Sarasota Beer Festival 2012

Beer Fest was a good time. I don’t particularly love beer and even I really enjoyed getting to try out so many varieties. There was (of course) a lot of beer, but Victory Brewing impressed me with Golden Monkey and Storm King. I had to do a couple samplings of each. Woodchuck Cider was another that I had to try a few of.
Square 1 burger sliders were the food winner, IMO, with a couple wings places and a pretzel shop also worth noting. All the pizza seemed to suck and I was looking forward to finding a good pizza place to visit. Serving crap like that was probably a real wasted opportunity to win over customers. There were Dunkin Donut holes at the DD table — how can you go wrong? They were offering to let people try the doughnut holes with jalapeño peppers, which was oddly delicious and the right kind of foolishness for such an event.
If I could give one piece of constructive feedback it would be to turn the damn amps down. It was painful to stand in the back half of the arena (nearest the stage) and it was difficult to have a conversation anywhere in the arena. I found that to be unpleasant. It would have also been a nice idea to have some places to sit.

This years Sarasota Beer Fest was much better than last year. They didn’t run out of food as fast, the beer selection was a bit better. and less obnoxious drunks. Probably the major improvement was the fact that they let in some of the local brewers. Little giant was there, (soon to open in Bradenton by the Mckechnie) with a very nice black IPA and a good cask style ale. Darwins’s was showing off there new things, and Sarasota brewing (which was just ho hum). The event was distributor driven, but it wasn’t as icky as last year.
Yes, I admit I’m an old fart, but I really wish the band wasn’t so loud that my ears rang for a few hours after leaving. Especially since they were mostly doing covers. I still like the Bradenton beer fest on old main better. But this is improving.