All was not well, at least in the early hours of the 107.7 FM The Bone beer festival at the Alameda County Fair Grounds in Pleasanton Sunday afternoon. Got this comment from Hoppy Homer:

We checked this out on Sunday, waited 30 minutes in line for the Brewfest to view a sign at the tix booth: $30 admission includes six 4 oz. tastings and for an additional $15 you can buy an additional six 4 oz. tastings. To us, this was an extreme rip-off of paying $45 of the equivalent of four 12 oz beers, so we decided not to buy tix and left. We’re curious, was the case inside the brewfest, or was it as Mr. Brand wrote “$30 at the gate covers all the beer you can drink”?

Whew. Bad day, huh. I actually thought the admission covered the beer. Not so at all. I’ve e-mailed the publicist for the BBQ, but haven’t heard from her yet. But I just finished talking to Adam Lamoreaux, co-founder of Linden Street Brewing in Oakland. Adam was there, pouring his own Black Lager and Drake’s Amber.

Adam says that halfway throught the afternoon, the promoters relented and began giving 12 tickets for the entry fee, which made a lot more sense. But for many it was too little too late.

“It was crazy at the beginning of the day (with the four ounce, six m mm limit)” Adam said. “The drink cups were really small, like little Dixie cups. If you could somehow get beer to the top of those cups, you’d have had four ounces. You can just imagine the nightmare trying to fill those cups to the top from a jockey box.”

“People were livid – 24 ounces for $25 or $30. These guys who were running the event have to make some money, but they had to realize their prices were too high.”

But wait, there’s more. “A lady told me she got her ticket online and the will-call line for online tickets was the longest,”Adam said. “A lot of people saw the price and either turned around and left or were just rally mad.

It all worked out, but Adam said he felt bad for people who came early. He added that the promoters made it clear to brewers that the ABC was there and both ABC agents and the promoters were walking around to be sure that each person gave the brewer a ticket for each cup of beer.

Adam said he was about to just put the box of tickets he received on the counter and hope the wind would blow them away so people could get more tickets free. Fortunately, he said, the promoters relented.

Adam also said he was upset because the ABC license the Live 105 promoters got didn’t allow anyone under 21. Outside the fest area, Budweiser was selling beer for $7 or $8 and people could get their beer and eat barbeque, he said. But you couldn’t do that at the fest site.

“I brought my wife and new baby and they couldn’t even get in,” he said. “Nothing good happens in a place were no one under 21 is allowed and all they do is drink. Not being able to get my family in, that bummed me out.”