Do you remember that intense excitement?  Do you recall the degree of anticipation?  Can you feel the intense desire for that highly sought after experience?

Perhaps, when you were a young child, there was a planned trip to an amusement park.  You had the knowledge weeks in advance of the date of the trip.  As the scheduled day neared, the excitement level increased with each X on the calendar.  The night prior, maybe you woke up more than usual.  Perhaps you couldn’t sleep at all.  Maybe you drifted between consciousness and dreams of roller coasters and cotton candy.  But when the alarm finally went off, you leapt out of bed with an uncanny zeal, and hurriedly prepared for the day.

And then you found out that the park is two hours away.  So, you have no choice but to dampen that excitement until the drive has been completed.  And then traffic occurs, turning the two-hour drive into three. Then, there is an hour and a half wait for the ride that you were most hoping to enjoy.  After that, somehow you manage to fumble the cotton candy of which you’ve had only two bites, dropping it on the dirty ground.  As if all this wasn’t enough of a disappointment, in the early evening, rain begins to fall, and then continues, effectively shutting down all the rides in the park.

Maybe you have tickets to a football game.  You have a favorite professional team that you cheer for every week.  You are wrapped up in fandom, and feel a great pride and devotion to your team.  The tickets to the game mean a great deal to you, and you can’t wait to be up in the stands cheering.

When you get there, though, there is some strange issue with your tickets.  The bar code won’t scan and you must have them replaced, which ends up being a timely process, causing you to miss the kickoff, and first few minutes of the game.  Then, when in the bathroom, you, in impossible fashion, manage to drop your keys in the urinal.  Following that, at the start of the second half, you are struck by a liquid filled container, soiling the brand new jersey that you picked up from the gift shop at half time.  To top off the day, your team suffers a horrible drubbing, and loses sixty-two to ten.

Maybe you have travel plans to take a cruise to the Caribbean.  It has always been a dream for you to take this cruise.  You plan it out months in advance, all the arrangements are made, and you even spent a little extra money on a nicer room, and on a cruise that lasted an additional day beyond some of the others that you researched. You spend more money on some nice luggage in anticipation of this magical trip.

The day arrives to leave, and there is an issue at airport.  The plane flying you to your port has some mechanical trouble causing a delay.  This results in your missing the scheduled transportation at the airport, and having to pay for a taxi to rush you to the boat.  You barely board in time, and deposit yourself wearily in your room.  The room for which you paid extra turns out to be filthy.  The bed is clearly unclean, and a cockroach scurries from under a small cabinet as you unpack your luggage.  The boat departs shortly afterwards, as you scramble to find an employee who can rectify the state of your room.  The final crushing blow, is that the next day, you wake up ill with flu-like symptoms, and find yourself confined to the, never cleaned, room.

Disappointment happens all the time, it is a normal part of life.  Usually, the amount disappointment is small, and therefore mostly ignorable.  When disappointment is preceded by intense anticipation, the impact can be formidable, even drastic.

I have always loved the Hardwoody Park Craft Brewery.  I can fondly recall the first time I had their Gingerbread Stout, and passionately recall when I enjoyed the bourbon version of the Gingerbread Stout as well.  I am a massive fan of their barleywine, and again, even more so the bourbon barrel barleywine.  I have really enjoyed the peach triple, the raspberry stout, and sidamo coffee stout.  I have absolutely loved the Christmas Morning stout, and am hoarding a rum barrel-aged Gingerbread Stout for a special occasion.

It’s fair to say, that I am a fan of Hardywood’s beers.  As an appreciator of a particular companies beers, the ultimate experience, at least for me, is to visit the brewery.  When visiting the brewery, usually, there is opportunity to talk to the people directly involved with the production of the beer.  If not, then people who are passionate and well-informed about the beer.  Typically, there are similar aficionados at a brewery that share an interest in the beers made at the brewery. And of course, one of the things to be most excited about when visiting the brewery, is the potential to try beers that aren’t readily available in distribution.

This past weekend was greatly anticipated.  It gave me the opportunity to visit Richmond, Virgina for the first time.  On the itinerary was brewery hopping, and some live music, two of my favorite activities. Richmond happens to be the home of Hardywood Park Craft Brewing, and so it was added to the agenda, highlighted by an extremely exaggerated bullet point.

And then I arrived at the brewery.  I paid to go this location over many choices in the Richmond craft beer scene.  I was greeted by a dimly lit exterior, a food truck, and a frat-party-like atmosphere.  I needed to use the bathroom, and was greeted by a line, and then upon entering the bathroom, a lake of urine and water.  My assumption was that the main toilet had a leak, but no one had any interest in resolving the problem, or mopping, periodically.  After pushing through throngs to the bar, I scanned the sparse tap list, and yelled to the bartender for a raspberry stout.  I was provided with a plastic cup of the stout, which was, fortunately,  consistently tasty with my experience.  I attempted dialogue with my fellow craft beer enthusiast, but found that we couldn’t communicate over the blaring Alanis Morissette cover band playing towards the rear of the brewery.   After about fifteen minutes of dodging random inebriates, and jostling with careening overindulgers, we made the choice to depart.  En route to the exit, I saw bottles of Ruse, a beer from Hardywood that, to that point, I had not the opportunity to try.  Having read descriptions of this beer, it was one that I was quite excited about.  I hesitated, strongly wanting to purchase a bottle to go.  But no there were no staff members available.  And, fighting my way back to the bar near the concert, just to ask if I could purchase a bottle, seemed an excessive amount of effort given the scene, and my already soured impressions.   So I left, further unsatisfied.

So, I too, know of great anticipation, followed by crushing disappointment. In my first trip to Richmond, I enjoyed many craft breweries.  I also experienced a few that were rather lacking.  But, the greatest disappointment, was at the one brewery which I was most excited to experience.  I will happily revisit Richmond again.  But, with regrets, I will not go back to Hardywood Park Craft Brewery.

Such is the cost of great anticipation, and then massive disappointment.

Humbly yours,

J