Local Entrepreneurial News
(Photos by Jim Lauwers)
The First Annual Columbus Beerfest kicked off last night at the Greater Columbus Convention Center, and continues this evening with more beer, music and festivities from 7pm to 11pm. The event features over 150 craft beers from both local and national brewers. Below are are photos taken at last night’s event.
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I had an awesome time. However, some suggestions for next year:
1. They need a bigger space
2. With that bigger space, they could provide more bar tables.
3. Hand out a list of all beers, where they are from, alcohol %, etc.
4. Invite Cincinatti’s Moerlein.
5. Sell t-shirts. They had a box with what looked like 50 shirts but they would not sell me one.
Yeah, there was a little bit of chaos, but I thought it seemed to be going very well for a “first annual” event. Lots of room for growth and improvement next year!
I think it would have been nice if there were maps or guides to the layout. I was looking specifically for Brothers Drake Meadery (which I swear was on their website a few days ago, but today I’m not seeing them) and every person I asked for help was a volunteer who admittedly knew nothing about where anything was located.
Nit-picking aside, I had a great time last night and hope this event is around for years to come! ;)
I’m guessing the organizers didn’t expect such a large group of attendees, as they’d only rented out a third of the Battelle Grand ballroom (which is a really neat space, by the way). They could have easily used the entire ballroom; as it was, moving through the crowd was more like making your way through a house party than an exhibition.
Perhaps the organizers had counted on people retiring to the mezzanine levels to clear up some space around the taps, but since the tasting glasses only held 5oz, enough for two or three mouthfuls, people tended to stay as close to the beer supply as possible.
The line to get in went far past the crowd-control barriers they’d set up, and exit-time logistics were nonexistent. (I guess I left too late to get my souvenir glass?)
On the other hand, there were almost no lines for any of the taps, which is incredible, and the bathrooms in the Battelle Grand ballroom were new, clean, and almost large enough to avoid lines. I got a great picture, which Walker chose not to post for some odd reason, of a guy looking mad at me because I was taking his picture in line for a toilet.
As jpizzow correctly pointed out, there was also a problem with locating the beer you wanted to try. Not all of the breweries had brought signage identifying their location, and in some cases the signs they had brought were hanging nowhere near the brewery’s actual taps (Breckenridge I am looking at you).
Almost no-one had a comprehensive list of their offerings, so you either had to make a snap decision by looking at their taps, or ask one of the people tending the table. However, most of the attendants were (much-appreciated) volunteers who knew little to nothing about what they were pouring.
For instance, Gordon Biersch had a wild device they called the “Hop hookah,” which was intended to pull their seasonal beer through a chamber filled with fresh hops. When my friend and I pointed out that it seemed to be hooked up to itself in a closed loop, with no beer actually running through it, the person running the table professed ignorance, telling us that the person who set it up had left before the event started. That was a shame, and I imagine that had GB known of the problem, they would have fixed it.
The idea of keeping that kitchen area open and serving pizza, fries, chicken strips, etc. was fairly brilliant. I didn’t get a chance to sample any of it, but a lot of people seemed to be enjoying their food.
Overall, 25 tickets seemed to be more than enough. Even the most inebriated fellow I met had a handful left at the end of the night. The beer selection was great, the attendees were friendly, and there was live music and a place to sit.
All in all, a really great time if you enjoy beer and would like to sample some rare or expensive brews. Bring a friend!
Oh and in case you were wondering, here are the breweries I remember seeing represented (since the official listing is not accurate):
Avery, Barley’s Brewing Company, Bell’s, Bluegrass Brewing, Breckenridge, Brew Kettle, Brooklyn, Buckeye Brewing, Dogfish Head, Elevator, Founder’s, Goose Island, Gordon Biersch, Great Lakes, Harpoon, Ithaca, Kentucky, Left Hand, Magic Hat, Magner’s, Newcastle, Pyramid, Red Hook, Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, Smuttynose, Southern Tier, Spaten, Stone, Thirsty Dog, Troegs, Widmer, Wooden Shoe, and
http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc141/JimL2/P1010529.jpg
No Brothers Drake, though. I don’t know what Walker was on about…
Anyone else run into The Crew’s Frankie Hejduk? (he’s out injured for today’s match against LA for anyone asking why he’s out drinking beer the night before a match)
Here he is pouring beer’s at Barley’s table:
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/3271/107854754c522bcb7805845.jpg
I was fairly disappointed. For $40 (prepay with added fees) it was pretty much what you would find in the Giant Eagle cooler. I brought 4 friends with me so that was $200. That would buy a lot of beer. I think it felt pretty generic and was not the caliber that I expected. All of the people I talked to were volunteers who knew little of what they were serving,
The Sci Fi convention was next door so that added to the color of the event – ie Zombies !
