Arriving the brewery little after 3:30pm we were there only minutes after the doors opened. Upon entry you received a wristband and a glass to keep, which resulted in Todd running back to the car to deposit said glassware with a "Please dear, would you mind?" While there were a few benches and port-a-potties outside for overflow the majority of the event was mercifully inside and out of the downpour.
We received one free token with ticket and we all decided upon the party's namesake, Commander to begin with. I had no expectations. being a novice with barleywine. From the first sniff you can just feel the alcohol burn your nostrils which should have been a hint to me about the 12.5% ABV strength but instead I took a big gulp and quickly realized, as our group's designated driver I would not be having much more. The taste was definitely different, you got a hint of the bourbon from the barrels the barleywine had aged in. It was for sure, an experience. After a few sips I decided it was too dangerous to the chagrin of my friends and switched to the IPA, Hopdish to sip which I thoroughly enjoyed without feeling irresponsible.
The brewery was fairly packed, but wasn't overly crowded. There was a booth to buy more tokens and another to use the tokens for beer purchase. There were a few different live bands playing throughout the evening. The theme, if there was one was moustaches which was evident in the moustache facepainting booth, moustache stickers on the tables and the moustache contest towards the end of the evening. I'm definitely a little over the hype of this bizarre moustache trend that you see everywhere these days but it wasn't over the top in this particular instance and it at least centered around some real men (save the one drunk girl who got up with stickers) who had grown some serious facial hair.
The music was really quite good, enjoyed immensely Thrift Store Sonata with their unique bluegrass sound and their violinist was incredibly talented. We did have to backup a bit though to hear each other talk as the sound reverberating off the brewery walls was quite loud. I had to hand it to the bands though as they played throughout the evening.
One of the highlights was definitely the Nebuchadnezzar bottle, a 15L bottle of the Commander that was then opened and freely poured for all who lined up. This bottle didn't seem to have an end, it was nearly 40 minutes before the entire contents were emptied into the last waiting glass.
We stayed for almost 5 hours and left with about an hour or so left to go in the event. It was a good time and I think my group enjoyed themselves quite a bit. I also was a bit surprised that with the high alcohol content there wasn't more crazy, debauchery. The crowd appeared to be very well behaved, although we did leave before the end so maybe we missed some of that. All in all, a good Saturday evening at the brewery with some friends!
I'm going to mention this as a side note, although I really don't have to but I've noticed my iPhone has been taking really blurry pictures lately. It's a 4s that I've beat unmercifully on and I had just figured it was the fault of being dropped so many times. I pulled off the seriously battered cover, which has a corner missing I should mention to tinker with it. It was at some point trying to polish up the camera lens that a corner of a piece of plastic pulled away from the back of my phone and it was then I realized... I've had the plastic protector on the whole time. So... word to the wise, make sure you remove this piece and definitely make sure you don't have your friends witness you do it when it's been about a year on.
