Louisville Brewfest coming up Friday!

[Robin Garr]

LOUISVILLE BREWFEST - LIBA's biggest fundraiser!

Fri. 7/1, 4pm-10pm, Mellwood Art Center (1860 Mellwood Ave.)

This Louisville celebration of local, independent brewers, independent businesses
and independent thinkers will shelve uniformity and celebrate our uniqueness!

Participating breweries include the BBC Tap Room, Bluegrass Brewing Company, Cumberland
Brews, Falls City Beer, Horseshoe Bend Winery, Kentucky Ale, Lovers Leap Vineyard
& Winery, The New Albanian Brewing Company and Upland Brewing.

Listen to live music from The Fervor, Appalatin and Slow Charleston. Eat food from
restaurants including Taco Punk, DiOrios Pizza, Red's Comfort Foods, Farm To Fork,
Meridian Café, Eiderdown, Comfy Cow and BBC. Browse a silent auction and merchandise
from locally-owned retailers. And of course, drink locally-crafted beer and wine.
Free City Scoot rides home to boot!

Admission is free, but beer drinkers must purchase a $2 souvenir cup. Beer and Food
Tickets cost $1 each (sample beer=1 ticket, full pour=3 tickets). For more information
or to purchase ticket packages in advance, visit www.keeplouisvilleweird.com or
call (502) 500-4669.

These always turn into social mob scenes, right? With the low admission and pay-as-you-go structure, I can't see this not turning into a large event. Whether or not it is too crowded, obviously, depends on the space available.

I can't blame the organizers for wanting to get people through the door, but I'm always leery of exactly how enjoyable these events will be - as I don't tolerate crowds well.

[Robin Garr]

These always turn into social mob scenes, right? With the low admission and pay-as-you-go structure, I can't see this not turning into a large event. Whether or not it is too crowded, obviously, depends on the space available.

I can't blame the organizers for wanting to get people through the door, but I'm always leery of exactly how enjoyable these events will be - as I don't tolerate crowds well.

Can't argue with any of that, Matthew. I don't enjoy elbow-bumping crowds either, and having been called as a judge at last night's Taste of Frankfort Avenue, I was quite happy to sneak in a few minutes before it started and begin power-tasting through the booths so I could hit them all before the lines got ridiculously long. (Actually, they came up with a neat concept of allowing one taste per booth and using a punch-card system to control that, but it was still wall-to-wall people.)

I guess the organizers of these events - particularly fund-raisers - conclude that it makes the most sense to position them as a fun social scene with food or beer or wine, and go for the crowds to increase revenue. For a serious tasting event aimed at hard-core geeks, they might do it a different way.

We went last year or the year before and it was a mob scene. The beer lines were always 10-15 people deep and it was nearly impossible to move through the crowd. I think most of the problem is with the tasters. Each taster wants to chat it up the the brewers and it makes the lines go horrible slow. All that said, I have plans to give it another try this year.

We went last year or the year before and it was a mob scene. The beer lines were always 10-15 people deep and it was nearly impossible to move through the crowd. I think most of the problem is with the tasters. Each taster wants to chat it up the the brewers and it makes the lines go horrible slow. All that said, I have plans to give it another try this year.

Great event. I just wish they would drop the music. The venue is horrible for music and is always too loud to talk to the customer. We attend so we can talk with the customer. Drop the music and move the brewers to an area away from the pour tables would be a good way to speed the lines and make for better interaction with the people that brew.

We went last year or the year before and it was a mob scene. The beer lines were always 10-15 people deep and it was nearly impossible to move through the crowd. I think most of the problem is with the tasters. Each taster wants to chat it up the the brewers and it makes the lines go horrible slow. All that said, I have plans to give it another try this year.

Great event. I just wish they would drop the music. The venue is horrible for music and is always too loud to talk to the customer. We attend so we can talk with the customer. Drop the music and move the brewers to an area away from the pour tables would be a good way to speed the lines and make for better interaction with the people that brew.

Just moving the music to the breezeway/entrance area would help or change it to acoustic groups only. The band playing when we were there was borderline heavy metal. Not the type of music to have playing at a beer tasting if you ask me. Having the pour tables and brewers in different locations would help. I can deal with the elbow to elbow crowds, but not waiting in line for 10-15 minutes for a sample.

I can deal with the elbow to elbow crowds, but not waiting in line for 10-15 minutes for a sample.

Ditto.

The band playing when we were there was borderline heavy metal. Not the type of music to have playing at a beer tasting if you ask me.

Sounds like a positive to me.

However, when in doubt, the question to ask is "How would Great Taste handle this?" And they are acoustic only (bonus: this).

The band playing when we were there was borderline heavy metal. Not the type of music to have playing at a beer tasting if you ask me.

Sounds like a positive to me.

However, when in doubt, the question to ask is "How would Great Taste handle this?" And they are acoustic only (bonus: this).

It would be great if it were elsewhere. They have tried to cram too much in one space without enough room. The music was so loud I couldn't speak to the people with us. If it was good metal music I might have been able to handle it.

Last year, I didn't mind the wait at all. It was nice to talk to others in line about what we liked about our samples - we would get a sample and just go ahead and wait in line for our next choice. My only complaint was the full on neon lighting ... after a few samples ... too much light ....

The general consensus looks like; "Why bother".

The general consensus looks like; "Why bother".

I don't see where you are getting that.

The problems I had with the event were easy fixes and maybe the "improvements" have been made.