Maryland Microbrew Festival 2015!!

So every year for the past few years (except for 2 I think) Maire and I have attended the MD Microbrew Festival! It's become more fun as we get older, getting less wasted and booking a hotel in the area for the night... There are a few perks of getting older, more mature and responsible!!

So one 'thing' about MD Microbrew fest, the first year we went it was pouring down rain... The second year we went.... it was pouring down rain.... More or less it's only been nice one year we went It's become a thing and we kind of enjoy when it's rainy now! In addition to reminding us of our first couple times going, it also keeps the crowd down to the beer purists who will go rain, sleet, or snow! This year it was a good mix weather wise, it was very cloudy, but not rainy. The crowd was the biggest we'd ever seen, one part of that may be because this was the first year we went on the later end. In past years we've arrived between opening at 11am and noon. This year we arrived between 2pm and 3pm and stayed until close which is 6pm. It was a great time as usual and the lines were long, but fast moving. Here are a few pics I snapped!!

Maire at the entry gate! If you can view the pic full size, you'll see even though Maire wasn't ready for the pic, the guy distributing arm bands was! 

Chesapeake brewing company! 

Pub Dog and Jailbreak. Jailbreak's beers were nothing special, but they did taste better than they do at the brewery.... We think they may be relaxed on cleaning lines at the brewery.... They're also better in can.... Pub Dog has really stepped their game up! They were a gimmick but are now a REAL brewery! It started with their Fubark beer which suprised me so much I decided to give them another shot. (they did not have that at the fest by the way.) They had an IPA that was a knockout! It was on par with the big boys! I highly recommend you give them another shot if you wrote them off a few years ago! 

Edge of the Flying Dog tent but a shot of the crowd! 

I'm sure someone saw me, but I was as sneaky as I could be, it's not everyday you see Joe Dirt out and about!! Couldn't find the TransAm, guess he had a DD? 

Little brewery I hadn't even heard of. If I'm remembering correctly (it's hard to keep everything straight without drinking in the mix) they had 2 beers and both tasted like fermentation went bad.... In the same way. Both were very different styles but had the same off flavors. It'll be interesting to see if they're back next year, and if they've improved. 

We stood in this line a few min to realize, we had already been.... We moved over to Full Tilt! 

NOW we were in the right place. Full Tilt had a very good pumpkin beer! 

This place wins the prize for coolest place. That's a biased judgement though because we've been to the brewery / farm. Their beers are good but not great, their setup at the festival made it obvious that they were not one of the big boys, but they're a cool place. They are a working farm in Mt. Airy MD, they grow their own hops and I think grains too, they have supplied Flying Dog with hops for some of the single hop beers, and lastly, this was the guy who was running the stand. This place is like the old school small breweries before they had big financial backing before opening like they do now. I HIGHLY suggest you check them out. They're in the middle of nowhere but totally worth the trip! There are some very nice vineyards nearby as well if you need to convince a wine drinker to go, Elk Run is close, and what I think is the nicest (and best wine) in MD, Black Ankle! 

I guess people bring non beer friends to the event who wanna get hammered? (you can buy non-drinking entry for cheaper) Anyway, I found it funny that a couple of the outhouses I went into had liquor bottles people were trying to hide... I don't know why you wouldn't just throw it in a trash can and walk away.... At any rate, FIREBALL!! 

Maire and I having a good time! Heavy Seas shirt FTW!! (Actually was FTW! Ended up with free beer because of it at the end!)

Because why not bring your parrot to microbrew fest!?

SO many dog friends Maire wanted to pet..... and by pet I mean take home! 

Second outhouse stash of the day! MALIBU!! 

The Heavy Seas / Clipper City van..... before we had the doors open pouring out of a firkin..... 

I hung back, I was gonna get a pic of Maire walking, but then she turned around and didn't see me and go a little nervous LoL! Snapped the pic at the PERFECT time! 

One of the other nice things about the festival is the learning aspect. Going to this festival is actually what got us into homebrewing. Snapped this for reference because there is ALWAYS something to learn! 

Ellicot Mills set up. Very nice! I don't think we actually got in to try them! 

One of the other things that's become tradition is going to Baugher's orchard to pick apples the next day! The way this got started was one of the years we went up they were calling for a total wash out, flood, rain all day weekend all week long. We woke up Saturday morning and it turned out the front had moved through overnight faster than expected so it was the PERFECT sunny fall day with a few fluffy white clouds in the sky! We were so excited, it was going to be our first sunny microbrew festival!! We get to the road it's on, where there is usually police directing traffic and it was desolate. No cones, no police and no many cars on the road.... We pull in the driveway aaaaaand nothing.... There were a bunch of outhouses and picnic tables stacked on eachother that looked like they had been delivered but never moved after being unloaded..... I pulled out my phone and pulled up the website to see what was going on, I KNEW it was the right weekend! There was a big red header on the website, "event canceled due to rain..." But it wasn't raining, it wasn't even CLOUDY!.... So after driving ALL the way up there we didn't really want to just turn around and drive home so we started looking up other things to do in the area. We came across a pick your own berries, apples and pumpkin farm and country store called Baugher's orchard! We decided to give it a shot. It was definitely geared more toward little kids like most pick your own places seem to be, but we still had a ton of fun! So long story short, Sunday morning apple picking at Baugher's has become part of the microbrew fest weekend tradition! This year was no exception!.....

Selfie in line for tickets to the field! 

I got a kick outta the thing behind us. I think it was an old school tiller or something?? Would have LOVED to mess with it! 

Maire snappin pics.....

What Maire was snapping pics of.... LOL! 

Orchard bound!! This is a HUGE working farm!

There was someone to explain not only what the apples were, but also the taste differences and what they're best used for! 

In the apple field! 

Got some good shots of Maire! :)

Although we like the day of beer fest to be nasty, Sunday has to be PERFECT! Looks like a lot of clouds, but it was perfect! 

Maire was EXCITED about it! 

Sometimes..... You just need to crawl into an apple tree.....

Aaaaaand DAY!! We were READY! 

Love that Maire wore this shirt, I got a pic of her a couple years ago at the festival in this shirt that I love! 

Some gas..... and a cheese filled pretzel at Sheetz and we were leaving Westminster until next year!! 

MD microbrew fest is a real fun event! If you live in MD close enough to go I recommend doing so! It's also a great thing to do if you're just getting into microbrews. They bring accessable beers! I think it's fun to drink local too!! Cheers!