Last year, about this time, I wrote something about how I didn’t even know about Baltimore Beer Week until it was over (nevermind if that coincided with starting to follow BeerInBaltimore on twitter). If I recall, the title was (or should have been) “Baltimore Beer Weak.” I thought that, as someone not knowledgeable about the Baltimore beer scene, Baltimore Beer Week should have done more to reach out to people like me, to tell me that there is this wonderful quasi week full of beer events.
This year it seemed to me that Baltimore Beer Week must have doubled just about everything. There was plenty of advertising for the norms and plenty more events. I also increased my participation this year. I attended two events and took part in one. I was surprised (and pleased) to see that a non-headlining event, The Homebrew Showcase, had over 200 people attend. The opening ceremony was a hit, there were many, many tweets about the events I didn’t go to, and the Canton Waterfront looked crowded as I drove by on Sunday.
Speaking of the Homebrew Showcase, I am proud to say that we did not come in last… on of our beers tied for last place! Someone else was down there with us. We also received a nod having another beer come in third to last place. Very exciting. No where to go but up. The beers turned out well except they were under-carbonated. We lost to some delicious beers and apparently, fell victim to one of my own beer festival rules: we did not bring our “A” game. Three hours in a row being nice to people was a little much for me. I feel for the guys that have to do this sort of thing all the time. Although it was fun to talk about beer for three hours in a row. And thats me at the showcase in the picture (I stole from the events SnapFish page) with a stern gaze out into the crowd of people, most of whom would not be voting for SFB.
