Beer Fests Are Officially Back!

I don’t think I could contain my excitement for beer fests returning any longer, so thank GOODNESS Atlantic City Beer and Music Fest happened last weekend!

Beer fests are… an Experience. My first one was GABF and that was an amazing introduction! Obviously, nothing is ever going to compare to the sheer size of that (at least not in Jersey), but ACB&MF is probably the closest we’ll get this year! With most COVID restrictions in NJ lifted only weeks before the festival, it was slated to be outdoors on an airstrip and each booth spaced about ten feet apart. 120 breweries from all over (including Terrapin, from Athens, GA!) the country showed up to celebrate a semi-return to normalcy. It was different not being on top of another brewery, and there was a lot more walking to be done, but that didn’t deter folks.

Friday night’s event was heralded by a massive thunderstorm, followed by a double rainbow, which made me gleeful driving down the AC Expressway. My partner Greg was with me, and was about to experience his second-ever beer fest – and his first was nothing of the size or capacity of ACB&MF. Through the wind, which shoved those storms out to sea, we wandered the tarmac, and he tried a lot of new stuff while I paced myself and was the responsible DD. I had to be up at 6am the next morning, anyway.

We had a great time Friday night, sharing jokes and making up new band names (for a band we’ll never create, naturally) along the way.

Saturday morning, I worked my first ever Byrne Plaza Farmer’s Market! I learned a lot from that experience, and am looking forward to the ones ahead.

And Saturday night, Greg and I headed back to ACB&MF to work the booth. We met up with the crew that worked the daytime shift, hanging out by Slacktide and Gusto (because where else would a Cape May County crew hang out?). The evening session flew by with the sun setting behind us and before we knew it, we were packed up and heading back to Wildwood.

If you saw us at ACB&MF, thanks for stopping by! I hope you had as great of a time as we did and we’ll see you at Battleship New Jersey.