With Seattle Beer Week coming up in about a month starting on May 19, events are starting to come together on the calendar and people are getting excited. One of the organizers of Seattle Beer Week, Ian Roberts, recently took the time to answer a few questions.

1) With the 3rd Annual Seattle Beer Week coming up, how is everything coming together?
The first year was initially hard to get people on board with the idea. A lot of people thought they already did these kind of events and didn’t recognize the larger picture. Now in the 3rd year we’ve established some sort of cred and people seem to eagerly await this holiday of beers.

2) Are there any new events for 2011 that you are especially excited about?
There will be two new things coming this year that I am very excited about and they both revolve around blending. The first of which is New Belgium’s Blending Symposium –
http://www.seattlebeerweek.com/events/250-New-Belgium-Blending-Symposium. Eric Salazar will lead a group at the Monk, in blending their own Sour Beer, from unblended beer brought from the foeders in Fort Collins. And then they get to take home a growler of it! The second thing I’m excited about, and not sure I’m supposed to talk about, is the blend that Alan Sprints will be doing during Beer Week. No event attached to that yet, and more details will come.

3) What are some of your favorite memories from the first two years of Seattle Beer Week?
Some of my most memorable moments of Beer Weeks past perhaps shouldn’t really be mentioned. It’s the little moments in between events that are remembered. Like smoking a cigar with Sam from dogfish head, riding a bike to the troll and seeing 100 people you don’t know show up for a can of fat tire.

4) Are there any types of events in particular that you would like to see more of this year or in the future?
The bread and butter of Beer week is definitely the beer centered events showcasing delicious beverages from around the world, but the fun quirky events always seem to stand out to me. 12 pack at the Troll, Kulture Freaks, the tin can sculpture contests, and the Loudest Beer Promo ever where all fun events that
were not solely about the beer, but about beer people having fun.

5) How do you organizers manage to survive the entire week? Do you each have two livers?
In order to survive beer week, we each kill some one and take their Liver. Sometimes two or three times during the week. It’s the only way.