Master the Snallygaster: Thoughts on enjoying beer festivals
Tomorrow, I celebrate and enjoy the great breadth of autumn beers at an enormous beer jamboree, Snallygaster. A good festival calls for a good plan of attack. My typical approach is 1. make sure I can get in (advanced ticket) 2. make sure I have enough time (show up early and stay late) 3. drink what I like (which may require being selective) 4. remember moderation (eat and stay hydrated). Given the extensive and impressive beer list cultivated by Neighborhood Restaurant Group Beer Director Greg Engbert, however, I may need to outline a more specific plan. The survival guide posted by BYT includes insight from Greg, making it a great reference for mapping the festival.
I love that the large beer lists at many NRG bars are broken out not by beer styles but by flavor profiles. Knowing whether a beer is crisp, fruity, hoppy, malty, sour, etc helps any beer drinker, even newbies, to make a good selection based on what they like or what they want. I use this same technique when making beer recommendations to someone new to craft beers and beer styles.
Greg organizes his festival recommendations in much the same way as his beer menus. Flavor profiles are a great tool for mapping which beers you’ll drink and in what order. The rule of thumb when sampling a variety of beers (or other food and drinks like wine, sushi, chocolate, etc) is to start with lighter flavors and work your way up to heavier, more complex flavors. For festival goers, this could look like crisp lagers > hoppy beers > maltier Oktoberfest beers > smoked beers > sour beers > bigger, desserty beers. Of course, because of festival crowds, you can’t always be choosy about what you drink when. And of course, there are those rare beers that you’ll just need to grab while supplies last….
Tonight, I’ll identify the beers that interest me most out of the list of 150. Those are the ones I’ll try to prioritize tomorrow, maybe even in an order my palette will appreciate. But the most important goal of tomorrow, as always, is to have fun talking about and enjoying beer with other enthusiasts.
Do you have any other tips for how to tackle, survive, or enjoy beer festivals?