The Anheuser-Busch Brewery puts on this event every Summer for 1 weekend. It's really just a food truck festival. In the fields they have to the right of the brewery they have a few different food trucks and a big tent with tables and chairs and some local venders and some not so local annoying venders. Small stage where some musicians and bands play. All in all it's a good time for families and buddies.
But I'm a BBQ foodie critic and I ONLY showed up for the Ribs, and I Mean ONLY the Ribs. So this review is mainly focusing on the venue for someone who just wants so ribs and the ribs that were provided. I didn't want to post on the Anheuser-Busch page or the pages for the individual BBQ venders because I only had their ribs I don't even know if they even have yelp pages.
So first off, $12 just to get in. $20 for parking in their big ass parking lot OR you can park almost a mile away and walk ... amazing. I hadn't really noticed that the thing didn't start till 4:30 on it's first day so I happened to show up at like 3:30. Only noticed official people walking around, and cops with bulletproof vests and gun cases. I walked up to the "box office" tent where a few official people were just chillin and I walked right past them, right through the gate, no questions. No ticket takers, no one stoping me asking if I had tickets, no one in the parking lot looking to see if I paid for parking, nothing stopping me from going anywhere .... So little tip for everyone. If you show up an hour to 15 minutes early you can get in for free because these people don't know what the hell they are doing. I spent $32 for Nothing!
Lightning BBQ seemed to open up earlier than the other 2. Im standing at the front of their counter and the jerk off just stares at me like I dated his mom a week ago. No "How can I help you?" or "What can I get for ya" ... just a upward nod like "wtf do you want?" Pretty sure I was the 2nd customer of the whole event and this douchenozzle from TX is acting like I'm every customer that has annoyed him throughout this event ending 2 days later. Get the sampler, ribs are cool even though they like to throw them on the grill right before they slice them. Ribs are smaller than pretty much everywhere I've been too. And there's a big banner that says "Everything is Bigger In Texas" had to laugh, the other 2 BBQ places where bigger. And I was almost going to try their mac and cheese but I saw on their table they had stacks of Stouffer's ... and they wanted to charge $8 for like a slice of it. Oh yeah, I was looking away for a minute while they put the ribs in a fry bowl for me. Bring my eyes back to them and the dickwad has his arm extended out with the ribs and bowl in his hand. Not even acknowledging me. Just grabbed them and laughed. They had their "sweet and sassy" sauce ... supposedly won awards but it's no better than anything you can find at the dollar tree. Ribs were slathered too, that's not Texas style at all. Couldn't taste even a hint of smoked pork, tasted more like baked, rub was tasteless. Pathetic.
Armadillo's was pretty much the same exact setup. Same menu, same style, even the 2 types of BBQ sauces they had set up on either side of their spot. Even the labels on the sauce pumps looked exactly the same, made me think this sauce is from some mass producing plant somewhere. Ribs were very hot, I did notice they were cutting it close, so these were right out of the ... whatever it was, again no smoke flavor. Sauced over, grill marks. Not terrible but still ... you guys win competitions?
Butch's seemed to be the best overall before I even tried anything. They had 4 of their sauces on either side and they didn't look like they came out of a warehouse. Grabbed a bottle of their Sweet Apple BBQ Sauce cause it was actually really good. Decided to get the meal with this one. Came with beans and slaw, which weren't anything special. Ribs were noticeably larger than the other 2 places. Still grilled up with that char flavor, still no huge presents of smoke flavor but it was there at least. Ribs fell off the bone though, overcooked. But damn that sauce was good.
So yeah, I spent about $80 and left. Let me tell you, every idiot that says there isn't good BBQ in New England deserves a spanking from a Grizzly. If this is the crap that represents "Southern der der der Berrbikcooo" then I don't need to visit. There is AMAZING BBQ up here and you don't even have to travel more than 30 minutes to find it! read more