We next visited Bottleworks, a beer store of which there is no comparison in Vancouver.  Brewery Creek is great and I love it, but they have to deal with our pesky socialist liquor system.  Bottleworks has many great beers that I just can’t get here.  When I first walked in from the sunshine, I found the store so contrastingly dim that I couldn’t see.  While walking into shelves, I realized that Bottleworks was protecting their beers from harmful light.  Good on them.  I wish I could have stayed there for hours, but the wives were getting anxious for the Seattle Premium Outlets (worst place on earth).  I ended up leaving with:

• Fullers 1845
• Westmalle Trappist Dubbel
• Achel Trappist Brune 8
• Port Townsend Hop Diggidy
• Iron Horse Brass Ass

I can’t wait to drink them.  Pictures of our excursion below:

The bar and my stupid face at Pyramid

The recovered Wolfes at Pyramid

The Chandler Family, downright chipper

The tasters all lined up

A fridge at Bottleworks

Holly shopping at Bottleworks, way better than the stupid outlets

Making our selections

Most of Bottleworks

Cheers,

Chris

As for the beer itself, it was good.  I can’t say much more than that, mostly because I don’t remember.  I recall liking some more than others and, like Erik, I recall a particular fondness for Port Townsend and their Hop Diggidy IPA.  We did manage to soldier through and taste each of the sixty beers on offer, although we were sharing tastes by the end.  Those who opted out of the sharing duly suffered, up was chucked….

We definitely drank too much.  Next time (oh yes, we’ll be back), we won’t hit up a German restaurant with a solid beer selection beforehand.  It definitely didn’t help that the majority of the beer was 50% to 100% stronger than normal.  Highlights of the evening include my wife stealing a wet floor sign, silly walking across the festival floor, and talking to Chris Martin of Coldplay (not even a good facsimile).  It was also cool to see pregnant Darci having a great time taking down our tasting notes.  She proved that you can have fun without drinking, which scientists had previously thought impossible.  It was also really fun to read the tasting notes the next day, one from Peter read “tastes like dry erase marker, but I like it.”

As for the pictures, you can clearly see how our night progressed:

We begin, a nice normal picture

An hour later, not quite as subdued

Only a corner of the festival floor, it was big and well attended

And the fun begins

Cool tasting glasses. Erik and I smashed ours for not being made of glass. How dare they?

Erik's face, why not?

The wives, not as happy the next morning, still married to us.

After a while, nobody wanted to share with me anymore.

Still going strong...

Wooooooooooo!

Action sip.

Why not a group hug?

Hands in...

From there we went and took ridiculous pictures with the Space Needle, which I will spare you from viewing.  Then the night sort of feel apart, but we ended up having a good time the next day.  More to follow.

Cheers,

Chris