This isn't the beer tent, but it does give you a sense of scale

What good is having a blog if you can’t write excessively about things of marginal or no interest to the bulk of the population? Or a beer column in a city weekly paper for that matter? Isn’t “lifestyle journalism” supposed to be about self-importance? All this is a lead-in to warn those of you who AREN”T one of the 15000 or so people who are attending the Edmonton Folk Music Festival this weekend. You see, my latest Vue Weekly column AND my CBC column later this afternoon are both about the Folk Fest beer tent (officially called a “beer garden” now)

I have long been a stalwart of the Folk Fest (haven’t missed one since 1987), and, naturally, have spent my share of time hanging out in the outdoor kitchen party that is the beer tent. As I mention in the Vue piece, the tent is a Big Rock exclusive zone – meaning a fairly narrow range of beer options available. However, the tent makes up for its lack of variety with an excess of atmosphere. Rain or shine it is a great place to spend a couple of hours with old friends (or new friends) sharing a beer or three.

Given my long history as a beer-tentian, I decided to offer up some tips for the myriad newbies who might wander across the orange fence barrier into the beer garden. It is not my best piece of writing, without question, but if you are lounging on the Folk Fest hill, it may offer helpful and passable enjoyable reading (you can read the Vue column here). For those of you not lucky enough to be on the hill, maybe it will inspire you to get your butts in gear and buy tickets next year.

My CBC column today will be a fun romp. Peter Brown is going to throw music clips at me and I am going to pick which beer (available at the Festival) will go best with it. Not a whole lot of beer education (or substance of any kind) there, but what else are you to do sitting on a stage at the festival site? (PROGRAMMING NOTE: to those of you interested in listening live, I am not at my regular time. It is fluid due to the unreliable nature of musicians, but I will be on sometime between 3 and 4 pm today). I suspect the CBC folks are smart enough to not post this one on the website, so I may not be able to offer a link. However, if they do I will update this post with one.

Ironically, after all this beer tent talk, I didn’t even try to get into the tent last night. I suspect that will change tonight, though. If you are at the festival, say hi and we can have a beer. If you aren’t, well you will hear more from me next week.