So Much Beer, So Little Time

Wow, tons of events coming up here in the Austin area, and I can't keep pace with it all. I only have one liver, and not enough hours in the day. Let's do a little run-down, and no doubt I'm missing something here:

• North by Northwest Oktoberfest, Oct. 16-17: A big favorite for my family, I'll probably hit both days of this just because it's so kid-friendly. Oompah bands, German food, German-style brews, bouncy houses and facepainting for the kids, and cute waitresses in dirndls. That's really all I need in this life.
• Flying Saucer Fall Beer Festival, Oct. 16: Apparently those chuckleheads at the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission have been screwing with the Flying Saucer and have forced them to modify the setup they originally had planned, but it all sounds too complicated to summarize here. Bottom line, there is still a beerfest, it's happening noon-10pm, and there will be 50 different beers from 30 different breweries.
• Austin Beer Week, Oct. 23-30: An absolutely crazy assortment of activities, too many to list here, spread out all over the city. I won't even try. Just go check out their calendar. At a minimum, I'll definitely try to hit the Draught House's 42nd Anniversary Party on the 23rd, and no doubt I'll go to Black Star Co-op's brewery tour since it's in my neighborhood. The double feature of Strange Brew and Beerfest at Uncle Billy's Brew & Que on the 27th sounds pretty awesome, too. (Note: I really, really wish the people promoting this would have made an outreach to me. I mentioned in my "Beer Flights" column in the Chronicle that it was coming up, but I had no idea of the scope of it until just now. With earlier outreach, I could have done a bang-up feature on it in the Chronicle and really given it good publicity.)