This year’s Belgium Comes to West Chester was a record breaker! By of time snow-nami was finished we had over two feet of the white and fluffy here at the brewery (record number one). I counted up the draft list right as the event began and we had over 40 beers on tap. That’s more draft than ever before in the history of an Iron Hill event (record number2).  Nice.

The snow didn’t stop the beer crazies, including myself, from having a full on Belgo style throw down. I knew the event was going to be packed when the first few revelers came to the front door on snow shoes and cross country skis! I grew up in the snow belt. You know, the upper mid-west. Most of the weather there comes across the great lakes, and during the winter snow just dumps. I mean like two and three feet at a time. You can see why I really didn’t think a little snow was that big of a deal. The T.V. news crews seemed to think otherwise. You’ll get a kick out of this one: I accidently made an appearance on Fox News early Saturday when I pulled up in front of the brewery to unload the last few kegs for the event. I was pretty annoyed to find an entire news team parked right in front of my door.  I had no idea, but they were ‘live on the scene’ for the corner of Gay and High. I was unloading when I heard the reporter say, “Looks like there’s someone here trying to do a little self promotion.” I piped up that I wasn’t actually trying to get press, I was trying to work and they were totally in the way! She went on to report that that there was no one on the road….except for the people on the road. Kids today, I’ll tell ya’. 

Plenty of hearty folks walked, skied, and drove to the event, and I am pleasantly surprised to report that all of the guest beers were consumed by about 6:30p.m. Not sure if that’s a record…but it ought to be. Highlights include our 3 x 10 beer samplers, plenty of guest brewers, and of course a couple of snowballs.  The samplers were killer and were made much easier to carry around thanks to the tray they were served on. Hope you all liked that. Bryan Kolesar of the Brew Lounge  played host to our own Brew Lounge where we put a few super secret beers on tap. These were located in the brewery and provided a preview of the upcoming barrel aged and fermented love we’re going to start having on tap full time. More on that later.  Check out his site for some photos and details.

Special thanks to the people who traveled long distances over icy roads to bring their rare beers in for our enjoyment: Jason Oliver from Devil’s backbone, Drew from Harpoon (although the rest of his crew lamed out and spent the night drinking in the city…including their own beer apparently ‘cause it didn’t make it out here for the event) It was missed for sure. Hey, I’m on fire for any beer named after a donkey. Insert Tijuana joke here. Also thanks to Jeff from Ithica who drove down the day of with his KILLER LaBlue, and anyone else I’ve forgotten.

See you next year!