World Beer Fest – Columbia Makes Craft Beer More Accessible to the Masses
As I mentioned in a HopPress post a few weeks ago, I grew up in Columbia, having lived there from 1986 to 2007, with a couple years away at the College of Charleston in the middle. To say the least, Columbia has never been known as much of a beer town.
The only surviving brewery is the Hunter-Gatherer, downtown near the State House. The Flying Saucer arrived in the Vista in 2003, bringing a much needed breath of fresh craft beer to the city and exposing most of us to the vast world of craft beer for the first time.
Since that time, the state’s ABV cap was lifted from 5% to 14% in 2007, and craft beer awareness has continued to grow slowly, both in Columbia and throughout the rest of South Carolina.
In January 2009, another corner was turned in the city’s beer culture. All About Beer Magazine picked Columbia as the 4th host city for their World Beer Festival series, the others being Raleigh, Durham and Richmond. I wasn’t able to attend the festival in Columbia last year, and I remained perplexed as to why they would pick Columbia of all places.
I did attend this year’s festival, which was last weekend at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center. I now understand why it’s such a good match. Columbia is an emerging craft beer market, and the World Beer Festival is the perfect setup to make the world of craft beer more accessible to those that aren’t familiar with it.
First, some background on the festival. There were two sessions: noon to 4 pm and 6 to 10 pm. I only attended the earlier session. I had a church obligation Sunday morning, so I had to make it back to Greenville Saturday night. Therefore my experience can only pertain to that session.
From what I heard, the evening session was more crowded and had a slightly different demographic. The beer connoisseurs and appreciators came out in the afternoon, the beer drinkers came out in the evening. If you know what I mean…
They split the festival into two large rooms on different floors of the convention center. There were 250+ beers representing more than 75 breweries. Each floor had a live band playing and food vendors lining the outskirts of each room.
They expected more than 4,000 people at each session. Attendees were given a mini plastic pilsner tasting glass and were allowed unlimited 2 oz. samples.
A Well-Oiled Machine
The first year of any event in a new location is bound to have a few kinks. Whatever issues may have existed in 2009 were definitely worked out this year. For such a large festival, it felt like a well-oiled machine. I rarely had to wait more than 30 seconds in line for a beer, the bathroom lines were manageable, and I never felt too crowded.
They had volunteers working most of the pouring stations, and that can often be a dicey proposition. However, the people working that afternoon were very friendly, served the beer quickly and had a basic knowledge of the beer they were pouring if you had any questions. I was very impressed.
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| Hydration is key at beer festivals. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. |
A Perfect Introduction
The World Beer Festival was focused on beer education and exposing people to something new. With more than 250 beers to choose from, there were obviously going to be new choices for even the most seasoned veteran. Not that I’ve had everything under the sun myself, as I counted 60 beers on the list that I had never tried. I certainly had my work cut out for me in 4 hours.
All About Beer provided a well-produced and informative guide book to the event, with a map of all beer stations, an overview of each beer, basic tasting instructions, and even a handy chart that shows roughly how many beers it takes to reach certain blood alcohol levels based on your weight.
In addition to all the beer, they also had informational break-out sessions and flights held on the hour. The topics for the afternoon session were Beer 101, Trends in Craft Beer, and Beer Ingredients. I intended to go to the 2:00 session about Trends in Craft Beer, but I lost time and it was 2:15 before I realized it. Ugh…
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| Nicole and me posing in the PBR tent. This is probably where I lost time. |
The Shortcomings
I would be remiss if I were just a ray of sunshine, only pointing out what was great about the festival. While there were no glaring problems or issues, I did feel there were a few shortcomings, especially for more “advanced” beer drinkers.
For me, the top priority in any festival is the beer. I’m always on a quest to find something new and different. As I mentioned earlier, I did identify 60 beers that I had never tried, so I knew I was going to get to try a lot of new beers.
However, there was a noticeable lack of rare selections, such as barrel-aged, cask or special batch beers. (I’m not talking about seasonals, but rare finds that you can’t buy in stores.) I did find a couple from our local South Carolina breweries, Thomas Creek’s Up the Creek IPA run through a Randal, and a 2008 Coast Blackbeerd Stout. There may have been others, but that’s all I could find in my 4 hours.
The other thing I missed was the presence of representatives and brewers from the breweries themselves. I know that our local breweries had a personal presence there, but I knew those folks beforehand. Since volunteers were manning the stations, it was difficult to identify brewery people in the sea of attendees unless you knew who to look for.
To a degree, that depersonalized the festival for me. Part of the excitement of going to festivals is meeting the people that make craft beer happen. The lack of that presence, combined with the indoor convention center venue, made the festival feel like somewhat of a “trade show.” However, that feeling tends to go away after the third hour of tasting beer and anywhere feels like home!
In Summary
Overall, I had a great time. I brought some friends down from Greenville, and was able to reconnect with several old friends from Columbia. That’s what really makes it, good friends and good beer.
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| The crew that came down from Greenville |
The festival was exceptionally well-run, and I think it’s a great thing for Columbia’s beer scene. I hope they continue having the festival there for years to come.
On a side note, I have one funny story to share. My wife Nicole and I were spotted by a WIS-TV cameraman after posing for a picture inside the PBR tent. He asked if he could ask us a few questions on camera and we agreed.
If anyone ever thought of me as a “beer connoisseur,” you may want to reform your opinion. After drawing a blank when asked what my favorite beer was so far, (you try to remember Koningshoeven Brouwerij Duppel on a TV interview after you’ve had a dozen samples!) and basically saying my favorite thing about the festival was “beer,” I think I’m going to have to give my “Beer Guy” card back.
I did nominate some awards for the festival, which you can check out on Untamed Beer.
I’ll be coming back next week with my experience from the Asheville Winter Warmer Festival, which is a lot smaller and more regionally focused. It will be interesting to compare these two very different festivals.
One Comment to “World Beer Fest – Columbia Makes Craft Beer More Accessible to the Masses”
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Great recap. If there were a festival near me with 250+ beers, 75 breweries and 2 floors I would think I’d died and gone to heaven. … and probably wouldn’t be able to put together a coherent recap to boot.