If you were lucky enough to get tickets to the Decatur Beer Festival in the 6 hours and 42 minutes they were available for purchase, you’ve probably been wondering which beer tables you will be able approach with your sticky tasting glass in hand and a boozy smirk on your face.  “MORE BEER PLEASE!”

Anyway, it looks like the Beer Map and List are finally up on the Fest’s website in PDF form.  Lots of great choices on there this year.   From Founders to Smuttynose to Weyerbacher to all the even tastier beers I’m too ignorant to know about, this Beer Fest team sure knows how put together the best beer selection of all the Atlanta beer festivals!

From last night’s Decatur City Commission meeting…

I’ve received over 400 emails begging for a secret stash of [Decatur Beer Festival tickets].

- the City of Decatur’s Katie Abel

Over on Craiglist, there are currently 24 entries selling tickets to the uber-popular Fest, with individual ticket prices averaging around $80.  That’s been about the going rate the last two years, but I don’t recall quite so many entries in years past.

Picture courtesy of City of Decatur

From TicketAlternative…

We’re very excited to announce that tickets for 2010′s Decatur Craft Beer Festival are going on sale September 20. The event is set to take place on October 16 in downtown Decatur, Ga., and will feature more than 100 of the best local, national and international beers, as well as live music and food from local restaurants. Decatur truly is one amazing beer town, and this festival has a history of selling out pretty fast, so be sure to get your tickets for this incredible beer-lovers paradise.

Tickets remain at $35 each, according to festival’s website.  Also of note, “The festival is limited to the first 4,000 ticket holders. All tickets are sold online. No tickets are available for purchase at the gate.”

No beer list yet.

An anonymous tipster sends in this pic of an Guinness poster in an email titled “Expose!”

I guess it could also be called “Inspiration!”

I just quite randomly stumbled across the 2010 Decatur Beer Festival logo upon visiting the fest’s website.

Silly pink squareaphant.

Yeah, unfortunately no firsthand reports by me this year, but you all are more than welcome to write up your own post-fest comments and give us colorful, intoxicated recaps.

My sober thanks in advance to all.

I realize I did a post like this last year too, but I still find it rather incredible that every year people end up paying more than double the face value of a Decatur Beer Festival ticket to spend an afternoon on the Square with thousands of others, throwing back half-full tasting glasses of various craft brews.

I mean, I love this fest as much as the next person, but the going rate on eBay and Craigslist is around $80 a ticket!  That’s some serious drinking money!

What is it about this festival that makes people sell first-borns to get through the gate?  It can’t just be getting drunk…because anyone can easily get drunk with $80.  Is it the drunken comradery?  The choice selection?  The brewery stickers in inappropriate places?

The city’s Cheryl Burnette noted during this evening’s city commission meeting that the list of beers for this year’s craft beer festival is already available on the festival’s website.

And so it is.

First off, they do exist.

Even though it was announced last week that tickets for this year’s Decatur Beer Festival had sold out in 12 short days, there are still unsold tickets out there.

How and why is this possible?  It all has to do with excessive number of people who jump up and volunteer for this event.

The city’s Linda Harris explains…

Here is what happened: We always have more volunteers than we have spots so the committee decided to hold back a limited number in order to allow those who did not get a volunteer spot the opportunity to purchase tickets. It seemed like a good idea at the time. We had no idea the event would sell out so fast so early. In retrospect, the committee said they should have just placed all of them online at the same time and they will do so next year.

Live and learn.

These “extra” tickets will be made available on October 1st, after final decisions have been made on festival volunteers.  So, if you’re still in need, you might want to jump over to Ticket Alternative on 10/1 and search for tickets.  I’m not sure exactly how many tickets are left, but I’m sure they won’t last more than a couple hours.

This story has been confirmed independently by both the city of Decatur and Ticket Alternative.

I’m not sure what the heck happened, but after I received word from a very reliable source late last week that all Decatur Beer Festival tickets had been sold, I received this “Tweet” from TicketAlternative.

@DMetro more Decatur Beer Featival tickets will be released soon. Follow @TixAlt_GA for details

So, what the heck happened?  I’m not entirely sure, but I’ll certainly let you know if and when more tickets magically appear online.