He marveled at these Americans who seemed so knowledgeable, so sophisticated, and so enthusiastic about beer.
"I wish we had these festivals in the United Kingdom," he said as lines of discerning drinkers extending their miniature glasses to be filled, refilled, and refilled yet again with splashes of his special brew. "The U.S. is way ahead of us in that respect."
The 66-year-old chairman of the Scottish beer company Innis & Gunn, Hunt sat a visitor down for a long chat about how his oak-aged beer came to be.
"Do you not know the story?" he asked, genuine surprise in his cool, blue eyes. "Oh, the story is wonderful! And by the way, it's true."
He folded his arms across his narrow chest and began the tale. In 2002, he dreamed of a whisky with a beer finish. For a year, he experimented with dozens of beers, filling American oak barrels and leaving them for a month, then emptying them before pouring in the whisky - hoping that the flavors would blend.
They did not. Until Dougal Sharp, a brewer and colleague, developed a new beer for him to try in his experiment. Miraculously, the flavor of that beer infused the whisky.
"But then we discovered that the guys who were supposed to be tipping the beer away were drinking it instead," Hunt said. "It was superb. And that gave birth to Innis Gunn."
Although six-packs were stacked high along the wall, none of it was for sale yesterday. "The only beer you can take out of the festival is the beer in your bloodstream," Hunt said. "Some people, quite a lot.
Several couples used the festival to celebrate birthdays.
