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Scenes From Saturday's Untapped Festival in Fort Worth.

Saturday was truly a spectacular day, one seemingly gifted by the gods of music and beer — or, well, just the folks at Spune Productions and Paste, perhaps, as the fist-ever Untapped Festival in Fort Worth presented hundreds of delicious stouts, lagers, pale ales and IPAs to a crowd also delighted by various musical acts and an abundant array of food trucks.

Flying high off a successful launch of the Untapped Indie Music and Beer Festival series in Dallas last September, Saturday's affair at Fort Worth's Panther Island Pavilion marked a turning point for the event, which is now set to take place in as many as four national locales this year, including another Dallas stop come September.

So perhaps it was with some extra anticipation that the crowds arrived at the festival gates on Saturday. Once inside, those with enough foresight to have purchased VIP tickets were treated to rare and specialty brews, such as Saint Arnold's Divine Reserve #13, which quickly ran dry.

But others would run out of their supplies, too. In fact, merely three hours into the event, more than a few beer vendors had floated their kegs. Indeed, drinking fast and early seemed to be the name of the game here. At 8 p.m., just when temperatures began to drop, the beer-sampling portion of the festival ended, and festivalgoers were required to purchase full $5 beers from the few vendors who had come prepared with extra kegs.

And while a few festival attendees understandably overindulged, the festival for the most part exhibited a true sense of community not unlike that seen at the Big Texas Beer Festival held earlier this month.

Of course, the music was better at this affair. At one point, Denton's own Sarah Jaffe had the bulk of the crowd singing along with her during her performance of “Clementine” in a stirring show. But, turns out, even that singalong would be topped.

Just moments before Deer Tick was slated to perform, the restless crowds began belt out an impromptu a capella version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” no doubt in honor of the horrific tragedies that plagued Boston and West, Texas, earlier in the week. It was a chilling and oh-so-beautiful moment.

In some ways, that display put the whole day in focus: This festival was a beautiful distraction to the unsettling events surrounding the previous few days, allowing the people of North Texas to communally celebrate our unrelenting national spirit while enjoying a few other spirits along the way.















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