On Saturday, June nineteenth, I attended the 4th annual NYC Brewfest presented by Heartland Brewery. The festival, which was set on the exquisite Governor’s Island in the NYC Harbor (a place that you must visit), is an exciting concept, featuring the ability to taste both large-scale and micro-brewed beers from around the world. My $55 ticket provided transportation to and from the island (via water taxi), festival entry, and a 3oz. tasting cup. Although the beer was the real star, the festival boasted live music, brewing seminars, and some casual food.

The event was sold out for the 4th year in a row. This was quite apparent by the enormous, and sometimes impatient, crowd at every step. When I first arrived at pier 11 on the lower east side of Manhattan, I expected a brief wait for our ferry. However, this was not the case—we walked for about 5 minutes before finding the end of the line. Although it seemed as if the boats were continuously picking up people, the urge to moo was overwhelming. After finally making it up to the boarding area, we learned that there was a huge line to get into the festival so the rate of ferry pick up was slowing down in order to help thin the crowds on the island. Luckily, I was armed with sun block, as there was no shade.

As we eagerly stood waiting for something to happen, we caught the eye of a ferry. The mood of the crowd picked up and a huge round of applause that probably could have been heard from the Brooklyn shoreline drew our ship near. The six-minute ride was surprisingly rough, but I welcomed the breeze after waiting in the heat. Once arriving on Governor’s Island (after 1 hour and 15 minutes of waiting), we had about a quarter mile walk to the festival site. Luckily, their tactic to slow down the ferries in order to control the crowds on site worked and we walked right in, cups in hand. The festival was arranged as a rectangle with a row of brew-tents lining the entire length. At every tent, there was a line about 40 people deep making the wait to taste a bit long. We learned that once you got your taste from one tent, you had to immediately get on line for the next if you did not want to have huge intervals with a dry mug.

To be quite honest, the waiting for everything (beer, food, bathroom) started to get old. We were at the festival for about two hours when we made the decision to try and beat the big crowd and get on a ferry. It turns out that we were not the only ones with that idea. Once again, we waited in a mosh-pit without music to board the ferry, but this time there were more than a few of us who had had their fair share of beer (although I am not sure how they managed to reap the benefits of beer, given the 3oz. serving and the long waits). What should have been about ten minutes travel time morphed into an hour, and finally stepping foot onto Manhattan’s shores never felt so good. Given my experience, I do not think I would attend another Brewfest; however, I would most certainly visit Governor’s Island again (on a non-festival day of course). Perhaps for the true beer connoisseurs, this was the Mecca of NYC events. But, if you were hoping to tie one on (I may or may not have fallen into this category), you are better off using your $55 in your favorite pub (ferry not required).