It was a warm summer day in beautiful Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Nicolas, a German who recently moved to the US as his company wanted to screw his life a little bit, was meeting with some friends to celebrate their common heritage: Beer! Little did he know what lay ahead of him as in his youthful naive spirit he did not recognize the true meaning of the Lehigh Valley Hops Fest.
Ok... let's cut right to the chase. I went to THE beer fest in the Lehigh Valley with two German interns. The first thing that caught me by surprise is that it is organized by the Celtic Cultural Alliance of Bethlehem to preserve the Celtic culture. FYI: The town was founded by Germans so whaaaat?
Anyways... I paid 40$ to get a sampler glas and to be allowed to taste 110+ beers by 60 breweries in two hours around noon. Luckily we had about 32°C so drinking a lot in a short time was a bare necessity.
So I went to the first brewery. They had two beers. An IPA and an IPA. I tried the IPA and no surprise: Not my kind of beer. Just to hoppy. But you know what.. 108+ beers to go so no worries. Next brewery offered an IPA and another IPA. Ok. When in Rome do as the Romans do... still not to my liking. So I went for the map of the event to figure out where to go. Amongst all the IPA I saw a Berliner Weisse. Chemicals and beer? That sounds like something they could do well in the states so I went for it. What I got was a beer that looked like someone poured milk in it and tasted like someone squeezed a complete lemon in my glas. I have to admit I tried a cider after that just to reset the taste buds.
After some more IPAs the interns managed to find a brewery that offered Pilsener. So I got a refreshing Pilsener that tasted... hoppy. Panic spread in me and I was looking for a last resort... and there it was: Koelsch. This refreshing mixture of beer and sparkling water invented in Cologne and served in shot glasses is the one beer in the world which can't be hoppy. So there I was with manga stile eyes looking at the server saying "this is so great, you actually serve Koelsch here" and he responded "this is so great, you're actually German". I guess that means I rather sounded like "Zis is soooo gread, you eggually surf Koelsch here". But even after that bummer I was still excited... not for long. "You have to know this is an American style Koelsch" he said... "it has 8,6%" he said... it tasted hoppy I say.
I finally got why they called the whole thing hops fest rather than beer fest. *ba dum tsss
In the end we managed to find another brewery that offered Koelsch that tasted like Pilsener and we stuck with it till the time ran out. So it was 3pm, hot as hell and we were at a point where the interns thought it is was a better idea to get home and sleep till the next day. Luckily I met some more experienced people from the CrossFit who knew the German saying of "half drunk is wasted money" and wanted to continue drinking until the "clubs" in the Lehigh Valley opened. So this is what we did... we drank more IPA. I also learned another meaning of the word "gummy" (for all you Germans: This is not referring to condoms) and visited the Lehigh Valley food truck competition. Not to say that I was in a state to judge the quality of the food... but when I was sitting on a plastic chair in the middle of a huge parking lot next to an industrial ruin, the sun shining on me, totally wasted like everyone around me... I actually felt like I arrived.
We celebrated that by going to the "club", realizing it was empty, going back to the industrial ruin to watch the Copa America, to go back to the "club", which still was empty, to go to a bar (bookstore), to go back to the "club". Our decisions process may have been a bit unstable but it was fun. By "club" I'm referring to Molly's Irish pub by the way. And no kidding, after having a couple more beers I was standing at the bar looking at the premium beer selection. They had IPA, IPA, IPA and IPA... but in the upper left hand corner of the fridge I saw something I could not resist... an instant throwback to the times when drinking was easier... after the hoppiest day in my life I ordered a Smirnoff Ice.
They still make fun of me today...
