Beer, Ferrets and Tombstones

Beer, ferrets and tombstones...what do these three things have in common?  They were all a part of the Pannal Beer Festival!  A few of our friends live in Pannal, which is just two train stops (10 minutes) outside of Harrogate.  They invited us to a beer festival that was being held at a local church.  This festival so far exceeded my expectations that I don't even know where to begin.  I guess I'll start with the fact that it is a beer festival at a church.  That seemed strange enough, but then it turned out it was actually in the church's graveyard.  I can't say that I ever drank among tombstones before.  Apparently though, that's a big underage tradition in some parts of the states.  Who knew? 

Drinking in the cemetery

The admission price for the festival included a souvenir glass and five tickets for half pint samples.  The beer part of the festival was a lot smaller than I thought, but there were still twelve different beers to try.  Some of them weren't bad; I liked the Monkey Wrench and Dan liked Olde Trip.

My day got exponentially better when I found out they were taking bets on ferret races.  Seriously!  They had cages of ferrets who were ready to run down these flexible tubes.  It was amazing!!  Dan even got to start one of the ferrets off.  Unfortunately, Dan got a little too excited and started clapping at his achievement.  This led the ferret to run back to him instead of running to the end of the tunnel and the finish line.  It was hilarious.  I also got to take a ferret on a walk after the races.  This was way more fun than it sounds.  The ferret had a harness and was running all around the grounds.  This may or may not have taken place after sampling several of the local beers.

That ferret was feisty!

 
After the festival, we went back to our friends' house for a good old-fashioned BBQ.  It was just a fantastic day!  Definitely not what I expected, but a ton of fun!