beer-drinker's paradise. What I was not so sure about were the four-hour sessions. One thing you probably managed to avoid Mark were the enormous queues to enter each session. If you found yourself at the back of the queue, you could easily lose an hour of that session. But the worst part was that, having paid for the beer in advance, you now had an incentive to drink as much and as fast you could. The intention may be only to taste as much as possible, but the end result is that most people get incredibly drunk in a very short period time. That is the only downside in what is otherwise an incredible event. Yep, I avoided the queues thanks to my judge pass. I guess if you arrive early you cut off some queuing into the pour time? I didn't hear anyone complain about that so I'm not sure. Slamming shots of beer does descend into drunkenness for some people, but not all as a lot plan events after so want to keep some level of sobriety. Each to their own though: some people are happy to wander around sipping some new beers and chatting to friends, others want to get wasted. It's the same at any festival. Great blog post and has actually saved me writing the one that I was about to write and I can now concentrate on the esoteric stuff - marvellous! I agree with nearly all the points you make, although I think