Beer Festival

Yesterday Brad and I met up with John and his girlfriend, Troy, and we went to the Brooklyn Waterfront Beer Festival. The setting was perfect with views of Manhattan across the East River. It was a gorgeous afternoon with great company and some tasty beers to try.

Troy and John met us in Brooklyn before the festival started and we began the afternoon with an important ingredient: lunch! Here they are at the start of the festival with food in their stomachs and ready to try some beer.

How many beers did we try? Please don't ask me that question. (How many beers could you try in two and a half hours???) I'll just say that the festival was large enough that we didn't have time to try everything that was there. Most of the offerings were from craft breweries, and they were mostly from the States, but there were also some international beers. John and Troy are pretty knowledgeable so they guided us through the day and we learned a lot about beer from them.

Here is John explaining to Brad something about beer chemistry. (By the way, if you're curious to know more, here is the link to the festival.)

The setting was so beautiful we took plenty of photos with Manhattan behind us. (That tall building is the Empire State Building.)

It's a small world! While at the festival, thanks to some intervention-texting and calling by Peter, we met up with two of Peter's college friends, Tim and Matt.

More pretty views. After the festival, we found a Mexican restaurant and the four of us had a delicious dinner together. Brad and I stayed over in Brooklyn, and this morning we drove to the Upper West Side (where Troy lives) and we all had breakfast before Brad and I drove home to Connecticut. It was a great end to a lovely Father's Day weekend.

One more thing. Early this morning Brad and I took a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was overcast, so not a great day for pictures. But we still had majestic views (which my camera skills were unable to translate well into photos so I'll post just one). This is the view from the Brooklyn Bridge, of the Manhattan Bridge and the skyline of Midtown, with the Empire State Building being the tallest building in the photo.