Brewgaloo Shop Local Raleigh Beer Festival

On Saturday April 27th the North Carolina Beers blogger headed to Raleigh for the Brewgaloo by Shop Local Raleigh.  This one was quite different than Hickory Hops in a number of ways but it was still a good festival and the bad weather held off till it was over.  There were some great breweries there and I saw old friends and made a few new ones during the event.  This event was free to enter and they sold tokens and tickets to taste or drink beer.  5 tokens were $25 or you could get a ticket for 5 tastings for $5.  Someone stole the box of tickets so if you got there early you could only buy the tokens.  Eventually someone was thinking outside the box and went and bought rolls of raffle style tickets that they started using.

There were over 25 breweries there with most of them from the Triangle area.  We did spend some time at the Highland booth since we thought it was pretty cool that they were the only Western NC brewery there.

Here is a list of who we saw:

Big Boss, Lonerider, Roth (Which is now Gizmo but James is still the brewer), Aviator, Natty Greene's, Carolina Brewing Company, Carolina Brewery, Sub Noir, Crank Arm, White Street, Triangle, Raleigh (With the lovely Kristie at the helm of the Brewery and the booth), Mystery, Duck-Rabbit, Starpoint, Mother Earth, Deep River, Foothills, Four Friends, Olde Hickory, Highland, Railhouse, Mash House, Bombshell (coming soon), and Outer Banks.

Most of the breweries were super nice and this blogger has learned that if you're nice to the brewers they are nice to you.

It was  obvious that the event organizers didn't expect the crowd that eventually showed up but they still handled it well.  I have no real complaints but some suggestions for the organizers should they plan another beer festival.  First of all set an admission price for drinkers and another price for non-drinkers/designated drivers.  $35 and $10 seem to be fair prices.  The lines at the token booths were outrageously long and this would prevent that.  I also would keep the kids out.  A beer festival shouldn't be a place for anyone under the age of 21.  People are drinking and we all know what too much booze does to ones equilibrium and no one wants to worry about tripping over a small child or a stroller.  Finally I'd place the music away from the beer vendors.  The breweries that were near the stage had a hard time talking to their customers and customers had a hard time talking to the breweries.  Even if they don't implement these changes I will still go back if they have another one.

In the future I think I will post a "how to" on going and enjoying a beer festival.  The next blog post will be from the Eastern part of NC and maybe even a South Carolina brewery.

Prost!!!