Beer is remarkably one of the oldest man-made beverages, and its invention seems to have coincided with early humans evolving powerful chugging muscles in the abs and enough balance to perform prolonged keg stands. Celebrate your ale-advanced anatomy with today's Groupon: for $30, you get a ticket (a $65 value) to the Get Real NY Craft Beer & Food Festival on September 25 and 26 at the landmark Altman Building on West 18th Street. Each ticket provides access to one of four three-hour sessions:

Saturday, September 25: 12pm - 3pm

Saturday, September 25: 5pm - 8pm

Sunday, September 26: 12pm - 3pm

Sunday, September 26: 5pm - 8pm

Get Real NY's one-of-a-kind festival of flavor packs its 10,000 square feet of space with a huge assortment of gravity-poured cask beers, representatives from more than a dozen breweries, and locally made artisanal eats. Simply hold out your complimentary beer-conveyance vessel, and you'll be poured a sample from any of up to 80 different cask-conditioned ales that hail from liquid alchemists such as Coney Island, Left Hand, Southern Tier, and Lagunitas. Otherwise, check out the homebrew area, where you'll get to sip, swish, and gargle the work of up-and-coming amateur beer-wrights. Gourmet sweets and savories from a variety of vendors such as Luke's Lobster, Lucy's Whey Cheese Shop, Brindle Room, and Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream will help tipplers soak up excess stomach suds and cleanse palates between sips.

Because copious beer ingestion is synonymous with higher education, Get Real NY will also present a program of homebrew lessons to help ale auteurs break the bonds of commercial consumption and do a little indie imbibing. Brewers and chefs will take to the main stage to field questions and answer them, sometimes in the form of Socratic dialogue, metaphorical parables, or cryptic verse. Invite along some discriminating drinking buddies and celebrate the science of suds with today's Groupon to the Get Real NY Craft Beer & Food Festival.

Must be 21+ years of age. This deal will be available for online redemption starting on September 22.

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Get Real NY Craft Beer & Food Festival was featured by Wined & Dined.