The Adventures of the BLOVI Girl: Things I learned in a tent at a beer festival in the rain
I planned a weekend trip with my life partner to one of my favorite places-Asheville, NC. And we stayed in my favorite district (Montford) in a Victorian B&B. A few days before the trip I decided to look at events going on in Asheville that weekend and happened upon many. But the one event we wanted to attend was Brew Grass—a bluegrass and beer festival. By the time we went online to purchase the tickets there were 6 left and we snagged them and congratulated ourselves. Little did we know we happened upon a late release of extra tickets in a many months sold out beer event that is the third best beer tasting in the whole US. We found that out after we got to the event. And there, amongst the heavily drinking and soaking wet crowd (it rained steadily and sometimes heavily the entire day) I learned a lot of interesting things. Those are the focus of this blog.
An important point to the story is our discovery of a singular tent amongst all the vendor tents that was empty. We took up residence in this tent and ventured out and back to sample our beer choices. In those hours in that tent watching the rest of the crowd get soaked and buzzed, we became family of sorts. Sharing stories and vowing to return again next year to be reunited. The people in that tent were varied in age, background and place of origin. And this being my first ever beer festival, I learned many things I just never knew before. Here is a short list.
You should pace yourself and sip the beer and not just guzzle it to get to the next one: There is a reason you only get a 6 ounce glass. I found that out quickly. I am really not a drinker, just a fan of craft beers. So I was ready to taste lots of stuff. And there was no reason to waste time on anything not high gravity (meaning high alcohol by volume). And I also go for trappist, porters and stouts so they are heavy. I downed my samples rather rapidly so as to get to the next. I noticed then that my man was really sipping his and savoring his samples for a while before sampling another. “You need to pace yourself”, he said, “You are going to be out before you taste a lot of beer.” So my new tactic was if I did not like the beer, I just poured it out. I saw others doing this and assumed I was not offending the beer gods.
People at a beer festival really can’t remember what they are drinking: I would see someone drinking something dark and ask, “Do you like that?” To which they would say, “Yes, it is really good.” “What is it?” I would ask. “Hell, I have no clue what this is or what it is called.” Then I would ask what brewery tent it was at. “I have no clue, it was kind of over there.” And they would point in a general direction. After a few samples I had no clue watt I was drinking either. So I am not sure how the vendors get their product out there or have people ask for a particular beer. I do remember the best things I drank; some aged in a scotch barrel for lots of year thing called something like Hooligan, the barley wine which I have now named BW10.8 and some pecan brown sweet kind of beer. I have no clue who brewed them, just the general location of the tent so I could possibly get some more.
Drunken people are impervious to rain: It was raining all day and yet the place was packed with people. Some in rain gear and some not. There was one guy who was charging a buck a piece for the large black lawn bags which we all called body condoms. My man decided to wear one, as did many others who did not bring protection. No one seemed to care that they were wet. Good beer and plenty of it means you are impervious to all weather conditions.
It is prudent to wear a pretzel necklace to a beer festival: Everyone knows to get a good base before you enter the festival. We ate hamburgers and onion rings. But inside the festival there was very little food, so many had resorted to wearing pretzel necklaces. These are just your ordinary pretzels placed on a string and worn around the neck. Many beers into to festival I decided to take up a tent dweller on the offer to eat pretzels off of his necklace, I did not know where they had come from or what they had been through. But at that point I did not care. I also ate some definitely fresher tasting pretzels from an older gentleman who had the good sense to place his in a plastic bag. The next morning at the B&B when I was telling the story of how I ate this guy’s pretzel and that guy's pretzel, another guest said, “Hey it’s way too early for those stories.”
Barley wine is very, very good and very high grav: How we found that empty tent started with us finding the barley wine. The guy announces the barley wine is 10.8 grav so we say yes please and hold out our glasses. The tent is next to the barley wine, which goes down smoothly. And if I reach my arm out the guy can just place more barley wine in my glass without me even having to move. And after two barley wines which were like samples four or five of the day I realize if I reach my arm out anymore I may fall over. Luckily, at least for me, they run out,
Never ever tell people about the tent you have discovered: Our tent was very exclusive. Once we found it and others did too, about a core group of 10 to 15 inhabited it and gravitated around it, venturing out and back. One guy was with a group of 8 others and said, “I did not tell them about this place so they are out there in the rain.” He did not show any remorse for this and one of those people was his wife. “There are just too many of them, it would get crowded”, he said. So the tent became a secret and soon we had decided that the one older man who grew hops was obviously the owner of the tent. We told people to pay him and he would hold out his hat. We also told people that we had exceeded the maximum amount of people allowed under the tent. And it worked to keep our tent family intact.
