The 17th Annual Legendary Boonville Beer Festival: May 4th, 2013

https://avbc.com/ai1ec_event/boonville-ca-17th-annual-legendary-boonville-beer-fest/?instance_id=196

The 17th Annual Legendary Boonville Beer Festival: The bahlest steinber hornin’, chiggrul gormin’ tidrick in the heelch of the Boont Region!

Or so they say up at Anderson Valley Brewing Company, where they host this annual event at the Mendocino County Fairgrounds.

Now I can’t say that Boonville is my favorite of the beer festivals I regularly attend. In fact, in my book, it pales by comparison to the festivals at The Bistro in Hayward, most notable of which are the Double IPA festival in February and the Wood-Aged festival in November. In terms of selection and style, these fests offer a larger variety of the kinds of beers I really, really like, and more importantly, they tend to feature a greater number of beers I simply don’t see in my regional market.

However, no local beer festival can match the power of Boonville for sheer good time. That’s because it’s not merely a beer festival; it’s a weekend-long party complete with camping, barbecuing, loud music, and vast numbers of otherwise quiet, sober people generally making drunken asses of themselves. Not me, of course, because to the best of my recollection I have never, ever made a fool of myself, and I’m quite certain that all of the stories concerning my behavior during my rare nights of overindulging have been entirely fabricated.

I won’t regale you with noteworthy tales of prior Boonvilles, many of which are incredibly embarrassing either to me personally or to people dear to my heart, but here are a few of the life-changing observations I made at this year’s festival:

Bright, sunny and ninety-five is way better than rainy, muddy, and fifty-five, especially when your friends who arrive first are smart enough and early enough to pick out a shady camping site.
A wise woman drinks beer with breakfast, not before.
Patience is a virtue that women develop while waiting in line for the “real” bathroom when the Port-A-Potties are full.
Patience is a virtue that men develop while waiting for women to emerge from the “real” bathroom.
A man who is so anxious to get a beer that he shoves a woman out of his way has no right to complain when she shoves back. Not even if, in so doing, she spills said beer.
A true friend is someone who waits with you in the line for the Port-A-Potty just to be able to hold your beer while you’re in there.
Plastic cups don’t break with the same joyful ringing clarity as glass ones, but at least no one loses an eye.
It’s rarely worth standing in the long line for that special beer that some brewery always decides to put on exactly at four o'clock, but you’ll be sorry if you don’t do it anyway.
You can’t appreciate really good beer until you have some bad ones.
Caterpillars do not improve the flavor of tenderloin.
Just because there’s a bridge doesn’t mean there’s anything special on the other side of it.
Dancing on the roof of an RV does not make you look foolish. Dancing unenthusiastically does.
Friends are people who can drink with you all weekend and still like you afterwards.
Blessed are they who for once find a quiet camping spot and don’t have to listen to those #$^@&$! jerks screaming and running around all night.
Everyone looks like crap the morning after a beer festival, either because they drank too much or because you did.
Choose your first three beers well; by the end of the festival, they will be the only ones you remember.