World Beer Festival 2007 in Durham is Saturday, 6 October. That seems a long time away, but it isn't: online tickets have already sold out. Traditional, paper ticket sales start tomorrow (1 September). You can get tickets at Sam's Quik Shop, Alivia's, and the Fed, plus other locations outside Durham. The festival will be at the DAP, as usual.
You know, it's amazing how much beer culture Durham has for a city of a little over 200,000 people. I attribute some of it to Durham's being the home of All About Beer magazine, who sponsors the Festival. Maybe there's more to it than that, but in any case, it's nice. For instance, a week ago I went to The Beauty of Bitter, a beer tasting at American Tobacco. It had a list of (mostly) highly hopped, interesting beers. Everything I tasted was at least 6 or 7 on my informal scale of 1 to 10. (Unfortunately I lost my tasting notes, or you'd have already seen a blog post about it.) The tasting was run by Sean Wilson from Pop The Cap, also based here. Then there are the smaller stories: Sam's Quik Shop (AKA the Blue Light), which has kept up a nice beer selection for as long as I've been in Durham, despite a number of challenges; Fishmonger's, who've had 20 or more beers on tap and that many or more in bottles for as long as I can remember (even when beer wasn't cool, the 'Shmong was the first place I remember seeing Guinness on tap); now we've got a brewery again (let's hope this one stays), and perhaps another in the pipe....
So, go buy your tickets tomorrow, lest you not make it in at all. Durham: It's Not Just for Breakfast Anymore. :)