Two rugby players can throw a 140 pound woman over a fence: At some point, when sampling many 6 ounce glasses of beer, absorbing it with pretzels will fail. And a bathroom visit will be necessary. This is scary. The line was long, so we had a strategy to fan out way left as there were at least 50 units and many were crowding the center. I felt like we were calling a play on the football field. In that process of fanning out we waded through huge deep piles of mud. But I was only second in line so got n and out quickly. While in line I pointed out to the men that this experience was WAY worse for women and thank god I could hover. Which led to a conversation about the use of hovering muscles which was suggested would also be a good name for a band. So if I ever have a band we will be the called “Hovering Muscles.” After hovering and once again being grateful for being visually impaired in this situation, we decided there was no way we were trudging back through the mud. My man decided we were going over a fence and it would be oh so easy. But I had on square toed boots that would not fit the holes to gain traction. At which point, out if the blue, this guy yells “I am a rugby player- I can throw her over.” Then my football, track star, and rugby player back in the day man says “I am a rugby player too” and they proceed to throw me over the fence. On the other side of the fence there is a young woman with an umbrella to whom I say “You are going to catch me.” And she just runs away. I was hoisted and tried to straddle the fence going over which was not a good idea. But I managed to get over and down and stay upright. Then of course my man basically just hops over the fence like he is hurdling. And then there is some conversation about rugby which is brief and ends with “Yeah, we could talk more about this”, but there was beer drinking to do.
Washington State is super liberal. A wonderful place where there is legal marijuana, euthanasia and gay marriage. But, according to the couple we met from there, it is really hard to have death with dignity. You just can’t find the doctors to do it. Some people they knew had tried it or had family members that they wanted to euthanize just could not find anyone to assist them. On the bright side legalizing and taxing pot will bring 400 million to the state in infrastructure and education. And they have all but eradicated the pot trade outside of the legalized system. How they did that seemed to be a secret. All we could get was, “Oh man that just does not happen anymore.”
When there is bluegrass, hippies and rain there will be a mud melee of some sort. The rain was useful for many things. Rain off umbrellas can clean out your beer glass. If you are really soaked no one can tell you may have pee'd your pants. And rain creates lots of mud. And eventually people enjoy flopping in mud. I mean mud wrestling is a popular sport, right? So there was a huge mud pit being formed in front of the stage. And at some point a woman takes off most of her clothes (isn’t that how they all start?) and others join in. And there is a huge mud mosh pit. This was bound to happen, truly inevitable.
People in Asheville do not wear camo rain gear: With all the people in rain gear we only saw one other person in rain gear that was camouflage. And yes the other one was my deer hunting man. He seemed baffled as to why there was no camo rain gear because you always have that if you hunt. “In South Carolina there would be tons of people in camo rain gear,” he says. Then he asks me if I want to wear it. “Hell no, there is no way I am going to make people think I hunt. People here do not do that. They don’t even eat meat. Why in the hell would they have camo?” When we finally saw the one other person wearing camo, my man says, “I feel I should go up and talk to him like we are kindred spirits.”
Caribbean food is great at the end of a beer festival when you are soaked: The night before the festival we tried to eat at a highly recommended place called 9 Mile and the wait was an hour. So after four hours of beer sampling and shooting the sh*t, we decided to walk a mile back to the car and get that hot spicy food to warm us up. We got there right before the lines started, sat down and ate some of the best food ever. Maybe it was the best because I had many beers, or because I was soaked and cold. But it was a perfect way to end our day.
So Brew Grass will become a yearly event for us. And maybe we will reunite with our tent family as we promised to do. And luckily we found a connection for tickets. So next year we will use the guy whose son in law is second in charge to score free tickets and have a pre-screen of the beers. And they promised us it would be a sunny day.
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