I Hope They Have Beer in Heaven

For 4 years, the last weekend in June meant one thing, that thing that would cause friends to travel great distances and promote the usage of vacation days, a holiday unlike any other:

The Old Dominion Beer Festival.

You may laugh, but this truly was a very, very special weekend event. It would start on Friday around 5pm and ended Sunday at 7pm and those three days were chockablock full of music, food, cigars, an inevitable sunburn, probably a rain shower or two and, of course, lots and lots of beer to sample...fifty breweries in fact. It was summer. After the festival we'd go inside the brewery to fill our growlers and get dinner (as Brandt is doing after the 2006 festival. That's five growlers he is holding; I have four myself).

That all changed in March, 2007 when Old Dominion Brewery was bought out, with Coastal City Brewing Company getting a 51% share and good old Anheuser-Busch getting 49%.
Last May I got online, looking up the musical acts for the 11th annual ODB fest only to find it wasn't happening...they blamed construction. They said, "Don't worry! We'll be back and bigger than ever next year!"

Today is supposed to be the big day of ODB fest.
I should be sitting at a picnic table, stuffing my face with a funnelcake and downing my 12th sample of Some Kind of Awesome Beer with all my friends, but no.
There is no joy in Mudville, ODB Fest is no more more.
I hate you, Anheuser-Busch. Hate you.

(Romano and Seany in happier times, standing with glorious kegs of ODB goodness)

Note: Asheville has the Brewgrass Festival in September, celebrating all things bluegrass and beer-ish, but Brandt (guy with the growlers) is a slimy bastard and is getting married in Virginia the same day as Brewgrass. Bah.