So i went to the BBQ fest in Sauk City, WI last friday...

[DeusDingo]

and frankly, i was pretty disappointed. i really wanted this to be good.

there was no competition this year but it was neat to see all the smokers and equipment. the food was not the high point.

the biggest issue i had was that almost all the vendors were only really selling whole meals and not samples. i do not want a brisket platter with beans and slaw for $23, i do not want a whole rack of ribs. i want to try a little from each place. if i like a place maybe i will order more but i can't do that if the smallest thing i can get there is a full pulled pork sandwich with beans! they had a voting system for "peoples choice" best BBQ but i have a hard time figuring out how they could get a fair outcome with portions this big. nobody is going to be able to try all the ribs or brisket or pulled pork from all the places. if you wanted to try some of the places they gave you so much food that was the only place you would be eating at

the food was my second issue. for most places the ribs were dry, everything was sauced (and heavily) so i didn't get much of the meat flavor, and everything was overpriced (i expected that to a certain extent but jeeze - $2 for a single potato popper? $10 for 1/3 rack of ribs? no thanks). maybe i am a bit jaded since i feel like i make pretty good Q at this point, and having what is essentially BBQ leftovers at a fair isn't a big excitement to me anymore.

one place - packed far away from the others but still a part of the festival - didn't even smoke their meat! they didn't tell you that but the brisket mac n cheese was a total waste of $10. the brisket tasted ONLY like beef broth and was 50% fat, and the Mac was crappy. pasta overcooked and mediocre cheese sauce. it was heavy too so any room i had for something better was taken up by pure disappointment.

so there were some upsides: the beer was bar priced so less expensive than some other festivals. there were a couple of good places. Bob's BBQ Emporium had a drunken pork belly that was AWESOME. the rest of their food looked pretty good too but at this point i was getting full so i couldn't try them. some nice guy tried to give me free concert tickets because we hit it off (i'm not a country fan so i turned him down). Curd Girl was there so they had good cheese curds. the best ribs i had were from an Australian team which gave us too much pulled chicken and pulled pork (there was also NO smoke flavor from any of the Aussie food either, which says a lot about the quality of the food at the festival when i say BBQ ribs with no smoke flavor was the best).

i can't say i wouldn't do it again because they might get different teams or the teams that come back might step up their game, but i don't think i will get too excited about it next time.

[LA Pork Butt]

As they say if you can't smell smoke don't stop and the best BBQ is found in someone's backyard - at least most of the time.

[Spinaker]

I went to a "big' event in Minnesota two years ago. And I was really disappointed as well. No vendors, no drinks, no food. Just teams competing. They would see you food after turn in, but you had to hop from place to place to find the guys that were selling. The teams also weren't very friendly, it seemed like if you were a spectator, you were an outsider. (which i guess I was, but still.....) I just chalked it all up to the region I live in. I realized that BBQ has a long way to go up here.........

[DeusDingo]

sounds like you had the exact opposite experience that i did! i agree there is a long way to go for good BBQ up here.

[Spinaker]

I would not say exact opposite. We were both pretty disappointed........... DeusDingo

[DeusDingo]

yes, yes we were

[JPGators17]

There's a memorial weekend festival near my house that we went to last year that was similar. It happened to be the first competition I judged, but afterwards we walked around and tried some stuff and I couldn't believe the disparity between the awesome competition BBQ and some of what was allowed to be sold by vendors. Sad.

[JCGrill]

They used to do Twin Cities Rib Fest right down on Nicollet Mall. They don't anymore. I know that the reasons are many, but one of them had to be the prices. When you are paying $2 for one rib bone it's getting pretty ridiculous. A lot of the places seemed to be getting fairly gimmicky as well. Not saying you can't get good food at these kinds of events, but you can't depend on it either.

[kmhfive]

Well, I'm glad I didn't know about the event! I'm close enough I might have tried to get there - only a couple of hours drive.

Thanks for for documenting your experience, though.