New Times Beerfest

Once again, the New Times Beerfest was a success. It was expertly organized by Morgan who did an amazing job all around.
I arrived early for VIP with my group SFLHops. The VIP is always the best way to do a festival as you can try any beer anywhere without any waiting in line. Once those general admissions come stampeding in there you’ll be waiting in long lines the rest of the evening.
Rather than go to VIP for the first hour, we enjoyed the general area and tried to drink from as many brewers as possible before the masses entered. As always, brewers like Legacy, Descarga, 26 Degrees, Funky Buddha, Banging’ Banjo did a fantastic job with delicious beers.
The only downside was that some tables were not represented by anyone that knew anything about their beer. When I was tasting beer from Saint Arnold, I had to be the one to tell them that their beer is from Texas. Someone asked them if it was an IPA and the girls said «no, they have the ipa» as she pointed to a different table thinking that an IPA is a beer rather than a type of beer that could be on her table and many, many other tables at the festival. It was embarrassing for some of those beers to be represented so poorly.
VIP was very cool with many wonderful food selections. It’s great that they offer free alcohol too, but I think it is a terrible idea to mix the two. I wish the VIP area could have had more beer options that were not available in the general area.
It’s always so much fun to enjoy these festivals with good friends and I was lucky to be with south Florida’s best beer group SFLHops. We were out in full force, pretzel necklaces and all, having a great time enjoying the beer.
My personal hi light was being able to be one of the three judges for the Miss Beerfest contest. I was thrilled to serve as a judge and it was awesome to have that experience. I will post some pictures from behind the judges booth for you to have vip access to this too!