Hawaii Pics

Stories to come later, but for now,
here are some pics.

Catching up- Brewgrass 2010, Asheville

Back in September, Rhonda, myself, cousin Ryan and friend Anthony met up in Asheville for the annual Brewgrass (like it sounds, brews and bluegrass) festival.

The fellas scoped out seats nice and early.

It got real crowded, real quick, but the tunes were good and the delicious microbrews were flowing freely.

We've been to several beer festivals since moving here, but Brewgrass in Asheville and Brewvival in Charleston are definitely a notch above the others. Which one reigns supreme? Lemme

talk it out.

LOCATION

Brewgrass is walking distance from the compact downtown area of Asheville, with multiple hotels, plus several breweries and restaurants with nice beer lists. While Charleston is a great city, the Brewvival location is right beside the COAST brewery; excellent brewery, but isolated venue, meaning shuttles/cabs/public transportation of questionable reliability. No contest here.

Advantage: Brewgrass

TIMING

Brewgrass is in September, still plenty of nice warm weather. Brewvival is in February; we were wearing tobaggans and fleece, even in sunny Charleston.

Advantage: Brewgrass.

VENUE

This may have to do with the number of tickets sold to the respective festivals, but Brewgrass almost seemed like an antfarm of camp chairs at times, and until things settled down, all the brewery tents had sizeable lines. At Brewvival, we had no little problem hitting any brewery we wanted, and had plenty of room to spread our wings.

Advantage: Brewvival

ENTERTAINMENT

An assortment of garage quality bands at Brewvival. A steady stream of smooth bluegrass at Brewgrass.

Advantage: Brewgrass.

FOOD

Reserving commentary until 2011. Didn't have food at either festival, although options seemed to be plentiful at both.

INTANGIBLES

Asheville's just a really cool place to hang out, but my folks live a short drive away from Brewvival, so lodging/transportation is taken care of!

Advantage: Push

BEER SELECTION

The most important category of course. Both festivals were great in this area, but in different ways. Brewgrass was able to capitalize on the thriving small brewery scene in North Carolina, with loads of local breweries showcasing their elixirs. The few breweries in attendance with widespread distribution- Sierra Nevada, Lagunitas, etc.- in general didn't bring anything all that interesting. By contrast, Brewvival had a smaller local/regional presence (although it was hosted by COAST, the best brewery in the state). What was really impressive was how many heavy hitters they recruited from across the country, not just the brewers, but the beers they brought. Some of the barrel-aged imperial stouts were particularly effective in cutting through the chilly February temps, including the bourbon barrel Stone Imperial Russian Stout (Stone's Greg Koch was the keynote speaker).
Advantage: Push

VERDICT

Brewgrass by a slim margin for now, but Brewvival put on a helluva festival in their first year. Very much looking forward to Brewvival take 2 in February 2011.

Catching up- Jack turned 4 in October

I'm not sure when the "calm down" switched gets flipped in Labs, but let the record show it doesn't happen at age 4.

Halloween 2010

Halloween is officially a "big deal" in our neighborhood, with most homes decorating, a costume parade and kids coming from all over town to trick or treat (or, in the case of our girls, from 45 minutes away). Rhonda escorted the girls up and down the street while I stuck around for candy-slinging duty. We ended up plowing through 18 bags(!) of candy in about 2 hours. Here are a few pics from the festivities.

Courtney as some kind of cheetah/cat.

Katheren went as a mummy bride. She did her own "undead" makeup.Aunt Rhonda went as Alice (the grown up version from the most recent Wonderland movie).I had no less than 3 moms ask to take pictures of my homemade "chick magnet" costume.A few of the neighborhood kids.