Zoo Miami Brew at The Zoo 2012

Each year, my friends and I head out to the Zoo Miami Brew at The Zoo.

That's right...beer and hanging out at the zoo. How else would one want to spend their Saturday evening?

Unfortunately, we don't actually get admittance into the Zoo while we are attending the event, but it's still pretty cool.

What do you get with admittance?

You get this handy little 3 ounce shot glass, which you can use to sample over 100 different kinds of beer...and a great live show. This year it was an 80's cover band called the Spazmatics and Alien Ant Farm!

Our gang usually just buys general admittance tickets, but this year we somehow ended up getting in on a special VIP discount price and all bought VIP admittance...to the tune of $60 a pop.

Ouch. And that was with the discount!

What exactly does VIP get you? Well, it gets you in an hour before the event opens to general admittance...which means you have over 100 booths serving you samples of beer before anyone else - no lines, no waiting! It gets you private portapotties, which is really important in events like these, when 1000 men are guzzling beers and NOT aiming.

It also gets you a cool lounge area in front of the stage...and lots of gourmet food!

We had mini corn dogs, white truffle mac and cheese, bbq pulled pork sliders, philly cheese steak sliders, chicken, churros with chocolate...just about every version of bar food you can think of - all with a gourmet twist. Honestly, I would have paid full price if I knew that the food was that good!

During the VIP extra hour time, you can see how short the lines were. It was marvelous being able to just walk right up to the booths!

Once the general admission gates opened...things started to fill up pretty quickly!

Once all of the general admission peeps got in, it was a madhouse! A friend who was helping work the event told me that they sold an additional 1500 tickets for general admission over the previous year...so you can imagine how crazy it was! After the lines went nuts, we left the beer booths and headed back to VIP where we had two private bars serving regular alcohol (I got orange mojitos!) and hung out until the concert started.

That's actually when the real fun started!

Alien Ant Farm was okay. I am a not fan, so their music didn't really entertain me.

But the first band to go on, an 80's cover band called the Spazmatics, well, they were incredibly awesome.

By the end of the evening, we were all exhausted.