CurtisFest happened a few weekends ago. It was very small and intimate and truly felt like a family get together. Everyone knew each other or at least felt like it by the end of the fest. There was incredible bottle shares. I hardly left the “Brew Mob Lounge” that we set up. I saw a lot of friends I hadn’t seen in awhile and hopefully rekindled some friendships that had died out. When the fest ended, I went out afterwards. The first time in months I hung out in downtown Knox, even though I probably shouldn’t have. I’m not going to say much more about that other then I’m glad I did though.
Last Friday was Hops for Hope, another small intimate beer festival. This one took place at The Lily Barn in Townsend, TN. It was a fund raiser for The New Hope Advocacy Center. I volunteered and set up my Randal full of hops and strawberries and ran Lagunitas Pale Ale through it. Many of my beer industry friends were in attendance. The whole event was fun, but sometimes it’s all about the after party. A row of cabins was reserved for the brewers and reps at Dancing Bear Lodge. We all met up afterwards. Evan from Foothills had some killer beers to share and so did Lauren from Cherokee, Cynthia from Eagle, Donald from Blackhorse, Dave from Saw Works, (Redacted) of Casual Pint. There were many other people there, some I had just met, some of which I didn’t know. There was serious drinking, drunken dancing, hot tubs and ridiculous amounts of fun into the early hours of the morning. I promise y’all the embarrassing dance videos are erased (except for Morgan’s, we’re gonna make that one viral, lol). As for the rest of what went on, the general consensus is, what happens in Townsend stays in Townsend ;)
With everything in my life right now, I can see it getting harder to carve out time to work on this blog. There’s some edits I want to make, so general design changes, etc… I still put aside and hour a day for running. Monday evenings are booked with the run at BBM. Other days are taken up by my son and work. I’ll still try to write because it gives me an outlet and a way to organize my thoughts about what I see and experience in our craft beer culture. I also know I have more readers then I ever expected to at this point because I see the stats. Sometimes I still don’t believe people read this.
With that said the only beer focused events on my radar is Asheville Beer Week from May 23-31 ending with Beer City Fest and Knoxville Craft Beer Week ending on June 21 for Knox Brew Fest. June 20th is going to be our grand brand launch at Bluetick Brewery. We are planning an epic party for that where we introduce our beers to the world. I am hoping to have a couple of my small batch series on tap for the event. If anything happens, or I find time before then, I’ll write and let you know about it. Check back later, I’ll try to upload some pictures in the next day or so if I can find the time
Cheers,