If I had to do it again I would spend the $200 on rarer beers and maybe a bottle of Scotch and have a nice gathering of friends and family. In general this imho was a bit ‘meh’. I went to one in Pittsburgh and the quality and selection was better while keeping the price the same.
I didn’t make it this year, but I’m glad to hear some folks liked it. I’d love to see it move into an outdoor fest next year and inch towards something like this…
http://www.oregonbrewfest.com/index.php
After sleeping on it I want to say that I was a little harsh in my comment last night. I think a lot of it was due to my expectations of the event and having some friends drive in for it. If I had just stumbled into it yesterday I would probably have been fine with it. It is a start on what could turn out to be a really nice annual event.
Beer selection was not very good and it was next to impossible to find anything you were looking for. The event came across as very amateurish, it kind of felt like I was on Park St. It was extremely packed on Saturday too. They stopped selling tickets around 8 and ran out of festival glasses so I was using a plastic cup – very classy.
I was rather embarrassed because I brought a out of town friend to the event. I kept having to tell him it was there first year so that’s they haven’t worked out all the problems yet.
However, I really did like newly renovated Battelle Hall. Great venue! Huge turnout, so I’d assume they are going to do it again next year. Just hope they rent the whole battelle hall and make some signs!
I’m sure they will work out the kinks and have an even better event next year. That’s the trial and error process of any new festival. All in all, good time.
Did anyone get the pint glass on the way out? I left around 10:30ish on Friday night and saw no sign of anyone or anywhere to get the glasses from. I was pretty er…tipsy by that point so maybe I just wobbled past without noticing.
Afaik they did not have the promised glasses on the way out.
I will see if they will mail them to us.
I agree with all the aformentioned suggestions on how this event could have been MUCH better than it was for what we paid. I agree that the venue was nice- but NO place to sit?! That was a lack of planning. After 3 hours in heels, I finally risked being stepped on and parked it on the floor. Hubby was kinda pissed about the fact that there were no pint glasses, as promised on the way out!
That aside- beer was good and cold. Hopefully this event will be better thought out next year.
As a brewer, I didn’t know what to anticipate… It was more chaotic than I would have expected ( we did our best for the “Connoisseur”s Tasting or whatever, but nobody knew what was going on-next year, we might be more prepared…) Everybody certainly got enough to drink and I had beers that I didn’t even know existed… (inspiration!) I’ll participate again, assuming their check clears…
(@ JohnRClem Frankie is a Barley’s regular. I’m guessin’ his injury gave him license to drink-HE IS SO NICE!)
Just noticed this, on their site: “Admission includes 25 drink tickets, each good for a 5oz. pour of great American craft beer in your souvenir acrylic cup and the Official Beer Guide and Map.”
Hmm. Between this and the lack of pint glasses, it sounds like they either had an issue with one of their vendors or someone dropped the ball and just forgot to make them/hand them out. I’d be very interested to know what happened…
What was the reason for not having brewery staff pouring the beers? It was really lame to ask about the beers and getting “Ummm – I dunno – the light one’s pretty good….” Some r-tarded state law about that? It reduced the whole event to a frat party.
And what was the point of the tickets? Did they really expect people to drink more than 25 x 5 oz = 125 oz = almost 1 GALLON of beer in a few hours?
I appreciate people volunteering for things, but I think the organizers took advantage of people’s good will to get free labor. It was a disservice to the those attending that so little knowledge or information of the beers was available. I have to agree that it was far closer to a frat party than any other beer tasting that I have attended. I think the organizers should be embarassed, but i am sure the huge profit is mitigating that.
I was at my Brewery’s booth the entire weekend and so was at least 1 other person from the Brewpub…
@ howatzer , it is actually against the law for a brewery employee to pour beer for another license holder, so of course volunteers poured all of our beer (insert winking emoticon) My response to people who asked why we wanted their tickets was that it would reduce the likelihood that somebody would throw up on me.
I appreciated the variety of beer available and thought the lines were manageable. Lots of people told us that we were the only table with detailed descriptions available, and I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to explain subtleties to people that I’m certain won’t remember the conversation, but that is part of my job. The event was far from perfect, but by far the feedback I got was positive. I would recommend to anybody that is dissatisfied -contact the organizer with constructive criticism (I’m taking notes for next year)
@cc: The event was held for a non-profit charity.
Thanks JimL2, that puts a much better light on this event.