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... it's Summertime Brews!

The festival is next Saturday, Aug. 15 at the Greensboro Coliseum, and tickets are on sale. This is a great shot for newbies to sip good beer, hang out with general beer lovers and watch the old salts around here get out, mingle and drink some of the best brews from the Southeast and across the world.

Make sure to grab your ticket soon. It always sells out. And here's the festival page on Facebook.

The lineup has a few regular big ol' breweries and popular favorites.

Looking at the list, some of the beers that I'm looking forward to having are coming from Brooklyn Brewery, and Sweetwater - which was responsible for plenty of my fun in college.

But now that we can get Sweetwater here, though, it's not so much of a novelty. So what's looking interesting?

New Holland Brewing is coming with a lineup from Michigan of stuff I haven't tried, including a kolsch, which has been my new beer style of late, along with the India Brown Ale. And LoneRider recently got some props at the World Beer Festival. A cousin recently told me about Stone, which makes some excellent beers, particularly IPAs.

But if you go, make sure to check out what the home brewers are doing. Or, better yet, don't. That'll leave more of the best, freshest beer there for me and my pals.

Moving on, let's see some of the North Carolina offerings to look forward to. Big Boss has been making respectable beers for some time - my friends in Raleigh make it out to the brewery each month for the tour. And there's Front Street, French Broad and so many others. And while we're on it, go read Jeri Rowe's story today on North Carolina beer. And that Sam Bush show that he mentions last week was fantastic. For a free concert, the man played about 3 hours straight of music that ranged from reggae to metal. Metal, at least, if you count Led Zeppelein as a band that made metal possible.

One beer that I'm really curious about comes from the United Kingdom - Charles Wells is bringing its Banana Bread Ale. That's going to be interesting.

For future beverage blogs, I'd like to find out where the good beers are around the Triad. If you have suggestions, drop me a line at 373-7008 or gerald.witt@news-record.com