The suds will be flowing next weekend in Carriagetown. Hundreds of brews, dozens of styles will be featured at the Amesbury Brew Fest on Sept. 25. Which is a good thing. Because when you get hundreds of beer freaks together, the only thing you can count on is disagreements about what to order, about what's the best brew and, of course, what naturally flows from this, is why the other guy, even if he's your best friend, is completely wrong and obviously, unequivocally an idiot. You can't get anything approaching a semblance of a consensus — even when stating the obvious, the incontrovertible, like that all attempts at pilsner fall flat in comparison to Pilsner Urquell, the original and still the gold standard, other beer-drinkers being prone to making broad statements of fact and all. Hell, you can't even get an agreement among the musicians playing the festival, which is expected to bring upwards of 2,000 people to Amesbury Sports Park. The difference is style as much as taste. You've got guys like Seacoast regular Scott Barnett drawn to well-known, solid — if somewhat white-bread, performers like Newcastle or Sam Adams, especially seasonal varieties like Sammy Summer. "Nothing like a long day at work and then going out thirsty as could be ... and showing up at a bar, noticing that they have Newcastle on tap," he says. Then you've got guys like Christoph Krey, frontman for McAlister Drive, the Boston-based rockers known for big-ass hooks and sweet harmonies. He's your classic beer nut, a near-fanatic. The kind of guy who, when you ask him about his favorite beer, will rattle off the top five — Abita Purple Haze, Tripel Karmeliet, Wachusett's Blueberry, Mayflower Porter and Guinness — and for an encore, Shipyard Pumkinhead Ale. The top pick is a New Orleans brew, which, for those of us with any lingering memories of the '60s, is a name that probably over-promises what the experience will be. This choice, he admits, is probably a bit personal: When he was at Tulane and gigging around New Orleans, they always fed him free Abita products like Purple Haze.
