Belgium Comes To Cooperstown ‘10

Ahh, only 12 months since the Planet of the Ales, the tone begins to change.  No more Friday night camping,  leading to the discovery of Deer Haven campground.  Friday AM brings cold rain, Dan and Suzan buy extra clothes so they can actually go for a bike ride and only approach hypothermia.  This is July?   On the way back into town we have a VW weekender sighting… Stewart’s brew crew on the road in.

Ed and Jamie show up with 3 month old Willa… you do the math.  A cold drizzle leads to heavy drinking at Deer Haven.  Wait, anything would have led to heavy drinking at Deer Haven.  Ed stokes the fire, Oliver steals food, and all is well in the world.

Morning finds us parking the van next to the lovely boys from Brewers Art in Baltimore.  As we head out on the bikes,  they offer to watch Oliver; good score for him (they had hamburgers), good score for us (they had beer).  Plenty of  good brews, we discover that both Brewers Art and Stewart’s continue to pour after the tasting is over.  4 year old Sage (Stewart’s daughter) proves she can draw a mean beer.   Ed grows contentious but Dan points out that while he can lose the extra pounds he had put on, Ed will still have three kids next year.

At the end of the weekend, Ed bemoans the dwindling debauchery of last year’s Ommegangstock, but we all decide it’s worth a return next year.   Oliver (rest his doggie soul) is known up and down the camping row… apparently he had more than one hamburger that evening.