At the end of the Brewfest

I flattened Coren Direbrew on at least three characters every single day and this is what I received. It seems that the drunken gods of Brewfest favour me far more than the frosty gods of Midsummer but I wouldn’t have said no to a ram.

• Kodos: 2
• Rams: 0
• Dire Remotes: 4
• Barman’s Bloody Shanker: 4
• Tankard of Terror: 3

I’m also now a Brewmaster on three characters.

My longest tussle with Mr Direbrew was 53 seconds. Although that was a pretty weak group including a lv 78 rogue who died somehow. The best was around 14 seconds which really was a blink and you’ll miss it feeling.

Out of all the bits and pieces I picked up, my favourite has to be the Dire Remote. At the moment I’m farming the last little bit of rep I need to for exalted with the Hydraxian Waterlords and being able to port to the Bar and then run through the last little bit of the instance into Molten Core makes it so much quicker and easier. Plus being able to grab a dwarf disguise whenever I feel like it, without having to trek all the way to Blackrock Mountain is awesome (yes I’m lazy).

Over all, Brewfest is still one of my favourite festivals. Sure Coren could have a done with a few ICC runs to boost his gear but this close to the expansion, I admit I’d rather they were working on new shiny stuff rather than upgrading a two week holiday.

Drunken Brewfest Ramblings

In a complete reversal of fortunes since the Midsummer Fire Festival, my keg shaped treasure chest does indeed seem to be filled with treasure. With more than a week to go, I’ve already secured a mole machine and a Brewfest Kodo (although ungrateful as it seems, I can’t help wishing it was a ram) on my priest.

Whilst I do love Brewfest, primarily due to the ram racing, a couple of things have bugged me this year. Up first is how ridiculously easy Coren Direbrew is. I feel bad signing up as a healer because I’ve yet to meet a group who needed any healing. As it stands, I shove a shield on the tank and then get down to practising for cataclysm, smite, smite, smite, smite. I had a vague recollection from previous years that he spawns some dark iron girls who throw beer at you, but haven’t seen them this year at all. I suppose deep down I just have this feeling that a “boss” who hands over the current top tier of badges should be a little harder than this.

That isn’t even our best time. My Boomkin managed to knock a second or two off that whilst “accidentally” aggroing half the bar at the same time. Starfall and small spaces really doesn’t mix well.

Then there is the mysterious case of the vanishing quests on the EU servers. Like last year, both the shooting pink elekks and capturing Wolpertingers have been removed. You buy your mini-pet from the vendor for 50 silver (the price goes down with faction discounts) and as for the pink elekks and the forty tokens it’s worth, well tough. I tracked down a blue response from last year and I must admit it’s left me surprised in two regards. Firstly that if anyone was going to have issues with the game, it would be people killing and netting small animals whilst drunk that caused the problem. Not poisoning people, not killing animals whilst sober, not kidnapping, nor torturing and not committing wholesale murder, but shooting pink elekks whilst drunk. There are plenty of other things in-game which involve getting drunk and yet they don’t seem to fall foul of any legislation, drinking for a stamina buff (rumsey rum) springs to mind, the Brew of the Month club and so on. In fact the filled festive mug is surely far more dangerous to impressionable minds as it allows you to slowfall off mountains whilst drinking but that’s obviously deemed ok.

The other issue I have is that, knowing they can’t have these particular quests in Europe, they’ve done nothing to change the quests so that they would be acceptable here, meaning that we lose out in terms of tokens again. Although I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.

All that said, it’s still one of my favourite holidays. Cheers!

10 reasons why I love Brewfest

1. Mini Pets. Vampire rabbits with twiglets and pink pachyderms are some of the cutest festival pets out there.

2. The Food. Who can resist sausages, spiced onion cheese and pretzels washed down with icy cold beer.

3. Ram Racing. Please Blizzard can we get some form of temporary speed boost in Cataclysm. I find it rather addictive and keep getting into races with passing strangers.

4. Dwarfen Angels. My Bubbling Brightbrew charm summons the best kind of angel, one who throws you beer.

Drunken Angels

5. Kodo/ram acquiring. Although I’m wondering if the drop rate was increased a little too much this year as every second player in Ironforge, my hunter included seems to be riding around on a kodo.

6. The clothes. I spent a lot of my childhood holidays in Bavaria and as a result have a thing about dirndl’s. This seems to have spilled over into the game.

Brewfest dancing in the Beer garden

7. It gives a reason to visit the Grim Guzzler, the best drinking establishment in Azeroth.

8. The goggles that turn everyone into female orcs/male gnomes. Ok, I could use them all year around but I tend to forget about them the rest of the year. Nothing helps you win raid encounters than the sight of fearsome bosses running around as semi naked gnomes in chain mail underpants.

Not so stern now Mr Horde Faction Champion

9. The bubbles on this year’s Brewfest signs. Power word: shield or Divine Aegis need a similar graphic adding on. Lots of pretty little bubbles circling the larger one.

10. Buying cheese from Anne Summers makes me smile and not for any possible Buffy reference. Although you might have to live in the UK to understand why.

One thing that bugs me however is why do all 10 races, coming from a variety of cultural backgrounds and in the case of some different worlds, celebrate the same festivals in exactly the same way. Why can’t we have something like “Brewfest” for the Alliance as it seems to be a very Dwarfen festival and some form of Carnival for the Horde. The principle would be similar, lots of drinking and partying but the “flavour” would be slightly different and perhaps more suited to the races involved. Dirndl’s and lederhosen aren’t what springs to mind when you think of the average troll in game after all.

To combat people whining about “they get better rewards” and so on, there could be lots of BoE items or recipes involved allowing both sides to access items through the neutral AH but it would add a little extra spice. Instead of fighting Coren Direbrew, the Horde version might involve going to Zul’farrak and dealing with some naughty party crashing rum stealing Troll who would obviously drop the same items but with more suitable names.

Profession wise, tailors would be able to make the chest pieces, perhaps in a variety of colours. Leather workers would get the footwear and possibly the hats. Maybe add an engineering recipe for the direbrew remote and add a similar version that send you to Zul’farrak. Lots of cooking recipes could be added, allowing cooks access to themed food all year around. Just a little extra to make the festivals feel a little more exciting, rather than being identical regardless of the faction you play.

Nothing says scary like a giant gnome..

I can’t help but wonder if he actually looks more scary this way or not. It does however raise interesting questions about just what he uses to impale the tanks…. eek.

Beer Goggles

The best thing about Brewfest is the romantic goggles, if they had stats i would never take them off.

Raise a glass

Its brewfest time again.

Whilst this is far from my favourite festival, I love the ram racing and am trying to improve on my personal best of 11 runs in one go at the moment. I think 13 at least is possible, particularly on the alliance side which seems much easier than the horde one, due I think to the placement of the apple barrels.