I was given a room and a pass to this year’s Mohegan Sun Brewfest at the beginning of October. I drank, and then drank, and then drank a lot more. Those little tasting glasses are dangerous. Especially when you’ve had more refills in a couple hours than you have fingers and toes. I remember sitting down and writing notes about takeaways from the experience. Then I had a lot more beer. This is not from those notes. I lost them when trying to exchange them for money to gamble with. However, here are a few takeaways.
1. The first sessions are always best at these things.
2. The second sessions are not. Twice as packed, everyone twice as drunk, and meatheads apparently want to be fashionably late to such galas and tend to arrive in Affliction t-shirts and smell like the cologne counter at Macy’s.
3. They assemble a solid lineup of breweries, both local and national.
4. Pretty booth girls do not always equate to having great beer (sorry, Shock Top, you have yet to win me over).
5. No amount of alcohol in the world can numb you to the sounds of Everclear, who played a free show in the “Wolf Den” there.
6. It’s possible to play cornhole inside a massive casino function hall as if it’s a backyard keg party with better carpeting.
7. It’s also possible annoy those playing cornhole when you’re drunk and hovering too close behind them to see all the cornhole-ing.
8. When you approach a brewer for a sample four times in as many minutes, you’re not fooling anyone.
9. Brewers still love it when you do it. At least, I think those were love-looks.
10. I can’t gamble sober. I really can’t gamble drunk.
Dan is a freelance journalist and has written for publications including Vice, Esquire, the Daily Beast, Fast Company, Pacific Standard, MEL, Leafly, Thrillist, and DigBoston.
