The crowd enveloped me like a soft old sweater, providing warmth so deep that it seemed to radiate from within me. Colored lights befitting the season pooled in the corners and along the walls of the otherwise dark room. Each crossing was a happy challenge, like navigating an uncharted sea of smiles knowing that beer, delicious beer, waited at every undiscovered port, bumping off each moving islands of humanity with a cheerful “excuse me.”
A bearded hipster in the stupidest Christmas sweater I’ve ever seen could not stop grinning as people pointed and laughed. Mike is Santa this year. Billy is Snow Miser. Too much. The hours pass in the blink of an eye in so happy a place as this. Tongue numb with too many flavors, mood elated with spirit and joy, I exited into the cool light of the outdoors to discover that it was snowing.
“Perfect,” I thought. “Absolutely perfect.”
That was my favorite Washington Winter Beer Fest ever. Or maybe it is a commingled memory of several, I don’t recall exactly. I will miss Winter Beer Fest at the Hale’s Paladium, but the event simply outgrew the venue. There are now too many breweries eager to participate and too many beer lovers eager to see them do it.
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The new home of Washington Winter Beer Fest is Hangar 30 at Warren G. Magnuson Park. The change will allow the festival to showcase beers from 50 different breweries. The new venue will accommodate over 1,000 people for each of the three sessions: one session on Friday evening and two on Saturday.
Tickets are already on sale. Look for announcements about breweries and beers in the coming weeks. For tickets and more information, visit the official event website.
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