2010 Belgian Fest Report

This years Belgian fest was better than ever due to the additional company and excellent beers. It was some what difficult getting there because the event was held in the aftermath of the two huge winter storms of Feb 2010, but we eventually made it.

The adventure started with us taking the bus from Owings Mills because the trains were not running at the above ground stations. I don’t really have many positive things to say about this form of transit. It was slow and we took a couple of strange detours. We eventually made it to the transfer point to the underground rail, but once moving they were also going really slow for some reason. By the time we made it out of shot tower we had lost a lot of time and only had a little over an hour to eat and get to maxes.

Left with little options, we grabbed some delicious pre-made McDonalds breakfast sandwiches and made the walk to Maxes. We made a quick stop into our usual breakfast stop (Blue Moon) to say hi to Scott, but the wait staff were confused with our entry and quick exit. We turned the corner to Maxes to find a handful (maybe 15) already waiting. We quickly brushed off our transit imposed lateness and squeezed into line at the opening point of the door, this is where experience pays off. The event opened on time and we quickly grabbed our usual table, sure to put two together for the added guests. The tables were bar tables instead of the usual ones, but that worked out fine.

John, Scott, and I started off as usual with samples but when my cousin and her husband arrived they started ordering all kinds of things, thus many things were tasted. I’m going to do my best to reproduce both lists and highlight the ones from mine that were good. Here is my list first:

*Was supposed to be a 12 oz Gueuze (L Enfant Terrible), but we got a 22 oz strong dark instead. Didn’t notice until now.
** This is a duplication from a previous year by mistake.
*** May be the same beer as the bottle in #10 even though one letter difference. Wouldn’t have happened if the first beer was correct.

Here is the sample list from Rebecca’s notations: