Columbus Beerfest
Last weekend Beard & Broad did something a little different. We offered our services as beer pourers for Platform Beer Co., one of the newer, rapidly growing breweries in the Cleveland area. This was the first Columbus fest for the brewery, and a chance for them to start building a following in the Columbus area before they start distributing there. Normally we don our pretzel necklaces and get drunk with all the other riffraff at these events, but this was the first time we were the pourers instead of the pourees…and wow, what a different perspective it was being on the other side of the tasting table.
The Columbus Beerfest hosted breweries from across the region on Friday and Saturday for a sampling of over 350 fresh craft beers of all styles, and tastes; all while raising funds for the Animal Rescue Partners, dedicated to supporting numerous animal rescues, pet adoption groups, and community spay/neuter programs in the Columbus area and beyond.
To be fair, the Columbus Beerfest appeared to be almost identical to the Cleveland Beerfest. They’re both put on by the same organization, logo is the same, the setup seemed to be the same, everything. A lot of the same breweries were at both Beerfests, although there were a lot more Columbus-local breweries at the Columbus Beerfest, for obvious reasons.
We recruited Adam & Alex to join us on this adventure. Platform had workers for Friday night so we went down Saturday afternoon and stayed at the Hilton downtown which was connected to the Convention Center. Once we checked in we walked down the street to Brothers for lunch. The weather was BEAUTIFUL for February, 70 degrees and sunny! We enjoyed bloody marys and beers on their patios.
We then quickly ran back to the hotel to get ready then headed over to the Convention Center to prepare for the madness.
Typically with two day Beerfests the Friday night crowd is the more…sophisticated group. They tend to be more inquisitive, the beer connoisseurs, the less crazy crowd. The Saturday crowd tends to be the younger, rowdy group interested in drinking as many beers as they can as fast as their bodies will allow. This was definitely the case with this fest, hence us calling in the reinforcements in Adam & Alex.
The Beers:
Goz-Uh: kettle soured and brewed with coriander and sea salt. Minimally hopped and sessionable.
Lawlessness: traditional English Porter with roasted notes of chocolate. Hints of smoke add complexity to this easy drinker.
New Cleveland Palesner: this Pilsner/Pale Ale Hybrid is a clear straw color with a crisp German malt body and refreshing Noble hop finish with floral and herbal aromas.
Speed Merchant: a sharp bite from the wheat malt is followed by American hop flavors of pine and citrus in this hazy White IPA.
The favorite beer among the 4 of us is definitely the Goz-uh. If you’ve read our previous posts you know we love sours and this beer is both tart, light and easy to drink. The most requested among the attendants was the Speed Merchant and Palesner. The Speed Merchant went first and was a favorite among the beerfest goers. We had a lot of people ask for our “lightest” beer (groan)* so the Palesner also went fast.
*Note: we are not against light beers. We like just about everything, and stand by the belief that basically every beer has a place/occasion for which it can be thoroughly enjoyed (this includes “shitty cheap beer,” as High Life, Coors Light and PBR are nectar when you’re going for quantity. But when you attend a beer fest we think the point is to try a bunch of things you wouldn’t normally order/buy somewhere. The only justification we came up with was that one attendee said there were only IPA’s everywhere he looked. So, maybe finding a nice, lighter beer was in order for a lot of people.
The whole serving experience was….just that, an experience. We had one volunteer to work with us. He helped pour beer, refilled the water pitcher and emptied the buckets. The night started off great. We started by serving a few vendors and volunteers. Then we had an hour of serving the early admission crew and connoisseurs. At this point, there wasn’t a rush. We got to chat with a lot of people about Platform and the Cleveland Beer scene. People were genuinely interested in the brewery and the growing beer community in Cleveland.
Once the doors open for general admission after 7:30 it started to get crazy. A mad rush of people entered and all demanded beer. At this point no one was drunk yet and with 5 of us pouring beer it was manageable. Some people had questions about the brewery and Cleveland but most just simply wanted beer. After the first hour of general admission, the evening started to shift. Ordering became…difficult for some. Many people looked at the sign and asked for the “yeast” beer, “hop” beer, or tried pronouncing the different ingredients listed. Broad struggled very much with dealing with these people. Adam and Beard decided to give the girls a break and sent them on a recon mission to collect beers. Once the girls went to the other side of the beerfest they became instantly overwhelmed. There were so many people. Long lines, drunkards, just a huge mess. So on the way back to the Platform booth they stopped at Arbor Brewing which momentarily had a short line. They chatted it up with the rep and it was a nice break. He knew about Platform and informed the girls about Arbor which had delicious beers. They happily reported back to the booth with Arbor beers in tow and were back to pouring for the now quite sloppy attendees.
As the night was coming to an end and the beers were running out, the girls again ventured out searching for beers and this time made it to the Zauber Brewing booth. Here, they made friends with they believe was the director of sales and learned a lot about the Brewery. He formerly worked at Market Garden so he knew about Platform and Cleveland. The Zauber beers were delicious. A personal favorite for Alex and Julia.
Once last call was announced we cleaned up, drive the van to the hotel parking lot then made the trek to late night pizza at Press Grill (thanks Sunny for the recommendation!). After that we were so tired we went back and passed out until 9:30 am. Normally the four of us are early risers, but dealing with drunk people is apparently very exhausting.
Finally we ended the trip with brunch at The Pint House for delicious bloody mary’s and food. Then of course we had to do a little shopping before driving back to Cleveland. All in all, it was a fun weekend mainly because we had some great friends with us and we had great beer to serve. Broad probably would not want to work a big beer fest again, but would definitely work a smaller one.
