Innagural Strong Beer {Festivities}

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It was a day of firsts staged to celebrate and raise funds for The Georgia Craft Brewer's Guild who are hard at work lobbying for changes to GA alcohol codes, most notably HB314.

If passed, the revised legislation would allow breweries and brewpubs to sell limited amounts of beer from their establishments for customers to take home (which under current law is illegal). For obvious reasons, both the craft beer consumer and the brewers of said beers are clamoring for change.

Held last Saturday, The Innagural Wrecking Bar Strong Beer Fest offered up an array of Georgia's high gravity beers (none of which were below 8% ABV). Making their debut, Reformation Brewery arrived with a Belgian Tripel weighing in at 9.2%--a delicious first offering of more (hopefully soon) to come. Other favorites of the afternoon were Burnt Hickory's Old Wooden Head, and Wild Heaven's Winter Ale Cask.

The owners of Wrecking Bar, Bob and Kristine Sandage, opened the doors of this 20th-century Victorian-style home (formerly used as a Methodist Protestant church and a dance school) to patrons for this special event.

Fondly named by the original owner "The Marianna" (after his daughter), the upstairs rooms are airy and golden, wrapped in oiled dark wood, gorgeous light, and decorative stained glass. Inside, guests made their initial tastings before finding their way down a well-marked stairwell where an array of casks awaited sampling. A short trip through the adjacent biergarten lands you inside the brewpub, where more beer was offered both on tap and housed within a cozily dungeonous side room.

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Though many happily indulged in Wrecking Bar's inviting menu and dining space after about three hours of drinking, I couldn't pass up a chance to finish a day of firsts with a visit to The Porter. Ms. Endolyn, who I'd met only virtually through conversations on Twitter, led me on a brisk walk down Moreland to a perfect plate of Hangover Hash and a delightful taste of De Dolle's Still Nachte (and an eggnog cocktail served in a moose).

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They say hope is a dangerous thing, but events like these leave me with heaps of it and make me proud to be an Atlantan by proxy. If you're in Georgia and want to keep the hope alive, drop your Representative a note encouraging them to vote in favor of this bill http://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/en-US/display/20132014/HB/314

You can find your reps here: http://openstates.org/ga/