Blame it on an errant goat

Last night was my first BockFest experience. I went down with Jeff and Dutch. We tried going to Arnold's to start off, but by 5:15 it was already at max capacity. So we decided to head on down main street to see what other bars we could go to. We ended up finding Jack Pott's Tavern. It is officially going to open on April 2nd. It is where the old Jefferson Hall use to be. We bought our first beers their and watched the parade from the sidewalk outside the bar. It wasn't much of a parade, maybe 5-10 minutes or so. Supposedly there is no sign ups or anything, if you want to be in the parade, then you just show up and walk in it.





After the parade went by, we finished our beers and headed to the hall where they would bless and tap the keg. The hall was pretty much a wide open warehouse, but it was PACKED. They did a good job with having two areas for beer and about 15 porta-potties so things moved pretty quick. We saw some old friends from high school there so we ended up hanging out a little longer than planned. So we enjoyed the live music and fried pickels and then we headed out.

We hopped on the free shuttle bus that was going around to all the bars all night long. We got dropped off by Arnold's which is the closest bar to the main part of the city and then went to Lodge Bar for a friend's birthday for the rest of the night.

Here are some of the photos from the night, we will definitely have to go back next year:









They had to take its head off to get it into the hall.

The word "bock" means goat in German. The connection to beer comes from a legendary Renaissance-era drinking contest between two beer-brewing monks. The bock beer's high alcohol content is said to have caused the loser of this competition to fall over, which he blamed on an errant goat that had entered the saloon. The winner chided his prostrate friend and told him that the only goat that knocked him down was in the beer. Today, that goat is still in the beer and prominently featured in Bockfest themes.

I was definitely blaming the goat this morning ...