The Craft Lager Festival was scheduled for last Saturday (10 August) but was postponed after a flash flood and mudslide destroyed the event equipment. The rescheduled event was held today in Colorado Springs at the Norris-Penrose Events Center instead of Memorial Park in Manitou Springs. As expected, many of the vendors, especially those from out-of-state, were not able to attend the rescheduled event today. There were not many of the local Colorado Springs breweries in attendance, either. Since I was alone today I had to wrangle the dogs, navigate the crowd AND taste the beverages. Because I was wrangling and drinking I didn’t have many chances for photos. I have included a few here though.
It was hot in Colorado Springs today. Even waiting in line to enter the event the dogs were panting.
After one circuit through all of the vendors I sat down in some shade with the girls and poured a bowl of water for them.
Note the wonderful winged skull tattoo on somebody’s calf in the background. No one ever said Colorado Springs was classy.
The volunteers pouring beers were a bit overwhelmed and many of the booths opened a few minutes late for various reasons, and some of those pouring (whether volunteers or staff from the breweries) were not really into the event. Kudos to Lost Rhino Brewing from Virginia, though! They were friendly and appeared to be happy to share their beer.
I will say my favorite beer today was Crooked Stave’s Surrette.
The swag haul was pretty meager this year, too.
The dogs and I had a good time and many young ladies stopped to pet Lucy while they asked how she lost her leg… so there’s that, I guess.