The new Copenhagen beer fests

Sour & Bitter was definitely an amazing event - it was just loads of good beer, good people and a good atmosphere. The didn’t justify the 100 dollar cost - I felt misinformed about what to do with the small foods in the bag. But the small amount of food that I actually got to taste was good.

Apart from that, the event was very well ran - not any real queue to get the beers, the staff were awesome and really friendly and the prices of the beers were definitely tolerable.



I also loved the CBC. I spent most of my time helping out at the festival at the info table, but I also hugely enjoyed going into the crowd, drinking loads of good beers and hanging with good people.

Lots of things can improve next year - but if you count in that this event was being held for the first time ever, and that none of the staff had ever had the task of building a beer festival from rock bottom - I think it was a pretty damn amazing job. Big props to Irina, Mikkel, Stig and all the others who put monkeyloads of work into the festival!

Yeah before anyone is to critical of the fest first take stock of how much work everyone put into that fest and say thanks as I am sure it has consumed all those involved for the last few months.

I was there at 8am sunday to clean up and Mikkel, Tore, Stig, Irina were all there cleaning and had been for awhile so I am sure they deserve a full week off after that fest.

Sour & Bitter: Absolutely amazing, but I had the opportunity to sit at a table the entire time surrounded by awesome people, got to try everything available except the Pig dog pale ale.
As everyone else said, the food was extremely awkward, but in hindsight it has become a talking point and a memory. The pork was extraordinary but of course too hot to hold so I started using my cotton candy stick to poke the pork and eat it like some strange meatsickle :S

Copenhagen Beer Festival: Well-organized as always, the only problem was the decrease in really interesting breweries..

copenhagen Beer Celebration: Mixed feelings.. I still don’t understand why we couldn’t get a complete list in advance since 90% of it had already been released and the rest where not that secret IMHO..
Some of the breweries were huge disappointments, such as BrewDog, Three Floyds, Nøgne (with one beer as the exception), Fanø (Saturday), Evil Twin (Saturday).
The water-rinsing-problem almost became a show-stopper but we were warned and could bring lots of our own water.
Food-wise: Next year, don’t include it in the ticket price, let people choose themselves when and if they want to eat and how much they want to spend on it.
And best in show was definately Struise :)

Originally posted by FrumptyDumpty
Yeah before anyone is to critical of the fest first take stock of how much work everyone put into that fest and say thanks as I am sure it has consumed all those involved for the last few months.

I was there at 8am sunday to clean up and Mikkel, Tore, Stig, Irina were all there cleaning and had been for awhile so I am sure they deserve a full week off after that fest.

Toilets have been mentioned and I’m sure that can be improved, they were just grose and the possibility of being able to wash your hands when a place is serving food I too would assume is required by law.

Lack of glass rinsing was taken care of by the Struise people, knowing Belgian beerfestivals: every stand has their own beer rinsing setup to make sure their own beer are being served in a clean glass. Im sure the brewers must have brought this up already.

The logistics around the food serving I would think a bit of additional information would be good. Signs saying when which areas would be needed for serving - like going to a restaurant displaying when the table is reserved would be helpful. Simply because this could allow people to sit a bit longer and know when they would have to leave instead of being told to leave more than 30 minutes before service.

Basically all tables where cleared, but only half of them used for serving. With one dish and 1 hour to eat this - I would not find it offensive if I would have to leave my table again after lets say 45 minutes. That would still give you 15 minutes to clear out the tables before the next group. And also leave half of the seating area available for those eating later (or those who already ate). I left both days after then dinner. I was glad to have 17 O’clock tickets not having to find a place in the crowd for several hours.

To be honest, the beer served with the food really wasn’t at level with all other beers available - that took me by surprise. Portion size Friday seemed small compared to that Saturday. It also felt a bit unexpected with a single plate of food. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I thought it would be more than one course for 1 hour - beer dessert or some kind of simple appetizer, I may have missed info about this being one plate of food. Friday at least we were waiting to see what else would be served. Saturday we knew what to expect. Often perception of how good something was is quite often based on expectation.

CBC food seemed better value for money than Sour & Bitter, I consider the split of the ticket to be 150;- kr for the entrance, glass and two tokens while food and free beer was also 150;- - not bad for a Mielcke & Hurtigkarl plate of great food!

