The Great Alaska Beer and Barleywine Festival

We attended this evening on the house, since we're volunteering tomorrow night.

The beer? Well, a few were amazing, a few fantastic, some excellent, many average/mediocre, and a depressing number hideous.

One barleywine smelled and tasted profoundly like dill pickles. Yes, really. The volunteer pouring the beer and the random "beer connoisseur" standing there all agreed. Big, big dill pickles.

It was most disappointing to see great breweries, who do great beer, and especially do great specialties, not bring out anything particularly interesting. I kept saying that I hoped they'd be brining it out for tomorrow's Connoisseur's Session. I sure hope so.

The first hour or two was really quite pleasant: after a small early rush right at opening, it really was mostly people who genuinely wanted to taste the beer, and not just get fucked up. Then, Team Meathead showed up in force. Packs and packs of the morons. Simultaneously, the bimbo fools in repulsively tight jeans showed up with high-heeled OPEN shoes, no socks, no tights, no nothing. Bare feet. It was about 19 degrees outside when we walked in.

Ahhhh. For free, it was great. For $30? Not likely.