On Saturday, Ray and I attended the 2009 Brandywine Craft Brewers’ Festival, which featured “25 regional breweries. No monotony. Lotsa porta-potties.” So true. The 2007 fest was the first brew fest I had ever gone to (my first beer that day was Iron Hill’s Cherry Wheat and Ray had me take notes on the program about what I liked or didn’t like and why), and if you ask Ray, it was also the place where we fell in love.

This year’s event ended up selling out shortly before Saturday, with proceeds benefiting the Media Youth Center. I always love a brew fest that supports a cause!

We immediately made it over to Riverhorse, where I sampled the much beloved Double Wit, complete with new packaging (I love the new hippo…he looks so cute and badass), while Ray had the Hop Hazard, also a winner.

I was surprised by Lancaster Brewing Co.’s Strawberry Wheat — when I’ve had this beer in bottles, it never wows me, but when served on draught you could really pick up the strawberry notes. Lancaster also had its milk stout available, but in my opinion not much can beat Left Hand when it comes to a milk stout … unless we want to talk about Riverhorse’s Brewer’s Reserve Oatmeal Milk Stout, which is liquid euphoria.

I had the chance to try a simcoe IPA from Triumph, but Ray and I determined that it doesn’t quite hold a candle to Weyerbacher’s Double Simcoe IPA. Weyerbacher was there of course, pouring Double Simcoe from bottles, and Merry Monks and Muse from draught. Definitely pleasant surprises for Ray, since he loves Monks and Muse.

We kept an eye on time so that we could be at Iron Hill’s table for the 2:30 pouring of a 2006 3L bottle of Russian Imperial Stout. It was perfect in every way, and the crowd went nuts for it. At 3:00 we swung back over to Triumph for its Belgian Le Cinq. What is that? Think about it — dubbel, tripel, quad … and then you have a cinq, the French word for five. Prior to the special pouring, I got a sample of their Gothic Ale, which is a gruit — my first one ever. I appreciated the creativity, but I wanted to cook with it more than drink a pint. Ray thought differently. Notes of rosemary and spruce tips were evident.

We also ran into our friends Amanda and Keith, fellow homebrewers, and had fun comparing notes on the different beers. We missed out on Yards, who kicked all of their kegs before we got to them, and went back multiple times to Nodding Head, who had 3C on cask, Monkey Knife Fight, Ich bin ein Berliner Weisse, Grog, and BPA available to quench our thirsts. You know we love our Nodding Head.

Lastly, according to head brewer Larry over at Iron Hill West Chester, Drew Carey was lurking amongst us beer addled folks. We had no clue! Then again, there was a ton of people — the open air venue kept things reasonable — so I’m not super surprised we didn’t spot him.

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