Leave us a comment if you would like to join us, we’ll plan a group outting a little better then our last minute trip.