Goat Island hosting ‘Goatoberfest’
Come for the Goat Island beer; stay for the…Goat Island goats.
In the first event of its kind at the Cullman-based brewery, Goat Island is roping in its namesake mascot for a pre-Oktoberfest celebration that’ll let you enjoy some live music along with your locally-made craft beer — all while hanging out with some baaad four-legged company.
Goat Island’s first-ever “Goatoberfest” celebration will run all day on Sept. 26 at the brewery’s taproom in south Cullman, serving up a microbrewery-sized preview of the community-wide Oktoberfest event set to kick off the following weekend. To drive home the cloven-hoofed theme, there’ll even be a petting area where guests can spend some quality time with the rescue goats of Florence-based Panda Creek Farms.
If you’re especially partial to one of your new caprine friends, you can even make a donation to the farm’s goat rescue operation — or take home one of “the kids” as a pet. Just don’t get any ideas about viewing a potential goat adoption as anything other than a long-term commitment: organizers are very strict about saying “yes” to would-be adopters, and the same ethical guidelines that attend the adoption of a dog or cat apply here, too.
Set to begin at 11 a.m., the highlight of the day-long event will come along sometime around noon, when new Goat Island brewmaster Matthew Schumacher will tap the “Goatoberfest” keg — offering in the process a new, lighter recipe than the Goat Island Oktoberfest brew that longtime followers may be used to.
“It’s his own version, and it’s not the same one we’ve sold in the past,” explained co-owner John Dean. “It’s lighter and more appropriate to serve for a festival-type activity as you’d find with Oktoberfest in Germany. We’re going to be selling Goat Island steins as well, so you can drink from a stein and not end up being ‘filled up’ so quickly with this brew. The impetus for all this was really Matthew’s idea, and we’re really excited about bringing it here for the first time.”
The celebration is set to run from 11 a.m. until 10: 30 p.m., with a rotating lineup of musical entertainment throughout the day that includes the Huntsville-based Oompah-Calypse band, Trifecta, and the Wallace State Singers. For more details on Goatoberfest, it’s probably not a baaad idea to follow the brewery’s Facebook page.