I know you must think I’m a bit of a lush after a week of inventing cocktails and necking shots of vodka, so I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that yesterday’s new experience was getting a little merry at a beer festival.

Good Beer was held at 82Mercer, a sprawling warehouse-esque conference hall in the middle of SoHo. Brewers pitched tables, gave out samples of their beers or ciders, described the processes and let eager drinkers know where they can buy bottles or pints in the city.

Ryan and I arrived at 82Mercer, each picked up a glass and moved from table to table to get samples. We were both a bit bothered that we were only getting splashes at the bottom of our glasses – but in retrospect (as a mini headache takes over), it’s probably good they weren’t more generous.

Each company had brought two or three types of beer or cider, and I particularly enjoyed tasting the fruit-flavored ones. While I think some really worked (particularly the grapefruit Schofferhofer and the Red Barn Raspberry hard cider), I wasn’t so keen on others (the satsuma beer by Abita – probably just a personal choice but it was too tart for me).

Others were really interesting and unlike anything I’d tasted before, including the ‘breakfast’ beer by Moa which was dark but refreshing and crammed with cherries. But for me, the winner of the night was the Crabbies Alcoholic Gingerbeer.

There was also food – but annoyingly most of it wasn’t vegetarian, so I made do with peaches topped with walnuts and ricotta. Delicious, but I could have done with something a little sturdier to mop up the alcohol.

But all those bevvies definitely got us – and Shelby, Harry and Gina – in the mood for some costumes and photo booth poses:

I promise you there are more things to do in New York other than drinking – so I’ll be back on track tomorrow.