OK, maybe not EVER but felt pretty darn busy to me. I wish I could remember Friday… wait… yes, that’s it: I went to class and taught to a less than stellar number of students and when I got home, Ash and I went to lunch downtown; we had a Harry’s coupon and I love when those comes because I get to have yummy shrimp and grits. We didn’t have any necessary errands so we decided to brew. We also pitched a beer from last week and did some other necessary things around the house. The evening was slow, which I needed. The weather was awful – just cold an rainy – and I wanted to just sit.

Saturday was also supposed to be rainy but it turned out to be beautiful. Isaac played in a soccer tournament but the team they threw together, while having good individual talent, sucked as a whole and they did not win. But we did spend the entire freaking day out there: from about 9 until 4. Ugh. But once home, I threw laundry in and got dinner ready: we’d been planning steaks, baked potatoes, and green beans.

Sunday was our big day, the Tallahassee Beerfest. Months before, we had brewed in preparation and the two that turned out best were a chocolate stout (but a session, easy to drink) and a red ale that was slightly higher in abv but insanely crisp and drinkable. We had prepped our signage and all the kegs, hosing, etc the days before so that morning was just loading it into the car and waiting on our friend and his dad, who we’d ask to come help with setup and serving. At the civic center, we pulled down and around and got everything out and into the venue, into the area for homebrewers. Below is a photo right before the VIP ticketholders arrived. They had this thing set up in two different areas so imagine another room full of tables with both homebrewers and real breweries from Florida and Georgia.

While we got there around 10ish, the time between then and one was dedicated to setting up. At one, they let the brewers, etc into the VIP food area and they did indeed provide some tasty things. It wasn’t crap food by any means. By 2, the 70 dollar VIP people showed up – the true beer drinkers perhaps? It took a bit for folks to make their way back to where we were (in the photo, you can see that we are basically the last corner table, if you imagine I took this pic from my area; towards the upper left is the hallway back to the other main area where people arrived from.) Once people did find us, they thought we were an actual brewery, which is funny because compared to the other homebrew tables, we had relatively nothing, just a few small signs we home laminated. What we did have that set us a cut above the rest was a TV. This event had been rescheduled from August and they moved it to a Sunday – football day. Ash got the Redzone channel going and so many people commented on how awesome it was that we did that. You’re welcome, beer drinkers.

It was a really cool time but also, super busy. We were almost constantly pouring and chatting with people. Our red (which we named Red Snapper) went over exceedingly well. People came over and said others had told them they had to try it. That’s a huge pat on the back, if I do say so myself. Indeed, that keg was nearly empty by the end of the event. The stout did surprise people as well – I only saw one guy walk away and say he didn’t like it at all.

By the end, I was totally exhausted and not nearly as drunk as I figured I would be. The purpose of bringing other people is so you can take turns walking around and sampling but we didn’t do as much as we thought we would; mostly hit the tables right around ours, which consisted of homebrewers and a few relatively local breweries. We actually connected with one from Apopka, which is right near where I and my parents used to live – a suburb of Orlando. Kind of amusing, I’d say. Poor folks had gotten all ready to open and the pandemic hit but they seem to be doing alright! They do make good beer.

Once we got home, I was EXHAUSTED. Never been so straight tired. But it was a very cool event and I could see us doing more of those, not just locally but in Florida in general.

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OK, artists born in November is the theme. I basically went down the list I found and hit on ones I just like.

This first one is technically James Taylor but since JD Souther was born in this month, this song fits the bill.

It appears two members of Styx have birthdays this months so let’s do this one: