kipper

I found that some breweries will have various swag for sale. If you stick around until the end of the last session, you can sometimes snag swag they would prefer not to pack up and haul back. I have a case of pint glasses that I snagged that way. The guys didn't want to haul them home, so we agreed to take them. They are from a now pretty large brewery.

BamaVol

I sort of figured that the paper list was so 3 years ago. Still, I'd have appreciated it. I have a bottle opener on my keychain that came from Bent River Brewery at the last Des Moines beerfest I attended. That's really what I was looking for. They tend to break off the keychain and disappear over time.

I did stop off at Peace Tree Brewing and buy a t-shirt my final day in town. That will have to suffice. Their beers are mediocre but I like their logo.

Worst beers of the weekend? I tried too many flavorless brown ales. I don't know why breweries bother. But the absolute worst was a gose reeking of coriander. That came on a flight I shared with my son at the bar at Zombie Burger yesterday afternoon.

darthbimmer

I like the idea of dumping beer you don't like. I've tried lots of 3-oz. samples from local tap rooms that offer them. I can tell you that when I don't like a beer I know way earlier than 3 ounces into it. Usually, though, because I'm paying per-pour I drink the whole thing unless it's really awful. But if I had unlimited tastes, or way more tastes than I could reasonably drink, I'd pour out the bad ones after two sips.

Old Hickory

So what did you do/how did it go?

BamaVol

I found a fair number of New England style IPA's, maybe 5-10, that I enjoyed, none as good as the best I've already tasted. Sours and goses were relatively abundant. I tried all I could find, maybe 10 or 15. I realize that I prefer them fruit-flavored. Too many producers offering standard IPA's. One brewer had 6 different IPA's, none that I could distinguish from the others. I also tasted as many porters and stouts as I could find. Maybe 60 beers in total, but I asked for a half pour on many and dumped quite a few. Worst: no one there makes a brown ale of distinction. I couldn't taste any of them - no flavor whatsoever. I didn't make notes, nor did I remember any of the breweries the following morning, which is no big deal since I live hundreds of miles away and these were primarily regional beers. Just a fun afternoon. I find I like Des Moines a lot. Small enough to be manageable, large enough to have a couple dozen breweries. Lots of good food and drink. And a chance to catch up with a son I don't see often enough.

pudgym29

I emphasize with you on the lack of a paper listing of the craft beers on offer.
In all my years of attending beer festivals {including numerous years of the Great American Beer Festival}, my plan is generally to go from lower to higher alcohol by volume beers. A paper list of what is on offer helps greatly. But I understand that for festivals which do not involve cask beer, this may not be practical.
The one additional element that I can offer is, since this specific beer festival was in Des Moines, IA., if you did not like the beers you had from Confluence Brwg., please tell me! One of the co-owners of Confluence was a travel agent back in the mid-1990s. (He would have got the travel bookings for the Chicago POWER indoor soccer team if we had got the franchise in 1995.) I probably still have some connection to him that can push him down the correct avenue.