SpecTAPular indeed in Sydney - biggest day in Darlo Taphouse history

What an absolutely glorious day for our Star Spangled SpecTAPular in Sydney on March 10th! After the wettest summer this side of the Harbour Bridge, the Texan sun came out to play and gave us a shiner of a day!

With a queue extending 20 metres down the road from 11:30am, we opened the doors at 12:03pm and the place was a fanfare of Americana, chilli dogs and Red, White and Blue.

The paddles were a big hit at the start of the day with some eager beavers trying two paddles at once to get most of the range in before any of the 20 US craft beers were drained. The IPAs were obvious favourites but the Marin Airporter proved especially popular as did the Big Bear Black Stout, somewhat surprising for such a warm day.

The rooftop was a big hit for the American expat community and we even had the US Consul-General, his wife and other associates lounging in the middle floor enjoying some well earned tasters. The C-G, Mr Niels Marquardt, even got to ring the bar bell to signal another keg emptied (see photo below).

By 8pm the bell had been rung many times over, with most of the higher ABV beers selling out quicker than their lighter ABV counterparts (which goes to show that us Sydney-siders aren't afraid of Big Black Bears). Overall, we sold more beer than at all previous SpecTAPulars and by 10pm we were down to just four (!) US beers and we had to throw on a couple of locals to keep up with demand.

Thank you to all the staff who worked extraordinarily hard in extremely busy circumstances. Also thanks to Dom for pulling together some incredible decorations which transformed the venue. An extra special thanks to the US Department of Agriculture who generously sponsored the event (which helped bring the price of beer down) and everyone who came along and donated on the door to our Royal Children's Hospital Sydney fundraising appeal. We managed to raise a record $2,150!

To see the slideshow of photos, click here.

See you next time for the Taphouse highlights of the Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular on May 19th followed by the Italian Winter SpecTAPular on July 21st.