Last Saturday I had the pleasure of attending the World Beer Festival, and was pleasantly surprised to find that if you take an open-minded approach to sampling brews of every variety, from all over the globe, without the reticence to turn one down, then yes—you can get exceedingly drunk off two-ounce cups of everyone’s favorite beverage.
But you can drink any Saturday. An experience like this, however, doesn’t come around every week.
For the 14th time since 1996, Durham played host to the festival, bringing the offerings of hundreds of breweries to local community residents under rows of big white tents that seemed to stretch for miles. It was held at the historic Durham Athletic Park, on the field where Nuke LaLoosh and Crash Davis once played in “Bull Durham,” the greatest sports movie of all time. But baseball was far from the minds of the men and women who made the pilgrimage downtown that fateful October day—the things that mattered most were barley, hops and wheat.
And the libations are just the beginning.
The festival also offered beer seminars, for those who don’t know their porters from their pilsners or their hefeweizens from their bocks. There were also lectures by the editors of All About Beer magazine—the Durham-based brew-centric publication that puts on the extravaganza every year—with titles such as “Hop-Head or Malt Maven: Which Are You?” and “Beer and Chocolate.” There were guided tours for those who already know how they take their drink (or, if you’re adventurous, you can try the “You Put What In My Beer?” circuit). And there were tables upon tables of beer-brand swag, everything from shirts, hats (I picked up one emblazoned with the Pabst Blue Ribbon logo) and even condoms (classy pun, Magic Hat).
For those not content with the sonorous hum of beer spilling from keg-taps into glasses, a bluegrass band jammed in the background, encouraging at least a few sloppy patrons to sing along with “The Weight.” And no one was drinking on an empty stomach, either: Restaurants such as Chubby’s, Sitar and even haute newcomer Revolution were among the vendors on hand to satisfy even the most debilitating drunk munchies.
I didn’t shy away from some of the odder beers, even if I knew ahead of time that I probably wouldn’t warm to them. For example, the Audacious Apricot Ale from Pyramid Breweries was exactly that, and, in my opinion, this was a bad thing. Same goes for the River City Raspberry Wheat, from Wilmington’s Front Street Brewery. But despite my apprehension before trying out the very October-y Punkin Ale—from Delaware’s Dogfish Head, the craft brewery par excellence—it turned out to be one of my favorite beers of the night.
I also couldn’t resist seeking out some of the beers that have made me so happy in the past. I hadn’t touched Imperial, the official beer of Costa Rica, since I subsisted on the stuff during my semester teaching English there. However, once it hit my lips, everything came back. I even had my first experience of drinking Sapporo unaccompanied by chanting, table-pounding and a shot-sized infusion of sake. And after a sip of the Battlefield Bock, I became doubly excited for tomorrow’s Red Oak beer garden on Main Quad.
But what really elevates the World Beer Festival from just another Saturday night of drinking is the eye-popping smorgasbord of people it attracts: the flavor-hunting foodies, the stumbling drunks covered in free stickers from brewers and Durham residents donning garb that could only be acceptable at such an event. It’s sort of like Tailgate: Picture ironic T-shirts, beer-funnel helmets, necklaces with pretzels on them, etc., but with a much older crowd, and much better beer.
Needless to say, I loved every second of it. As the banjo player in the bluegrass band plucked away into the night, the batter’s box where Kevin Costner once caught Tim Robbins’ pitches became newly draped in a blanket of dusk, and the refurbished old tobacco warehouses of downtown rose up in the distance, outlined in the day’s last bits of light. At that moment, I realized that a beer festival anywhere other than Durham simply wouldn’t have been as much fun.
I had my doubts about staying in Durham last weekend, but after Saturday’s Beer Festival, I knew I had made the correct choice. So, everyone who went home for Fall Break—this is what you missed.
Nathan Freeman is a Trinity senior. His column runs every Friday.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.