In quite an unusual move for me, I found myself hopping out of bed fairly early last Saturday morning. I took a quick shower, and then gently shook my wife awake.

She did some grumbling, but eventually she managed to claw her way out of bed. As she slid past me she made the observation about how it’s impossible for her to wake me up on a normal Saturday morning, but I seem to hop right up when we’re zipping off to buy some beer.

Guilty as charged.

In all fairness though, this isn’t a normal beer I was zipping off to. The beer I was after that day was from Captain Lawrence Brewing in Pleasentville NY, just a little bit outside of NYC. It was a gold medal winner in last years Great American Brew festival in the American Sour Beer category. The beer’s name is Cuvee De Castleton, and if any beer is worth the drive, this would be it.

This is a beer you don’t buy in a store. To get a brew like this you watch for word it’s being released and then you high-tail it down early to the brewery and wait in line with all of the other beer geeks.

So that’s how Lisa and I found ourselves making the long trip on Saturday morning to buy a few beers. Normally I wouldn’t have subjected Lisa to such a trip. Unfortunately for her, the brewery was limiting purchases to only four beers per person. By my thinking having eight beers in hand seemed MUCH better then having just four soooo…….

Needless to say, I owe her one.

We arrived at the brewery around 11:40, twenty minutes before opening. This was the scene I found.

I would estimate about 150 certified beer fanatics or so, most of whom were passing around various craft beers amongst themselves (why didn’t I think of that). I noticed that more then a few people brought their entire families, as I saw quite a few kids there. I wonder if their parents were bringing the kids into the brewery so they could score some extra bottles of the Cuvee. Pretty slick!

Anyway, at 12:00 noon sharp Captain Lawrence owner and head brewer Scott Vaccaro popped out to address the masses.

It’s probably not the best picture of Scott, but hey, it’s not like I’m a professional!

Scott spoke a few words, announcing that they should have plenty of beer for everyone and laid out the rules for forming up lines. There was a bit of a mad rush after that, but Lisa has a way of worming her way up a line pretty quickly without pushing people out of the way. Here’s a shot of the line behind us.

Is that guy in the black giving me the evil eye or what? He must not be a BrewBasement fan.

We found ourselves inside pretty quickly. We were waiting in the line that snaked through the tasting room so we could pay with a credit card. I think that was a good move on our part, because we were able to sample all of the tasty beers they had on tap while we waited! As you can see from the pictures below, it was a bit crazy in there. If I had one complaint, it was that there were too many people trying to get their growlers filled as well, which was really slowing things down for the rest of us that were there for the Cuvee.

Eventually, I reached the head of the line, paid for my beers and made my way out of there.

Was it worth the trip? Well, since I just tried one of these a few days ago, I can honestly say I would have driven a heck of a lot further for a beer this good. More on this soon!

Jason

jason@brewbasement.com

www.brewbasement.com