Renaissance Fair Drinking Things

I have been attending the Renaissance Festival since it began at its humble beginnings at Jonathan, West of Minneapolis. I have noticed for the last few years the shrinking of the Renaissance official goblet and mug. I then determined to do a small experiment with the mugs and goblets in my home and to see if my thoughts were correct. Below are my findings.

Mug 2009 with warrior and sword, looks more Medieval than Renaissance but they have always played fast and loose with history. It is more about fun and pretending than history. Mug 2009 - was 16 oz. filled to the brim. In comparison, I have a mug from 1984 which was a 20 oz. Imperial pint. It had the silhouette of a unicorn on the side in dark brown on a sandy brown base coat. The difference was not too bad for the number of years that have passed but it has declined.

Goblets are a different story. I have a 1985 Feast of Fantasy, 15th anniversary goblet white/lt. grey with fleur de lis designs stamped into the sides and blue accents. It held 160z.

The next goblet dated from 1998 bluish, purplish glaze with a natural lt. brown clay medallion with a wizard and a crumpled hat. The medallion proclaimed "Renaissance Festival 1998" and was 12 oz. to the top of the brim.

2000, Y2K, the goblet had a beautiful multi-cloured glaze of black, blue, red, gray glazes melting on the sides of the goblet. Inset was a natural lt. brown clay medallion saying "Rennaissance" and a portrait of "Elizabeth Regina". The goblet held 8 oz. if poured to the brim.

2005 goblet sported beautiful glazes over a green base. The natural lt. brown clay medallion proclaimed "Renaissance Fair" and had a dragon etched into the medallion. This size of the goblet bowl was a 7 oz pour to the brim.

Not terribly scientific but carefully done all the same. This gets me onto another pet peeve and that is bars claiming to be pouring pints when they are actually pouring 14 oz. or smaller and then pouring so as to produce a collar of foam that would be larger than that of an archbishop's cleric collar. They are already making loads of money on every keg and they are greedy, cheating honest people out of their rightful pint of beer.

RenFest things

Pouring beer for Flat Earth at the RenFest on Sunday is always amusing. I always enjoy the RenFest. There are the costumes people wear which are crazy and outrageous. There are some very fetching women very sexy in costumes. There are cool costumes. I especially saw one of articulated leather armour this man made for himself. All the tooling and articulation handled by himself. It was a true work of art. Getting hit on by women at my age is flattering. I think anyone would be flattered. It is nice to know that women still have an attraction to me. I cannot think why as I am chubby, greying, and short. The beers we poured were Black Helicopter, Bermuda Triangle, Belgian Pale, and Angry Planet. Lots of kilts all around and bagpipes by Twin Cities Metro. The best thing however was the ratcatcher. I was talking to his understudy a young man who ahs been doing the routine for a several years. He told me the original ratcatcher came to the fest once in awhile to do some comedy for the fun of it. Phil and I saw him in his old form.He was doing everthing adlib, extemporaneously with the crowd and the crowd loved it. I loved it as I hadn't laughed that hard in awhile.

RenFest Things

We went to the RenFest early on Sunday morning arriving for the opening cannon. We are Katherine, Brent, Karen, and myself. We watched the new Snot, Snot jr. in Puke & Snot jr. It was just an excellent show. They skewed and screwed politicians especially republican politicians every which way. It was hilarious. I haven't seen them in years and it was really good. We saw the Arabian horse show and fire eaters. We saw Cassandra belly dance first and Alea second, latyer in the day. I started off the day drinking some fine Egyptian mead which is superb and followed by a second one later in the day. A hot day and alcohol especially mead can be a little bit too much. We saw the Vilification Tennis match which was hilarious. About mid-day we took a lunch break with apricot wheat ale and food. I made black bean salsa and K made couscous with summer squash. Both tasted great. It was a good day. We really bought nothing. I pretty much followed them around and did what they wanted to do save for watching Alea. She was an amazing dancer with a very lovely sensuous body. It is always a pleasure seeing and admiring a beautiful woman.