The Hungry Ferret

Rating: 3 paw out of 5
Spent: ~ $70 per person.

Oh this glorious month of June, the weather has been great and the sea been clam.  It is a glorious day for Brewfest, where all the famous breweries from all over come to gather to share their great creations.    Many New Yorkers will gather by the seaport and be loaded onto ships to a small island near by.  This island is known as Governors Island, how fitting that this great brew festival be on an island with such a name.  What can really go wrong for this hungry ferret?  Thousands of people on a small island with lots of beer, I can’t really think of one.

The event starts out trying to get to Governor’s island.  Lines are long but they generally move to get on to the ship.  Generally some people will travel by water taxi company to Governor’s island, but they also contracted out to the other ferries at Pier 11 near Wall street.

The first tasting for me at the Brewfest was Magic Hat Summer Wacko.

This wacko beer was good, it had a nice light taste.  There were strong notes of malt, and I didn’t quite find the hoppiness which I normally not too crazy for.  Not sure why or how this beer is red, but I can go with the flow on this one.  Can I get on line again to get another round?

Wild Ginger Ale beer, that sounds like a hoot!

Not sure where the ginger ale or the sweetness is at, but good nonetheless. Very clean finish, just like most Magic Hat Beer.

Blue Star beer.

I don’t remember much about this beer except that it was a bit bitter.  I was not too much of a fan of it.

Red Seal Ale

Love the color of the beer, the taste of it was OK in my opinion.  It had slight hop taste.

Stoudt’s Beer.

This beer was very hoppy, was not a fan of it.  I couldn’t finish it, and I will admit to alcohol abuse and gave some to the tree next to me.

Sure I am going to try the other Stoudt’s beer.

Alcohol abuse again and gave some to the bushes next to me.

After all that beer, I needed to take a break, a Music break.  The bands were pretty entertaining during the quick break.

Then I decided to take a food break after the music break.  This was my first time tasting a Sigmund Pretzel, http://www.sigmundnyc.com/ .  I quite enjoyed this pretzel and will definitely visit the shop and try all their other pretzels.  The pretzel had a great exterior with the right amount of salt.  The mustard just complimented all that beer I had drank earlier.

Pabst Blue Ribbon beer was the fastest moving line so I decided to hop on it.

Blue Ribbon Beer was the beer I had while waiting on line for another food break.  It was a good light beer with a light malt and a touch of hop.

Hot Dog time, it really only took 1 hr on line, sadly it really took 1 1/2 hours.

Great Dog with another round beer that I don’t remember or have a picture of.  Yeah I was in the special happy place.  The sabrett dog has great seasoning and was not over cooked.

H.B. Burger, which I suspect was a heartland brewery burger.  By the t-shirts all the cooks was wearing, confirmed it.

This was a pretty tasty Burger, and I expected nothing less from Pat La Frieda.  Pat La Frieda supplies the meat to many of the best burger joints in Manhattan.  It had great beef flavor, juiciness, and texture.  By the time I got to order the burger, they ran out of cheese, which I find strange, because they offer cheeseburgers on the menu.  So how you run out of cheese, did they expect people to ask to hold the cheese?  Who knows?

Spaten Lager from a server that been sampling on her own.

It was very hoppy and again my personal preference is thumbs down on it.

Stiegl larger was next on the line.

Very hoppy beer, this does not look good for the hero.  Alcohol abuse occurred again.

This was at the Franziskaner were the roots for the name of the brewery was from a monastery.  So we must pray long for the beer before pouring.

Just kidding give me your glass

Tasty Beer, now we are getting somewhere.  Back to the nice malty beer and clean taste.

Peak Organic Beer, organic should be good for you?

Hmm some citrus scent, and notes, wait a minute, it crazy hoppy.  I forgot what IPA taste like again.  Damn the bitter hops.

I went for the Summer Session to cleanse my palette.

Summer Ale was not bad.  It only had a slight bitterness.

Lake Placid Beer was a struggle to get to.  They had some tap problems and started to run out of beer.

The beer was very dark, I didn’t really like it, at this point, I don’t remember much.

Harpoon Summer Ale is a staple that I need to be familiar with.

Very tasty beer.  Had a slight sweetness and light taste to it.

Belgian Pale Ale is also another favorite.

Belgian Pale Ale was good from the tap.  It was a bit stronger in flavor than the summer ale.

I decided to wrap up the beer session with some Dry Cider from Farnum Hill.

It wasn’t very sweet, but the name of the Cider was a dead giveaway.  The Cider wasn’t bad but I didn’t really care for it.

Bottled Summer Cider

The bottle cider was a bit sweeter but not by much.  I like this one better than the dry.  It didn’t have that dry mouth feel to it after sipping.

I found Domo-Kun drunk by the exit sign.  I think he trying to finish up his beer before leaving.

Bad Parts

Well as any good review, I have to point out the problems with the event along with all the good fun that a lot of people had. There were basically 5 things I felt that kinda lower the happiness level on the event.

#1 – Signs

There are barely any signs to anything.  Nobody knew really where to go including the security staff.  Many event goers was trying to figure out where to stand, what they gotta do etc etc.  It was crazy madness just trying to figure out what to do.  Please have more signs next year pointing out where to get stamped, board the ship,  etc.

#2 – Lines

The lines were crazy long by the middle of the event. This lead to excessive line cutting and people getting mad at each other for cutting in line.  It got pretty bad when groups of people would start going straight to the front and then move sideways to other lines.

#3 – Transportation.

To get on and off the island was insane.  It took me about 45 minutes to get on a boat to the island and about 1 1/2 hours in line to get off the island.

Ended up in the car \ truck storage bay of the ferry to get off Governor’s Island.

#4 – Porta restrooms

The shear number of them were good, but they were not stocked with the proper toiletries and also the sinks to wash your hands ran out water pretty early in the event.

#5 – Breweries ran out of beer really early and the food stands ran out of food.

Many of the visiting breweries was starting to run out of beer in the tasting lines at around 6PM.  Also the food stand started to run out of various food items at around 5-6PM.  This is bad considering that the event started at 3:30PM for the general public and ends at 8:30PM.  They should probably have stocked more, especially since the event is limited by ticket and should have a very good count of how many people will show up.

The 5 issues above didn’t ruin the event, but it did make it harder to want to come back again for the next one.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 20th, 2010 at 7:44 pm and is filed under Events, Manhattan, New York. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.