On Friday we were able to enter Elysian’s Great Pumpkin Beer Festival an hour early thanks to the media passes that Elysian provided, and yesterday we lined up with the crowd to enter at noon (the media passes being only for the one day). And when I write “crowd” I’m not kidding—the line of people extended from the gates to the Brewery down the block, and up and along the overpass that wraps around Elysian—probably easily a quarter of a mile long, if not longer!

So hint #1 if you are attending today: get there early to get a good spot in line! That crowd above was easily waiting another hour to get in! (We got there about 11:20 and were in line at the intersection down the block. And they didn’t get the gates open until 12:20 actually.)

The rest of the Festival was as good, if  not better, than the first day. The weather was perfect—especially for Seattle!—and the crowd, while huge, was cheerful and amiable and even the lines to wait in never took too long. And of course there was plenty of good and unusual beers.

Hint #2 if you are attending this third and final day: try as many unique beers as you can, these are beer you’ll probably never see again. And keep wandering from station to station, they change taps out with occasional rarities—it was luck I was walking by as the tapped a super-limited case of Avery Rumpkin bottles! (And oh my that was an amazing beer!)

Hint #3: There is plenty of water to rinse with and to hydrate with at every table: for every beer you try, rinse and fill up with water while you’re waiting in line to stay hydrated. It will save you.

They tapped the giant pumpkin at 3pm (and will do the same today), which drew an amazingly large crowd—we managed to score a spot right up next to the pumpkin to get a front-row seat to the tapping and first pours of beer.

So hint #4: get close to the great pumpkin early, around 2:15-2:30 for the 3pm tapping, and you’ll guarantee yourself a taste of the beer inside!

Overall a very good day, and I’ll list the beers I tried in my next post; it was the same number as Friday, so I am consistent at the very least.

If you’re going to attend the third day of the Fest, enjoy!