Day of the Drunks, or West Coast Brew Fest 2011

On Saturday, Pat, Luna and I got drunk in the middle of the afternoon. At a park.

No, we weren’t like those boozehounds that keep their 40s in a paper sack because for some reason that makes it okay to drink a Mickey’s before 2 p.m. This was an officially sanctioned drinking event.

That’s right folks, it was the something-th annual West Coast Brew Fest! This was the first year that we got to go because we weren’t depressingly broke or committed to the insane asylum do other things.

We arrived about an hour and half beforehand to wait in line to get in. Because we’re just that committed to drinking. I don’t have any pictures of us waiting in line because, honestly, when has waiting in line ever been fun or exciting? Except for that one time when we were waiting in line at Disneyland for the Indiana Jones ride and these aliens landed right in front of us and started performing circus acts. But we told them to go to the back of the line because if they thought we were going to let them cut in line just because they were wearing those big red squeaky clown noses, then they were poorly mistaken.

Then we were let in and, for a second, I thought we might have been raptured. Was this beer heaven? Tons and tons of breweries under tents waiting to give us a little taste of their delicious craft brew goodness.

It wasn't exactly heaven. You know why? We couldn’t drink straight from the tap. We had to use these little plastic cups. 

Fill me, please!

But that’s okay. It was all-you-can-drink and, I assure you, we were determined to get our $30 worth of beer.

Do you know what we did as soon as we got in? We went to the nearest tent and stood in a short line (surprisingly, unlike SactoMoFo (the mobile food fest in Sacramento), the lines were super short and easy to get through. I think that tells you that Sacramento values their food more than their beer.) and then we drank….

A limited edition Spring cider from Two Rivers...nom!

And drank…

A delicious stout from some brewery that I can't remember the name of.

And drank….

Another cider. From Crispin Cider.

We went to about three tents in a row. Tipsy-ness was already starting to set in. So we ate….

My lovely fiance knows that jalapeños are the key to my heart.

And then you know what we did? No, we didn’t finish off our lunch by eating pretzel necklaces off some strange dudes.

Good planning, dudes!

We drank!

And another stout! From...

Bison Brewing! I only know that because I took this picture. Planning ahead, people!

And drank….

Scottish ale from Lockdown Brewing...I think

And Luna got love…

I don't have any pictures of Luna getting attention, so...you get this.

And she drank…

Wait a second...that's mine! Give it back, you boozehound!

And…I think you get the idea, but I have a few more pictures and I took the time out of my drinking to take them so, goddammit, you’re going to see them!

At this point, I stopped keeping track of what I was drinking...

...all I know is that it was beer and it was tasty. (Dig the artsy shot!)

I got this one from some guy that looked like Santa. When I came up to his booth, he yelled out "I like redheads!" I didn't have the heart to tell him I'm not a natural redhead. 

Luna had a bit too much, and started to get silly.

Go Ags! 

So we gave her a peanut-butter filled Kong and told her she needed to sober up because she was starting to embarrass us and she was our designated driver, anyway.

Nom nom nom!

Sadly, there wasn’t much drunk-watching to do. Everybody was fairly well-behaved, except for a couple of dogs who were mean drunks. And then there was this guy,

The dude to the left of the cop is the dude in question. 

Who slipped in this mud puddle near our base camp,

I was too lazy to get up and take a better picture.

And crashed into Luna’s water dish and my beer, spilling the contents of both on me.

I gave him a stern “Dude!”, he apologized profusely, the police gave him a talking-to, and he went on his merry way to drink some more.

If you’re reading this, dude-who-slipped-in-the-mud-and-spilled-dog-water-and-beer-on-me, I hope the po-pos didn’t scare all of the drunk out of you.

A couple of people puked, too, but I didn’t take pictures of those because I thought I’d be nice to you and not make you upchuck while you’re eating or pooping or doing whatever you do when you read this blog. But I will tell you this—one guy sitting on a bench near us spewed and there was beer-snot running out of his nose and mouth. Like touching the ground all slimey-like and I’m pretty sure Luna would’ve helped him clean himself up if we let her, but we only let her do that when one of us spews. We don’t know where that guy’s puke had been.

And, of course, Luna was too drunk to drive us home (that dog doesn't know when to stop…I think we may have to have an intervention soon), but we had a Plan B and Pat’s dad came to drive our drunk asses home. It felt like we were a couple of kids being picked up from the carnival or something because we were both talking at once about how much we drank and what this one guy did and what that other guy did and OMGitwassoawesome!

Cheers!

To see a video version of our awesome fun, click on the picture of Pat and his camera! 

Whoa, am I going to be in the vlog?!