Great Taste of the Midwest '08

You know how you can tell when you're at the best beer festival anywhere? When they have a bubbler (that's a water fountain for you non-Wisconsin residents, poor saps) that's plumbed to dispense beer! I'll bet this was the most-photographed beer tap at the festival.

Attendance, as always, was impressive:

Eye-catching t-shirts from year's Great Taste of the Midwest beer festival:

The Philosophy of Beer Drinking, in t-shirt form (part II):

Because the beer fest was inside the tent (instead of around the outsides of the tents, as it was at the Great Taste of the Midwest), I had some trouble getting a clear shot in the low light.

This happy sampler's t-shirt reads, "fizzy yellow beer is for wussies."

This guy was in a hurry to meet somebody at the other end of the tent and I couldn't catch his attention to make him stop a moment, so I had to take several snapshots on the fly. The final word of this "Scottish proverb" is thirst.

Quivey's Grove beer fest ... the carefully posed photo:

And what we really looked like:
(blurred vision and all)

I tried to take a couple photos of our beer-guzzling group by holding the camera at arm's length and snapping away. A fellow taster, passing by, offered to take a proper shot of us. He did a great job (and thanks very much), but I can't help feeling that the bottom photo better captured the mood, the action and the fuzzy-headedness of the event.

The beer fest at Quivey's Grove is one big tent (as opposed to three big ones and several smaller ones at the Great Taste of the Midwest). The brewers set up on tables around the outer edge of the tent so you can circle it once around the inside to make sure you try everything, a pretty clever way to keep things simple for twenty-five hundred soon-to-be-drunken ticket holders.

I made it all the way around the tent this year and tried at least one beer from every vendor. I think Jim and Gabe may have tried every beer, but I haven't had a chance to confirm that. It's too early in the morning to risk waking them from what I'm sure is much-needed sleep.

It's the Great Taste of the Midwest!
Grab your complimentary glass at the gate
and start drinking beer!

There were not only many great beers, but great entertainment, too!

Thousands of beers, thousands of people!

Now, where did I leave my wife?

And now, the beer-drinking ethos, summed up in t-shirts: