An early post on Saturday mentioned what Friday evening was and what was to come later that day, but now I have a few pictures to support the more complete story.

Friday evening was an awesome pub crawl (of sorts) on a bus with a various brewery representatives, distributors, brewers, bar owners and the like that were in town for the Beer Festival of the South.  It was a great evening with some really awesome and interesting people.

After having an Arrogant Bastard and leaving the festival site on the bus we headed to Redlight Redlight, which is said to be the best beer bar in Orlando and one of top five in the world.  It is an awesome place for sure and I learned that they open at five now rather than seven, so it climbed to the top of the list for an after work place to grab a good beer.  Never mind that I ordered a four dollar Lagunitas Brown Shugga’ and ended up with a much more expensive Rochefort, I still had a great time.  So I guess the lesson for me is that I need to pay attention to what was being poured before it is too late.  Ending up with a good beer and being surrounded by good beer people certainly makes things better though.

Not a bad substitute

Then it was off to Will’s Pub which is even closer to my house than Redlight Redlight.  If you haven’t been there before, you need to pass through the pool room and the very dark music room (where musicians play at night) to get to the bar room.  I went to order a Summit Pale Ale, but unfortunately the keg was out.  The consolation prize was a Stone IPA, so again my second option turned out well.  Thank you to Chuck for that round!  Later on a few of us were given a Summit Extra Pale Ale, but I may need to try it again as I did not love it as an encore to the Stone IPA that I just finished.

The last stop was the (relatively new) House of Beer, which is a long way from home for me.  Once it was discovered that we were at Redlight Redlight earlier, a few patrons felt it necessary to tell me how the House of Beer is much better.  My opinion is that there is more that enough room in Orlando for a few good beer-drinking spots.  I knew before I arrived that my choice would be the Oaked Arrogant Bastard, though when Scott gave it a sniff he didn’t think that is what I ended up with.  I tend to believe him since he works for Stone as a brewery representative.  Yet another lesson that night in making sure your order is understood in a loud environment and making sure you pay attention to what is poured.  It also was nice to have an opportunity to meet a few of the owners, who allowed me to sample a few beers, including Stone’s Vertical Epic 09.09.09.  They were great guys and I think the place will do quite well, especially with Guinness the extremely friendly Newfoundland hanging out there.

Meet Guinness

The night ended very late in the morning with my first trip to McDonalds in years.  It was a bad idea for sure.  Emily and Ian agreed and were equally regretful when I saw them again the next morning at the festival.

Speaking of the festival, I had an absolute blast as a volunteer for the day.  From bringing ice to the booths before it opened to loading the leftovers on pallets at the end of the event, it was a great day.  The Wife and I were together serving beer at a few booths throughout the day, meeting tons of interesting people and getting many to branch out of their comfort zone to try some different beers.  I was able to spend time behind the table at booths for Stone, Sam Adams, and Terrapin with some other stops mixed in.

Our first post of the day

Brew Master "Spike" at the Terrapin booth

The Wife hard at work at the Stone booth

It is hard to say what beer I enjoyed the most since there were so many there and so many that I didn’t get a chance to try.  I will say that there were many good IPAs there, including those at breweries I haven’t sampled much before like Harpoon and Clipper City.  There was also a really awesome white ale from Southampton Publick House.  Thank you to Andy for not letting us leave without trying the Double White!  I am sure that there are others that I haven’t mentioned, but there was so much good beer there (especially for a smaller festival) that there is no way I could remember them all.  Take a look here to see what the attendees voted for as the best.

The view toward Boulder and Southampton

After getting to participate The Wife is now a beer festival convert for sure, so there should be many more to report back on in the future.  Be sure to check out her post if you want to see me soaked in beer and lamenting the loss of a few of the (unexpected) free beers that we were given at the end of the night.

One triathlon in the morning plus one beer festival equals one happy girl!

A few more beers to review for our participation efforts