Do not give the chimpanzee a beer!
One of the longest-running beer festivals in Florida will take place Saturday at the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa. WaZoo was named as one of the “Top 10 Summer Beer Festivals 2011” on my other site, Road Trips for Beer, and in 2004, a little publication called USA Today named WaZoo to its list of “10 great beer festivals to tap into for some suds in the summer sun.”
This year’s WaZoo will be its 16th annual, and for the 16th year in a row, I cannot attend because of a previous commitment. However, the buzz about the brews has grown stronger over the years, with more and more true independent craft beers being poured alongside the macrobrews that have always been available for the less adventurous beer drinkers. An encouraging note is that wholesaler JJ Taylor Distributing is the main sponsor for the fundraiser. I recently toured JJ Taylor’s Tampa warehouse, and will be writing about it soon, but I was flabbergasted at the sheer amount of locally and nationally produced craft beer that moves through the facility.
Here’s what the organizers have to say about what to expect at WaZoo:
For one ticket price, beer aficionados can go on a sampling safari of brews including lagers, porters, stouts, browns, ambers, wheats, ales, ciders, pilsners, draughts and more from international and independent brewers. On tap this year, WaZoo volunteers will pour more than 250 beers from about 70 breweries, worldwide.
To complement the suds, guests can graze on sure-to-please snacks and pub-friendly finger foods from a dozen favorite local eateries like Kona Grill, Square 1 Burgers, Tijuana Flats, Tampa Bay Brewing Company, Grille 54 and more.
For entertainment, guests can groove to great live music from local artists including The Flats, Audea, Adam Randall, and Colt Clark (BBC), and encounter some Zoo-Venturous animal ambassadors.
Proceeds will benefit the animal care and education programs at the zoo. The private, nonprofit zoo is consistently named to lists of the best in the nation.
On a personal note, this event makes brings back some childhood memories. My family frequently took outings to the zoo when I was growing up in Tampa. Outside the zoo area were a few rickety carnival rides, a “Fairyland” walk, with painted concrete figures out of nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Run-down picnic tables and gazebos sat amongst the towering oak trees of the park’s property on the shores of the Hillsborough River.
Of course, this was before the Time of Disney in Florida, so it still seemed like a magicak place to us kids.
However, though I didn’t realize it at the time, it was one of the worst zoos in the country. Big cats, bears, chimpanzees and other animals were confined to tiny, concrete-floored iron cages. The cages and enclosures became poorly maintained and the animals were neither happy nor healthy. The Humane Society took notice.
In the early 1980s, the zoo faced its demise, but former Tampa Mayor Bob Martinez spearheaded the movement to rehabilitate the zoo and the surrounding park. The refurbished and spacious animal habitats opened to the public in 1988, and with steady expansion to nearly 60 acres, dedicated volunteers and leaders, and a renewed focus on education, rehabilitation, conservation and research, Lowry Park Zoo stands as an example of a remarkable turnaround that benefits both the animals and the community.
Advance tickets for WaZoo are available at www.LowryParkZoo.com or by calling 813-935-8552, Ext. 276, or at the door the night of the event. General admission tickets are $55 in advance or $65 at the door the night of the event. Beastly Beverage Club tickets are $80 per person in advance, and are expected to sell out. Designated driver tickets are available. Group discounts available for 20 tickets or more.
