Yesterday Ryan started us off on his journey of trying at least 100 different beers at SAVOR. Let’s see if he made it to his goal or not.
After we got our gear, we went to the first table, which housed the Evolution Craft Brewing Co. We tried their ESB and their porter: both delicious. And we were making good time — we’d been inside the building for little more than a minute and I’d already had two beers. At first we paced ourselves, taking the time to try the food, to pair it with the different beers as suggested. For a festival with 2000 people, the lines weren’t bad. It got a bit hairy around the main supporters’ tables, with heavy hitters like Rogue, Dogfish Head, Sam Adams, New Belgium and the like — the longest line coming from Dogfish Head, who were debuting their Bitches Brew. Thankfully, we hit it early, when we could still taste things. It was delicious.
We trudged on. The tables, set up in squares, had a brewery on each side and a different finger food at each corner. Sixteen regular tables and the Supporters’ Circle in the middle, with six breweries. We began to circle the tables, orbiting around one until we had tried everything it had to offer and then swinging over to another to make our rounds once again. We tried to go in order, but we had to divert our course a few times: a trip to the bathroom, a trip to the cheese table, a trip to the oyster bar, a trip to the bathroom.
I was checking beers off furiously, putting stars next to some*. I’d let Mel and Ray go before me to the brewer and whichever beer they didn’t get, I’d ask for. If they eat got a different beer, I just asked for the one that sounded better to me and got a taste of the other. Sip. Check. Comment. Exchange. Sip. Check. Comment. Next. We worked efficiently. Near the end, we worked probably more efficiently than most people who had taken in as much alcohol as we had, maybe because I wouldn’t let the fuzzies get to me — I was on a mission, and I couldn’t let it out of my sight, even when my face began to tingle and I just wanted to lie down with one of everything from the McDonald’s menu. I would feel like a complete ass if I left SAVOR, counted up my beers, and realized I had only tried 98. That wasn’t an option.

Greg Koch of Stone, Mel, Ryan and Ray all do "the face." Well, all but Ryan.
The first time I really looked at the time was at 10pm; an hour left. I wondered aloud if I’d hit my goal and Mel assured me I had. I made a quick count to double-check: 73 beers. An hour to go and I needed 30 more beers, which might prove difficult. We were starting to get tipsy — most notably Ray, who hadn’t been pouring his excess beer. The guy had been drinking like a champ the entire time I had been sipping and dumping, and it was starting to catch up. To make matters worse, the tables we had left to hit were scattered throughout the long, open hall, and some brewers were beginning to run out. We had to hurry.
I began what Mel so lovingly referred to as “The Death March.” I paraded us around the hall, not stopping until I’d reached a table we had overlooked. “We need to get to table seven!” And away we’d go, Mel and Ray tagging along behind me, gracefully humoring my pseudo-clearheaded single-mindedness.
Like a salesman at the end of the month, as long as I hit my numbers I didn’t care. Mel and I moved with the precision of a snake. My eyes had started to blur, so I had to rely on her for some info. Ray followed behind, not seeming to care much what we did. “Which one is this?” She’d name the brewery, I’d clumsily flip to the page in the program. “Okay. You get the IPA, I’ll get the saison.” I would take a sip, check it off, we’d switch and take a sip, check it off, and dump the rest. They were all starting to taste the same, so it didn’t matter what I was tasting. Dubbel, tripel, quadrupel, didn’t matter. IPA, double IPA, ESB, whatever. Sip, dump, check. I felt, near the end, that I should probably start asking for lesser pours, but didn’t bother. I just had to hit my mark.
The end finally came and we had to leave. I hadn’t counted my beers since 10, so I wasn’t sure if I’d had 100 or not. I wasn’t clear-headed enough to really mind as we walked out, Ray and I speaking in Scottish accents that sounded spot-on at the time. As soon as we sat down on the train, I went through and counted 103. Considering myself lucky that I could even count that high, I registered the victory and congratulated myself. Hopefully, when I was sober, I would be able to count it again and get the same number.
As it turned out, with the re-count I got 102, which was 73% of the beers on offer. I had just barely surpassed my goal, but the key word was “surpassed.” With all that behind me, though, it is now time to start looking to the future. What will next year’s SAVOR bring? Maybe I’ll try for all 140. Or maybe there will be even more than that. Hopefully Mel and Ray will be as accommodating of my Death Marches and slurred directions. The only sure thing, though, is that I will definitely need to work on my Scottish accent.
* The stars were my way of remembering which beers were the real standouts. The only problem was near the end when I stopped tasting things, I had to put stars next to the beers other people said were good. They all started to blend together in the last hour.
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