Best Beer Festivals

http://www.rarebeerfest.com/
Northern Lights Rare Beer Fest (March, 2018), held at the MN History Center (beautiful venue), downtown St. Paul MN (close to hotels). Three levels, about 1000 attendees, about thirty breweries, and one to four beers per brewery, and lots of tasty catered food.

https://www.junkyardbeer.com/rare-beer-picnic
Held in July at a city park (lots of trees) in downtown Moorhead MN. About 500 attendees, about fifteen breweries (many of the better ones in the upper Midwest). Music and sandwich lunch. The longest line is for the food.

 

Hood River Fresh Hop Festival and Yakima Fresh Hop Festival.

 

Festival of Dankness by Modern Times is a great festival in San Diego. Great weather, the perfect amount of time, not crowded at all and an insane lest of brewers from all over the country. If I could go to one festival a year this would be it.

 

When I got into craft a couple of years ago, friends and I went to two beer fests. First one was in a convention center with perhaps 50 breweries having tables and offering two to four beers each, selected by the brewery. The second one we went to was in a local taproom/brewery, and they had 60+ beers on tap, carefully selected by the manager.

The convention center one just seemed liked going to a trade show, while the one in the taproom was crowded but friendly. Two years later the convention center fest is canceled and the taproom one is going strong, and that's what I prefer.

 

Honestly, if you want to find a non-crowded beer fest, your best bet is to find a brand new one in its first year of existence. Better ones tend to be in offbeat places like public parks instead of convention centers, and if they're hosted by breweries themselves, the beer list will be more interesting than if held by a distribution company.

As each fest is held from year to year, word of mouth grows and attendance picks up, accordingly. But sometimes a festival will wane in popularity after many years, giving a chance for people to enjoy the calm (and often lesser beer lists, sadly).

Since it's all so change-able, listing a fest that was great one year may result in it being a shitshow the next. That's why I'm not listing specific ones.

 

Anybody have experience with past extreme beer fests in Boston? I'm going to LA this year and just wondering how many rare/one off beers I can expect

 

I've been to many, but here are the two extremes-
1. Two Roads Brewing has one every May. "Gathering at the Bines" they call it as it is in their "hop yard". I have been two years in a row and I will say they limit ticketing correctly. No lines, no waiting. My guess is 40 breweries, heavy on CT breweries , but also from the rest of New England, Canada and the Tri-State areas as well as big boys like SN. 10 food trucks, 3 live bands, 25 porta-potties. My only minor complaint was the line we waited in for the second session this year, but I guess there is no way to effectively handle that gate rush.
2. Visited an old friend in Butte Montana 2-years ago and we went to Buttetoberfest. Festival had the makings of a great small festival with good live music and really amazing food. Trouble was that the location was high on a hill overlooking the town and it was unseasonably cold with wind. The band was in an almost fully enclosed stage! Worse yet, all the breweries were confined to a 60 x 60 tent...with 4 sides. Kind of like a Tokyo train getting in and out of that tent. Then you would go outside to get relief from the crowd and freeze your ass off. Still, I tried a lot of beers I would never get otherwise living in the North East. Good times.

 

Not in the US but the Nottingham Robin Hood Beer Festival begins on Weds October 11th in the grounds of Nottingham Castle.It offers the greatest number of cask conditioned beers in one place anywhere in the world.
In 2016 it offered 1,274 different real ales and well over 200 real ciders. Soft drinks, teas & coffees and country wines were also available.The assumption is that this will be bettered next week.

 

EBF!!

 

If you like chaos, massive crowds, costumes, and insanity... gotta go with GABF. It's also the biggest and probably the oldest in the US. Can attend without ever getting into a car. And there are over 300 "beer week" special events. And special distro for the week.

Oh yeah, and it's possible to attend all *4* sessions.

 

True, but not always. We had a brewfest here in CT last year that was only CT breweries and held in downtown Hartford. Last year was the first year they started it. It was fun, but it was promoted a lot, they sold way too many tickets, and it ended up being way too overcrowded. The event was 3 hours long, but it took awhile to get it, getting food took like an hour to order and eat, the bathrooms had 20 minute lines, and all of the beer tents had at least 10 minute waits. If they sold less tickets it would be a better event, but with the crowds they had it wasnt really worth the price.

 

Going to LA or EBF in Boston??

EBF is my favorite beer fest. I've gone the past two years. Its a bit pricey, but it has loads of rare beers and its well organized. Almost everyone brings at least one really interesting beer.

The lines generally arent too bad. Treehouse came two years ago and had 30 min lines that were definitely not worth the wait, but most places are usually nowhere near that. Usually the bigger places have 5-10 minute waits and if you have a couple friends with you its easy to grab something from a local booth with a shorter line while you wait.

 

Hunahpu Day is my favorite down here in FL

 

Lagunitas Beer Circus is wild but the CHA (California Homebrew Fest) that is a yearly event is a really good time. Lots of clubs attend with a big variety of styles and levels of achievement.

 

Just got home from gabf, last session. I got to sample toppling goliath morning delight, weldwerks coffee maple achromatic, zombie dust, tweak, big bad baptista, utopias, and a couple others I am too drunk to remember. Best beer fest I xan think of, hands down.

 

Stone anniversary party is awesome and of course BA's EBF.

 

Anything you don't like about it (Boston)? I'm giving thought to travelling from out of state with my girlfriend to this in Feb 2018. I think it's limited to around 2,500 folks. Does it get crowded? Have been to may beer fests, but none that large.

 

The best part about the GABF is not attending the GABF and just taking advantage of all the awesome events and tappings happing the week leading up to the event. Pretty much every bar and brewery has stuff happening all week.

 

It was 4-5 years ago when I attended the Brattleboro Beer Festival in Brattelboro, VT. It was a small event back then with no lines, etc, and I recall that Lawsons Finest Liquids was one of the breweries in attendance. Being in VT, who knows which local breweries might come. Here's the list from last year. http://www.brattleborobrewersfestival.com/brewers