What a night it was! By the numbers: 1202 people, 50 kinds of beer, 18 restaurants, 12 home brewers, 2 bands and 1 heck of a good time! We had many first time restaurants this year, and many kinds of beer never before available in the Valley. The band Marshall Law was amazing in the Deutsch & Deutsch German Beer Garden and Howl at the Moon kept the audience engaged and entertained in big top. Thank you to each and every person who came out to drink, eat and play at A Night At The Brew-seum.
We had to make a few changes this year in order to keep our event in compliance with TABC regulations. Probably the most noticeable change was the new “beer card.” According to TABC guidelines, it is illegal to have an “all you can drink for one price” event. The purpose of the card was to put a limit, however liberal, on the amount of beer each person could have for the price of admission. Following the advice of the TABC, we put 25 drinks on the card. At 3-4 ounces per serving, that gave everyone the chance to drink 75-100 ounces of beer. That’s about 6-8 twelve ounce cans of beer. We heard a number of folks concerned about the cards when entering the event. By the end of the night, we saw very few filled cards and the concerns, for the most part, faded away.
While A Night At The Brew-seum is a beer event, we recognized last year that there are people out there, a few, who don’t like beer – but still want to come to our event. Last year we added the wine “downgrade” for the first time ($10 to get a special wine bracelet). About 25 people took advantage of the wine offerings. This year that number jumped to 81. We had to re-stock the wine coolers much more quickly than last time!
A Night At the Brew-seum was actually a culmination of “Brew-seum Week” this year. A week earlier at Roosevelt’s at 7, we had the judging for the first Brew-seum Battle of the Brew Spring Ale Home Brew Competition. We crowned the winner on the stage in the German Beer Garden. On Thursday the 19th, we had Brew-seum’s first Beer Dinner, featuring the exquisite cuisine of Chef Larry Delgado from House.Wine and the expertise of Shiner Brewmaster Peter Koestler as they paired the great food with the extensive Shiner beer offerings. It was a great night of beer, food and fun which exceeded our expectations with more than 100 people joining the festivities.
Of course, A Night At The Brew-seum would not have been possible without the support of our great sponsors. Clark Chevrolet and Clark/Knapp Honda – our title sponsors for the fourth consecutive year. Deutsch and Deutsch Fine Jewelry ..the only sponsor the German Beer Garden has ever had. For the second year in a row, Stella Artois sponsored the Tap House Tent. Shiner Bock helped make the awesome Brew-seum T-Shirts a possibility. This year we welcomed new sponsors L3 Technologies (Entertainment) and IBC Bank (Tent coolers). We also would like to thank Domit Apartments for sponsoring the Brew-seum pint beer glasses, and Kolder Inc for the Kolder Holders. Our added events this year also had sponsors. GreatBrewers.com made the Home Brew Competition a reality. Kirk and Jeri Clark sponsored the Beer Dinner and Arthur Hughes of Ameriprise Financial Services provided the beer mugs for the Beer Dinner. We also would like to thank our media sponsors KRGV Channel 5 and Celebrity Events Magazine.
On behalf of the International Museum of Art and Science, it’s board of directors, staff and members, thank you for being part of our “fundraiser cleverly disguised as a beer drinking event.” We welcome your comments about what you liked and didn’t like about A Night At the Brew-seum. We are only 11 1/2 months away from Brew-seum 2013 and we’re already busy planning the best event ever.