If you're a beer enthusiast, or are friends with a beer enthusiast, then you already know: it's beer season. In Atlanta that means a month of non-stop beer events. Hoptoberfest, the Great Atlanta Beer Fest, Beer Week and Decatur Beer Fest have beer geeks city-wide Twittering their thumbs off with crazed anticipation (seriously, the threads about Founder's CBS were unstoppable).

A home brewing/craft beer drinking family that also adheres to a heart healthy lifestyle might seem like a contridiction in terms. But one of my most important life rules is: everything in moderation, including moderation. What better way to give moderation the occasional boot then an all you drink, seven hour, beer tasting?

Besides, we have met so many of our closest friends through the beer community. Without them our lives would be considerably less fun. A healthy heart is also a happy one. Rather then limit our attendance (or our consumption) we accept the fact that some weekends are going to be "bad weekends".

Do it, enjoy it, make up for it later. Don't let it become a habit.

Perhaps the key words there are "make up for it later". We plan ahead for how to offset all extra calories we consume at a beer fest. For the last two fests we biked to and from the festival and then spent an extra half hour at the gym the following day. I upped the length and intensity of my cardio workout and didn't cut any corners when lifting weights. We were also conscious about drinking less in the days before the beer festivals.