The onslaught begins

4 days into my inaugural World Beer Cup Experience and I'm just coming up for a breath of air... the pace is frenetic and my personal stats log is totting up at an incredible rate.

• 1 run along the Chicago river to Lake Michigan.
• 3 early morning head-clearing swims in the hotel pool
• 3 breweries visited, plus Goose Island tonight
  
• Too many monster-size American meals
• Around 140 beers tasted, mostly for the first time!

Like much of America when seen through British eyes the scale of everything here is just awesome, whether that's the buildings, the food portions travelling around and the WBC/ CBC itself.

Sunday
After a bit of a run to get my bearings and keep me from crashing out immediately I went for a few beers in one of Rock Bottom's 34 brewpubs. Loved their 'Hophead' (yes, another one) IPA, which was perfect with a medium rare Laredo Burger, topped with Chipotle mayo and guacamole one of the best burgers I've ever had. Melissa & Dan opted for a range of starters - Buffalo wings with a kick like a Mule, Giant Toothpicks of deepfried Tortilla and Onion Rings the size of Horses hooves - I kid you not, just see above!

Monday
An opportunity for World Beer Cup judges to get to know each other on a coach tour around 2 'local' breweries, 3 Floyds at Munster and 2 Brothers at Warrenville (more about them later) . At 5PM we had a judges orientation and tricky little taste test of 3 American Pale Ales to benchmark our standards and see if we could identify any 'out of style' characteristics. The 7 people who identified the wrong beers, were flayed in front of their peers (or probably felt like they had been!). Once that was over, more social work at, you've guessed it, Rock Bottom. This time it was a feast of Chicken wings & Pork ribs, Corn bread and cheese to mop up the special Barrel-aged stout and Rye IPA the brewing team had prepared for us.

Tuesday
Straight after a hearty breakfast of beer-soaking superfuel we're into the first round of judging.
First beer passes my lips at 9.16 AM and carries on with unremitting regularity until the briefest of lunch breaks. Starting with 10 Saisons & Biere de Gard, my fellow judges and I then rattled through 11 Czech Pilsners and 10 Barley Wines before re-fueling! The 15 minute stop was followed by a figurative stop-off in Bavaria, to taste 11 Hefe Weissen and 11 Dunkel Weissen.
In many ways it's frustrating not knowing what you are drinking, in many cases, except for the winners we never will, though it's the only fair way.
Tuesday night I hooked up with Alex from Little Creatures, brewer of the almost Godly Little Creatures Pale Ale, Thornbridge Kel., Patrick a lager-brewer from Belgium and Engel, a beer-loving Forensic Pathologist (I kid you not) from Holland. We headed up-town to a recommended Taco bar called Big Star for a few rounds of Lagunitas' excellent Pilsner and various mixed plates. A short walk round the corner was Piece Pizzahouse & Brewpub. Pizza's looked amazing, though the 'Franco-Belgian' Ale was entirely forgettable. Final stop for the night was to be at Smoke Daddy, a bar as cool as it sounds, with a Bluesy 2-piece playing background to my last beer of the day - Dogfish head's Aprihop. This IPA, matured on Apricot was a dark and delicious fusion masterpiece, loaded with hops but cunningly selected to enhance rather than mask the Apricots. Beautiful, and a fitting end to the day.