Do any of you BA's have any info on this fest? I checked out the website to see what beers would be there and it has only breweries listed. It looks like a great festival and a fun way to end beer week. While I love NC Brewfest and won't ever miss it (music, camping etc.) and have had a good time at QCBrewfest, the beer lineup, for the most part, are beers that I can, and do, drink everyday around town. With this festival being part of the beer week festivities (which is already shaping up nicely) there will be choices that will have to be made. Just trying to see if there will actully be a beer listing vs. a brewery listing in order to make a commitment.
Original post was over a month ago. Anyone out there have beer specific info they can share? Should we expect to see 312 or Proprietors etc.?
The questions I need answered before I'd even think about attending are: 1) Why does a Charlotte Craft Beer Week event have/need GI as a major sponsor (since it's neither Charlotte or craft) 2) Why doesn't a CCBW event include most of the local breweries (no NoDa, OMB, Birdsong, or Triple C?), but DOES include pretty much every craft brewer (plus GI) carried by the Charlotte AB distributor? I have some theories about this, but no proof, and since I doubt I'll get a satisfactory answer I'll go ahead and plan to go to the Wicked Weed bottle release and spend some time in Asheville that day instead.
Eh... haven't been able to get excited about this one looking at the listings and the rather sketchy information. Throw in the fact that my personal favorite sour is getting released the same day in Asheville, and that's the nail in the coffin. So basically, what @chefkevlar said
I'm actually planning a local brewery crawl of OMB, NoDa, Birdsong, and 3C that day. So, basically, any given Saturday.
I'm with you on this one...its probably the same reason why black and blue never gets mentioned on their site or social media even tho its arguably the premier craft beer event of the year...my guess is someone got butthurt at some point and that same someone is probably getting paid or perks from said AB distributor...just a guess on my part..
I did some social media searches and it looks like a "standard offering" event. Was really hoping for some special beers but it doesn't look like there will be enough to feed my need. I didn't realize that the wicked weed release was the same day. The release of black angel seems like more of a beer week "grand" finale to me.
Main sponsor = Budweiser/AB/Inbev Orginized by people, who I hear are very nice, from Tennessee NOT Charlotte. The problem with and reason that we took our event out of "Charlotte Craft Beer Week" was poor quality of the vast majority of events, ridiculous number of events, most of which were worse than bland and poorly attended and prevalence of "crafty" beers. Seems it has been taken to the next level with this event. Not Charlotte, not Craft, not going.
To be fair, technically, its name is "Beerfest", not "Craft Beer Fest". AB/Inbev is certainly well within their rights to sponsor a festival. My real question is its inclusion in Charlotte Craft Beer Week; indeed, billed as the "official closing event". As mentioned above, "Not Charlotte, not Craft". Organizers might consider a name change to "Kinda Charlotte Area Crafty Beer Week".
So I scored free tix yesterday and checked out the festival. Hands down the highlight of the festival was the homebrewers. Great excitement in the room along with great beer. Wicked weed brought the french toast stout and thier new 10% sexy fruit ipa. Duckworths randalled coco loco through raspberries. Supposedly goose island was to have the backyard on at 7:00 but I left before then. Oustside of those beers everthing else was everyday beer. As for the entertainment, the belly dancers were sexy. Everything else just seemed silly. The mixology station was a 6ft table with fruit on it to add to you drink. The music was like house/dance music and played too loud (I sound old, but its just not my tatse). The weird thing about the day was that I only saw about 5 faces that I recognized 1/2 of which were working. I'm sure most of the beer crowd in Charlotte knew to avoid the fest. I am very thankful I came across free tickets and glad that I went. If it weren't for the homebrewers I would have left, gone to Brawleys, picked up a sixer of Undercover Shutdown and played a couple of rounds at Kilbourne and been a lot better off.
