World Beer Festival – Part One
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
A local adventure with Beer – All About Beer presents The World Beer Festival, Raleigh, North Carolina, April 13, 2013
I am not a great fan of Beer but the love of my life, Jason, is. Now, when I say fan I don’t mean he just likes drinking Beer, I mean he enjoys all aspects of it right down to brewing his own. I enjoy a cold one or two on a really hot day but my interest is no where near Jasons, however, I am making an effort to learn a bit more so we can do things like this together.
Jason prefers darker beers, the darker the better actually, but he will taste anything for comparison. Just as a wine connoisseur smells the wine, then checks out the colour, then lets a mouthful swirl around in his or her mouth so they can get the full idea of what is in the wine, so does the Beer connoisseur.
Preparing For the World Beer Festival
We are currently visiting friends in North Carolina, USA and had the opportunity to help out at the local annual World Beer Festival this weekend coming (April 13th 2013). We attended a briefing for the volunteers on Tuesday night and having never been to anything like this before, I was pleasantly surprised at the well organised and responsible manner this festival is being run. All About Beer Magazine has organised the Raleigh and Durham festivals for years now and it looks as though they take their job very seriously!!
The emphasis of the volunteer brief was primarily put on the enjoyment of the patron who will want to try the many (thousands!) different types of Beer that will be available at the World Beer Festival on the day, along with the responsibility that we, as volunteers, have to the patrons to maintain a professional, friendly and informative atmosphere for them while keeping an eye out for the odd one or two who are bound to push the boundries of the parametres that have been set for their safety and enjoyment as well as ours (and there are always some!!).
I was amazed at the lengths the organisers of this event have gone to to make sure that the experience the patrons have is one of education as well as safety and enjoyment. Patrons attending the World Beer Festival must purchase a ticket prior to the event and produce evidence of that ticket at the gate, they will then have their photo ID verified by a security person and given an appropriate wrist tag before they are admitted inside. They will then recieve a cup which is the only cup that will be accepted at each vendor at the World Beer Festival and they are only to be served 2 oz of each type of Beer at a time. This method ensures that the patron is only drinking a small amount at each tasting, enough to experience the Beer properly. As volunteers we were advised to encourage people to visit the many water stalls around the area and drink to stay hydrated throughout the day, there will also be food stations available. At selected venues within the complex there will be short seminars given on all the different aspects of beer throughout the dayand of course each beer stall has people manning it that are able to provide information about what they are serving.
Security at the World Beer Festival
Local authorities are on hand just in case of trouble but last year there was reportedly only one arrest compared to the previous years arrest count of 12, this has been attributed to a new management team and a restructuring of rules and solutions for on the day.
As a volunteer I was encouraged to read and learn as much as I could about the World Beer Festival before my shift on the day so I could converse some what with patrons and hopefully provide some entertaining facts and figures. Each volunteer was emailed two manuals, one covering the ins and outs of being a volunteer, the dos and don’ts and rules to be aware of for the day, the 2nd was a Beer 101 account of the product itself. As I said before, I am very impressed with the level of dedication and professionalism of the people running the World Beer Festival.
It is Saturday, April 13th, a beautiful day and I am sitting in the sun doing some last minute reading on the <u>World Beer Festival<u/> before Jason and I head into Raleigh to begin our shift (we chose the evening shift because it will be cooler and all the crazies come out at night ). I will share what I have learned and recount our experience in Part two of World Beer Festival in the next day or so. Wish me luck!!