It has probably been a year now since I started taking my blog a little more seriously and I can trace that moment back to last year’s Cask Fest. It’s about that time of year when another Cask Fest has rolled around, this past Saturday on May 4th in fact! This year was even bigger and better than the last. If you aren’t familiar with casks vs normal brewing techniques, take a quick look at this article written by hometownlife. There were 30+ beers, and with only 12 tokens, my friends and I were tasting each other’s beers to get the largest tasting we could. I would have to say my favorite was the sour from Arbor Brewing Company, Sodibo. Brewery Vivant’s Big Red Coq was also delicious. Though what I spent my extra coins on ended up being Blue Point’s Hoptical Illusion. I wish Arcadia had brought another firkin of Cereal Killer; that stuff was amazingly delicious and alcoholic.

As we got there and started sampling the firkins, we saw a lot of familiar faces. It was really great to see people from last cask fest! It was a pretty huge surprise when a lot of them remembered me, usually I’m pretty good with faces but when people remember me after only meeting me one day I’m pretty flabbergasted. Primarily it was people serving the casks, but there were some participants that I ran into again from last year! I was glad to see them, and apparently my business card still hangs in their garage. Hopefully they get a chance to read about themselves in this blog! Though I must confess to not remembering one of their names. I want to say his name was Norm though. Hopefully he’ll correct me when he reads this. In addition to familiar faces we met a lot of new people! Some from as far as Iowa and Nevada. There was also the incident with the one lady flashing everyone. There were all kinds this year!

Another cool thing that happened, was the Arbor Brewing Company brand manager recognized John and I from Lockhart’s latest Pitmaster’s Dinner. She came up and asked if I was the one who wrote the post, and thanked me for the great review. It was pretty cool that she recognized us for one, and that she actually read the post! We talked to her for about 15-20 minutes before we took a picture and promised we’d be there for the Velvet Hammer release on May 31st.

Overall it was a beautiful day, and the Cask Fest only accentuated it. It was a warm, sunny day full of friends and delicious firkins. I hope to see many of you back next year, and many new people to join us!

These pictures have all been compressed for size. if you want the original 20 megapixel pictures, just shoot me an e-mail and I’d be happy to send them to you.

-Evilmanta