City Steam Winter Brewfest 2013

          Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of attending City Steam's second annual Winter Beer Fest. Being the "geek" that I am, I am usually excited to get my hands on any beer that I can. Imagine though, if you will, how it feels to be surrounded by microbreweries, and knowing that each and every ounce of liquid in those draft lines or bottles is coming from your "backyard".

          In my humble opinion, brewers are some of the most generous people when it comes to sharing their craft with the surrounding community. I'm used to the standard tasting pour that usually consists of just enough beer to get an ok sense of what you are tasting. At this Fest though, the pours were generous, and I was able to complement them with a delicious buffet.

          The craft beer community was out in full force, and it is always nice to see some familiar faces like my friend Tony from Back East Brewing Company (Bloomfield).  Tony represents our community well, and continues to display what great local beer should be. By the way, I ruse everyone to go out and try Back East as soon as you can! 

          What I also. Enjoy about these events, is the opportunity to go out and meet new friends and network with people who share like-minded interests. Lani and I were standing in line trying to tag a beer on Untappd when from behind us I hear "friend us, friend us". It turns out, that the people who were behind us in line were another couple of Untappd users and knew us from some of our previous posts at the event. They were great, and we were soon making beer talk and comparing notes. Lana even found out that she knew the gentleman through some classes that they had taken together in college. Needless to say, we quickly made plans to go out and get social with them.

          I would certainly like to take the time to personally thank City Steam and the brewers that came out to serve their fabulous local products. I would also like to thank my new friend Bryon Turner who I've actually known of for quite some time. Bryon runs the CT Beer Trail which is an amazing source of information for anyone who is interested in the beer happenings within our state. I finally got the chance to purchase my Trailblazers card, and I look forward to putting it to good use.

          In summation, when I think of beer, I think of community, and there truly is no better representation of this mindset an a festival like this at brings brewers, boozers, bloggers and beer snobs all together.