Then again Sour & Bitter, I considered the Framboos bottles priced at 350,- Dkr a piece to take on the 500,- expense to get into the event. I wasnt a fan of the lounge like layout of Sour & Bitter (it was a bit of a high school party to me), but I was really impressed by the line up of beer and it was great attending.

That being said - these are some of the best festivals I’ve ever attended and thinking about this was done for the first time makes it even more impressive. Fantastic job guys. So proud about this and how people travelled to our windy city to attend this!

/Jesper

Btw: Mielcke & Hurtigkarl: what a fantastic job putting together so tasty two meals and pulling off serving that for 2000 people - that is really just unreal!

I only attended CBC and I was very impressed with how well it was run overall. I think the number of attendees was perfect. I rarely had to wait more than two minutes for a beer. The main area got a bit congested once the dinners started, but that didn’t really increase waiting times. It would be great to have some seating available for the entire festival.



The availability of the beers was superb. I really cannot recall going to a stand and not being able to get the beer I wanted. To be fair, I was there from the start both days and definitely prioritised my ’beers-to-try’ list, but I think many people followed a similar tack.



I too was a little disappointed (though I wouldn’t call it a complaint) that the US breweries didn’t pull out their big guns, as it were. I had also expected a bit more of the dinner, though I had nothing upon which to base my expectations.



To reiterate what others have said, I also longed for more adequate hand-washing facilities; after a few impy stouts your hands are bound to get pretty sticky. I thought the quick-and-easy urinal banks outside were awesome. No lines to pee, for me, is possibly more important than no lines for beer.



Big thanks to De Struise for bringing such an amazing range of beers. And congratulations to Farmers Cabinet (or was it Farmer’s or Farmers’?) for putting themselves on the map; they had several top ten festival beers for me. And congratulations also to the organizers. The only qualms I’ve heard from people have been extremely minor. I hope the Celebration continues in the years ahead.

Perhaps there is really no reason to only have one celebration each year.. how about a re-run sometime autumn ;-) If it is put strategically datewise brewers and beer geeks might be able to combine with another european festival or beer event the days before, or the days after. Airtravel between european cities is kinda affordable after all, and many at CBC had CBC as part of a larger European trek.

First of all: the festival - in general - was amazing!

Incredible beer selection (the MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR A BEER FESTIVAL, after all...), great people, OK food, good enough facilities (mostly) and a good schedule. I also enjoyed the fact that there were no "timed releases" of special batches but rather a steady flow of awesome beers, as releases of special batches is often disruptive for one’s schedule and creates chaos and long lines...

I’m only gonna add to what’s already been summarized here, and list the disadvanteges of the festival in prioritized order, the way I saw it:

1.) The seating/serving solution - with half of the space occupied for serving dinner to everyone, that effectively meant spending half of the festival in a rather small area. The few benches available actually became spots were otherwise friendly people started bickering over seats at times. Totally unnecessary, and too large sacrifice for the dinner, which was good but I’d take good space and seating any day over this.

2.) The lack of water tanks/rinsing facilities - as mentioned, water should have been installed and for free, plus more widely available. One could resort to the tank outside the back by the toilets, but that was too little and too awkwardly positioned to relieve the need people continually had for rinsing glasses and drinking.

3.) Toilet and hygiene solutions - soap and washing facilities should have been more available, as the festival "box toilets" definitely encouraged washing hands afterwards...the only option was the above mentioned water tank, which had no attached soap and was also used by people to rinse their glasses...

4.) Lack of info/speakers - I kinda missed out on ALL the seminars as they were never announced over speakers that I heard...posters, increased speaker volume or some other way of communicating these happenings would have been good. No big fault though, I am of course responsible for catching these thing my self, but a little more reminder-help would not have been bad.

Otherwise: a kick-ass festival of truly epic proportions!
Very glad to have been there and a major cudos to Mikkeller & co for putting this together. Hope to be there next year as well.

I was at both S&B and CBC. I had an amazing time at both. For me, this trip was all about meeting people and sharing beers with the many people that I’ve talked to over the years. While I agree with most of what’s already been said in the thread, those things didn’t really bother me at all. I was too busy having a great time, drinking phenomonal beers, and talking with many new friends.

My only new suggestion would be to offer CBC and/or S&B shirts for sale. I am really jealous of the volunteers and their CBC shirts. =) I want one.

Thanks to everyone who made this possible! Your efforts did not go unnoticed and I appreciated the opportunity to be a part of this epic week. [cheers!]