The kegs are kicked, our shoes are soaking wet and our heads are gently reminding us about how much fun we had these last few days!

Friday’s Meet the Brewer’s Dinner was off the charts – the beers were so brilliantly paired with an excellent meal and Sean Lawson of Lawson’t Finest Liquids and Mike Gerhart of Otter Creek were fantastic. Then it was time the big show – SIPtemberfest – and despite the wet air and the grey skies, there were about 1000 smiles on the lawn. And why not?  With an all star line up of brewers and distillers it was pretty hard to not have an amazing time!  But that wasn’t the end – Hostel Tevere and the Mad Taco teamed up to throw one heck of a post party with great beer, food and music that kept everyone going late into the night.

So with several strong cups of coffee and the dub radio station from Pandora setting the pace this morning, it’s back up to Mad River Glen to assess the damage and pick up the stuff that didn’t fit into our cars yesterday… Then it’s time to sort through all our photos and read all your emails! If you have any feedback for us – good our bad – we’d love to hear it! We’d also love to see any photos you took! You can email us at siptemberfest@madriver.com. We will post a 2012 photo gallery as soon as we can.

• Don’t forget to stay in the loop! Sign up for Fresh SIPs – top right hand side of this page – so you can get our posts emailed directly to you. Super helpful for things like seeing all the photos we post or finding out when the 2013 SIP will be and when tickets go on sale (we sold out in three weeks this year and will probably sell out quicker next year!)
• If you are looking for more of our tshirts and/or glasses, we will be selling them online so stay tuned. You can also find more of our great hops-themed retail items from alena botanica, Montalto Arts and Green Mountain Glassworks by checking out their respective web pages.

We would like to thank all of our sponsors for their generosity and support!  Craft beer fans themselves, you can find a lot of the brews you try at the SIP on the shelves of Hunger Mountain Co-op and Mehuron’s Market, or on the taps at Arvad’s, Prohibition Pig, Three Penny Taproom, Hostel Tevere, Mad Taco and Mad River Glen! Please thank these folks for helping us continue to make the SIP the same but better!

Thanks also to our smart, savvy and muscle bound volunteers  for their untiring initiative, attention to detail and smiles! And our organizing team for their countless hours of way-too-late-night-beer-fest-planning, And of course our brewers and distillers for their magical talents to turn water into golden deliciousness!

Finally, we would like to thank everyone out there for your continued and enthusiastic support! YOU are why we put this festival on so again, please comment on our posts or email us with your feedback and photos!

CHEERS AND SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!!

Today’s the day! The tents are set up, the beer has been delivered and the forecast is calling for some early showers, clearing up in the afternoon with a 100% chance of fun and kick ass beer!

Gates open at 1pm! We know there was some chatter on the radio about 11am but that is wrong. (DOH!)  The Mountain runs foliage rides at that time, but the festival and festival grounds -including the MRG Pub – will be closed until 1pm so we can set up.

If  for some crazy reason you can’t make it and were hoping to sell your tickets,  we’re sorry but it’s kinda too late!  We check tickets in by purchaser name and while we do have some major insomniacs on our organizing team who don’t know how to stop working, we need them to help us set up so we can’t make anymore ticket name changes!

If you didn’t get a ticket, you can still come up and join us! It’s FREE to hang out, so even though the SIP is sold out, you can come party, eat, dance – you can even get beer and wine from the General Stark’s pub! Woo hoo!

Don’t forget – after last call the Hostel Tevere will be hosting the SIP Post Party! So if you haven’t planned ahead already, park at the Hostel, take our free shuttle courtesy of Alpine Limo to SIPtemberfest and back and maximize your fun-having!

Cheers!

It’s official. Saturday is sold out. Friday is sold out. SIPtemberfest is SOLD OUT! So here’s the info you all need:

• Please remember that this is a rain or shine event so come prepared for whatever Mother Nature dishes out! Right now the forecast for Saturday isn’t exactly calling for sunshine and 70s but it’s still a better forecast than we had last year! In light of the potential for the r-word, though, let’s all channel our inner hippies and visualize wearing our sunglasses and wrapping our sweatshirts around our waists and saying things like ‘Man! It turned out to be such a great day!

  

• Also remember that all tickets will be checked in by purchasers last name! You don’t need to bring physical tickets but you DO NEED TO BRING YOUR ID!! If you bought or sold tickets amongst yourselves you 100% definitely need to email us at @siptemberfest@madriver.com and let us know the ticket name changes. If you purchased tickets for you and your friends, you don’t need to email us any other names unless you will be entering separately. Same rules apply for Friday & Saturday tickets.
• Friday doors are at 6:30 and dinner starts promptly at 7. Please have your IDs when you arrive.
• Gates open Saturday at 1pm! We are just as excited to get things going as you are, but please be patient and have your ID ready at check -in. If you are not partaking in the SIP but are there with friends, you don’t need to wait in line to get in.
• Don’t forget to take the bus! Park at Hostel Tevere and take the bust to SIPtemberfest and back!
• After last call at SIPtemberfest, don’t forget to head to Hostel Tevere for the SIP Post Party!
• If you have more questions – like directions to MRG, what times the Foliage Rides runs – check out our SIP 411 page.