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All About Beer Magazine World Beer Fest

Mar 12, 2009 | Comment(s) 0

A Beer Fest, what better way to start our travels. And not just any Beer fest, the All About Beer Magazine World Beer Fest of Columbia South Carolina. Over 200 Beers from 60 different breweries, 6 of which are from South Carolina, food vendors, and live music. If you want a full list of the breweries check out the t-shirt I picked up in the photo section. Good beer and good people make for a good time. Check out the video and photo sections to see what we mean. When we hit a new city we hit one place first. The city Visitor Centers are always good sources for not only stuff to do in that particular city, but for information on what makes the city unique. The receptionist was nice and gave us plenty of stuff to do for the 3 days we were there. She also informed us that the beer fest was going to take place in the same building just down the hall at the Columbia Convention Center. The next thing we had to do was find a way into the beer fest and to get permission to shoot some footage. I sent an email to Julie Johnson, magazine editor, who was organizing the event. In no time at all she had press passes for us, all we had to do was introduce ourselves to the staff. So we did more than that and got some interviews. These people know more about beer than I know about filmmaking, and we went to film school. A few of the staff members had set up an area as a make shift beer school where people could sit down and be coached through a beer tasting. We sat in on Beer 101 and got our first taste. Post beer school we made a pact to hold out on tasting until after we got what we needed. About an hour into the event you noticed a change in the collective mood of the group, which was expected at a beer fest. People would approach us, curious about the camera asking if we were going to put them on TV. We got a few interviews from the SC brewers, made some new friends, and found some new beer we wouldn’t mind serving on a bed of pasta. Once we got the important stuff out of the way we put down the microphone and picked up our glasses. And with 2 oz. tasters at a time we explored what the world of beer had to offer. Of course we didn’t get around to all the beers, if we did we probably wouldn’t have gotten home that night. We all found a new favorite beer, and unanimously we all found a least favorite beer in the new Clamato Bud Light. It just sketched us out too much.

Let us know if anyone has ever been to this festival - or what your favorite new brew is. We'd like to compare notes!

Stephan Beck C U Crew

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