Round 1: Kwak, Pirrat, Leffe Blonde, Cigar City Abbey Dubbel
This past weekend the second annual Belgium Beer Fest took place at Coasters Pub in Melbourne, FL. The Beer Goddess and I attended last year and had a great time so we were really looking forward to this years event. And we were not disappointed.
We arrived Saturday afternoon a little later than we had planned but the wait for a table for four only took about 10 minutes. And then we proceeded to ‘get our Belgian on’.
The setup was very similar to last years. The festival takes place inside of Coasters Pub. So your nice and cozy and : not drinking out of little plastic cups with 2 oz lines on them; not outside waiting in line at the portapotty; and your not outside in the 25 mph cold wind off the Atlantic ocean (yes, it does get cold in Florida!). Coasters replaces all 35 of their taps with Belgian Beers. The taps are numbered one through thirty five (and hopefully correspond with the numbers on the menu). So you order by number. Instead of asking for a Gouden Carolus Tripel, you merely ask for a 12. As beers ran out they would change out the beer for a different one and write the changes on a blackboard in the middle of the room.
For some reason it reminded me of being at a baseball game …(read this in your best baseball stadium public address voice): Ladies and Gentlemen we have a lineup change. Now flowing at Tap # 2, Kwak has been replaced in the beer lineup with Saison Dupont.
Once they had a few changes they would print new menus with the new lineups. Each menu revision was numbered and printed on a different color of paper so it was easy to tell if you were ordering from an old menu. The menu also listed the style, the ABV , the Beer Advocate Rating (I must admit, I paid no attention to that column) and the price. Most of the beers were served in wine glasses and were priced in the five to seven dollar range. The size of the wine glass is just about perfect as a lot of these beers come in above 10% abv. I must also give a huge nod of appreciation to the staff and especially our server (Dawn). She was very attentive to our beer situation (our table had an evaporation problem) and was quick to take our orders and bring out the new stuff.
For this trip we were joined by our good friends Val and Rod. This was their first real exposure to different Belgian beers and I’m happy to report that they found some they liked. And they found others they really liked 🙂
All in all this is a really fun event. If you don’t like Belgian Beers it may not work for you, but hey, you can get enough of those other beers the rest of the year!
I’m not sure of the attendance numbers or the gallons of beer sold, but both The Beer Goddess and I thought it was a little less crowded this year than last year. But then again that could have just been at the time we were there. This year the festival took place on Valentines’ Day Weekend. Last year the event took place the last weekend of February. Not sure if that made a difference or not. I will say that if next years fest (please let there be one next year!) takes place the weekend before Valentines day, make your hotel reservations early as the beachside Raddisson (great hotel across the street from Coasters and on the beach) books up completely.
