Thanks for the kind words, everybody.
This weekend was the result of ~2 years of conversations between me, Keir, and Will, and about 6 months of actual planning and work. All we could ask for is that the planning paid off and resulted in a good time for everyone - and it sure seems like that is the case. If I personally seemed frazzled at any point during the weekend, I hope it didn’t rub anyone the wrong way. I was juggling a lot and operating on almost no sleep. But I can assure you that I had an awesome time and was thrilled to meet those of you I hadn’t already met, and to hang out with those of you I already had.
There were a couple mishaps (hard to say if it was a single incident or if it counts as two), as indicated in the post by jandd1983 a few pages back. I’m not sure what I want to say publicly about this quite yet, but these are being addressed privately to the best of our abilities.
Returning to the good stuff: we were showed the highest level of hospitality and generosity at 100% of the locations this weekend:
-The Omni Majestic Hotel put up with a lot and hooked us up with a few extra perks on top of it. Only one noise complaint all weekend, too.
-Urban Chestnut provided a warm, welcoming environment for the meet and greet on Thursday.
-Square One was impeccably organized in presenting four beers, and opened the bar early.
-Morgan Street promised 6 beers to pour and had 9 laid out and labeled when we got there.
-4 Hands released a new beer as we walked in the door and poured one of their most limited releases ever for us, not to mention let us eat lunch and fill their whole tap room.
-The Civil Life opened early, had a full staff, showed us around, let us try their flagship American Brown out of the tank, poured three things for free sampling, and even gave away some magnets and stickers.
-Perennial and Side Project presented bottles of their most coveted, limited releases and said, "Help yourselves." I’ve never seen anything like this. Then they let us crowd their taproom for a while.
-Dressel’s Public House served five outstanding courses for us, and all five brewers (Schlafly, 4 Hands, Perennial, 2nd Shift, and Side Project) were gracious and poured outstanding beer, including a never-before-seen, fresh-from-the-barrel one from Side Project.
-Schlafly hosted us not once, but twice on Saturday - for brunch at the Bottleworks and for the Grand Tasting at the Tap Room. Their professionalism and organization are unmatched elsewhere in the industry.
-Public House, Augusta, Scratch, and Charleville delivered great beers for us to try with brunch.
-All local brewers were generous by pouring more at the Grand Tasting.
-Anheuser-Busch was a nice way to end the weekend and had some serious macro whales for us to try.
I’ll be thanking them individually, but a very special thanks to all of the breweries and places that participated in RateBeer Summer Gathering 2014.
I’d also like to thank all of you for attending and being gracious, generous, and all-around fun to hang out with for the weekend. This community is awesome. And the brewers above sincerely appreciate your feedback here in the forums, your beer ratings, and your place ratings.
Last, but not least, thanks to Keir and Will for doing a tremendous amount of brainstorming, emailing, negotiating, organizing, calling, driving, storing, asking, listening, and everything else people can do to make sure something like this goes off with out a hitch. I’m lucky to call you two my friends.
Cheers,
Peter
