TOPIC:

Wow that was fun! I was at Septemberfest last year and this years was way way busier. It was great to see so many people out looking to try tasty Irish beers. We can only hope they all go looking for them in their local pubs now so they'll be more widely available.

There was great interest in home brewing. There were lots of people who wanted to get started. We gave out lots of leaflets and bent everyones ear with info on suppliers and ingredients etc. It was great to meet all the ICB people again. The print out of pubs that stock Irish Craft Beer was really popular too.

I loved Carlow's good store IPA. Galway Hooker was fantastic as always, great accompaniment to the craft Irish cheese plates. Belfast black and White Gypsy's Dark Lager were also really tasty.

"brian_c":2q6l1hr7 wrote: Any idea how many showed up over the weekend[/quote:2q6l1hr7]Last year: 8,000 people. This year: 32,000 people. It was actually busier today than yesterday but the queues were better managed and there was also the pimping out of a_friend_in_mead, bighair and grainne to Double L, Franciscan Well and Hilden respectively to help move things along.

Thanks a million to all who gave up their time and/or their beer to the gig. It was a roaring success.

And a big hello to all the new members and lurkers. I said we'd answer any questions you had so feel free to get posting.

I had an immense time at the fest on Saturday, and was lucky enough to have a few samples and chats with the different brewers early in the day. It was great craic trying to rope people in to giving the home brewing a go! I'd love to have been there again yesterday... but my gammy knee, that I may have whinged a bit about on saturday, was too sore to face the walk back in. I hope everyone had a good time at it and I look forward to next year's again.

S

I also loved Carlow's good store IPA. Dark Galway Hooker was brilliant. I initially did not like the Kerry black hole porter but after a few sips it really grew on me.

Is there anything else we should have printed out? I think we need a cleaned up version of the craft beer pubs. Maybe a picture guide to extract brewing on the front and back of a page. Anything else?

Had a great day on Sunday an got to talk to loads of people who are interested in getting in home brewing.

Second the good store IPA fantastic and it would be a crime if we did not see this in the regular line up <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

&amp;quot;a_friend_in_mead&amp;quot;:25p9tuj9 wrote: Is there anything else we should have printed out? I think we need a cleaned up version of the craft beer pubs. Maybe a picture guide to extract brewing on the front and back of a page. Anything else?[/quote:25p9tuj9]More of everything! I think everyone was caught on the hop by the sheer number of people.

But I agree that we should have more presentable editions of our core articles for handing out at events. And I'll try and put together an extract-for-idiots photo thingy on my next brewday.