GABF -- Day Two

Well, day two of the Great American Beer Festival has passed, and we're still standing. Yesterday turned out pretty fun. We started out by heading to Wykoop Brewery for lunch. Wynkoop had an excellent beer they call the Obamanator, which went well with my shepherds pie. We hooked up with one of Jim's old friends for lunch--Jeff Noonan--who lived with Jim in the pre-Lisa days.



After lunch, we had a quick pint at Breckenridge, then it was down to 2401 Blake Street to see Flying Dog Brewery. On Thursday at the fest, Jim and I got ourselves invited to Flying Dog for a private party. Jim was friends with Eric and Heather, Heather being a distributor for Flying Dog. Eric Eric has worked for a variety of breweries in the Loudoun County area, and it seems everywhere Jim goes, Eric shows up. Even in Colorado.



The Flying Dog party was pretty sweet: brats, cheese, taquitos, all the beer you can drink, and some live tunes from Rob Drabkin.



Flying Dog is moving their operations from Denver to Frederick, Maryland, so Jim and I will have to get a tour when we get home sometime.

While we were at Flying Dog, the most incredible coincidence arose. Jim recognized an old buddy, Dmitri Agrinov, from his basic training days at Ft. Benning. Dmitri looks rather like the next James Bond villain. Jim and Dmitri hadn't seen each other in twenty-one years, and just happened to run into each other at this party.





After the Flying Dog party, we headed over to the festival, and it was unbelievably crowded--much more so than Thursday night. There must have been 20,000 people or more there. It was huge!