Last weekend I was representing McGargles at the Craft Beer Days Festival in the Altes Mädchen Brewpub in Hamburg.
Pic by Paul David Smith
It was a busy weekend with 28 breweries serving 125 beers to 4,500 visitors. For my part I was pouring; Ned’s IPA, Rosie’s Pale Ale, Mary’s Red Ale and the very popular Francis’ Big Bangin’ IPA. Of course I checked regularly to make sure that they were all tasting great. I felt duty bound to do so!
I was on a row of international breweries including Denmark’s Ugly Duck. They had some great beers, I especially enjoyed the questionably named Berliner Weisse. And the craic was definitely had with Casper and Stefan who manned the stand.
The Saturday of the event was so busy that I couldn’t stray too far from our bar but I did get to try a rather good Oud Bruin from Nicolas from Liefman’s.
Sunday morning we were all treated to a tasty buffet breakfast in Altes Mädchen. And I had a chance to check out the very well stocked adjacent Craft Beer Shop. I was shown the strongest beer in the world but it was almost €50 for a tiny bottle so I left it on the shelf and picked up a few more reasonably priced bottles and cans!
And then it was time to go back to work!
Sunday was a bit more relaxed than Saturday had been and the sun came out, the music played and everyone had a good time.
Around tea time I grabbed some pulled pork on a steamed bun with some Lazy in Red, from Ratsherrn the on site brewery. Delicious food and really well made beer, what a place!
On Sunday I tasted some of Boulevard’s excellent Saison, Tap 7 and Superfreunde’s very drinkable Alt.
All told it was a great event. One think I noted was that most people opted for the 100ml serving size. This meant they were able to try a lot of beers without getting messy. We could adopt that idea over here! Thanks to everyone for making me feel so welcome, especially Sven and Ben from Hamburg Beer Company.
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