The Fredericton Craft Beer Festival is brewing up something special for patrons this year – beer lovers are able to sip, chat and mingle with the brewers of their favourite libations in person, adding even more to the community-based event.
“Our festival is a little unique compared to some because we actually have most of the brewers in the room. The people that actually make the beer are there,” said Lloyd Chambers, co-founder of the event. “You can come, try beer, and actually talk to the person that made the beer. It gives us that extra engagement.”
Ticket-holders will be given a custom tasting glass upon entering the festival, as well as a floor plan to check off booths already visited. Over 150 different brews and roughly 50 brewers will be around the room.
To keep up with the increasing demand, an afternoon session of sampling before the standard evening session was added to the schedule. About 1100 attended in 2015, and Chambers says that he’s expecting closer to 1400 this year.
“We primarily focus on Atlantic beer or East coast beer. New Brunswick is our showcase, because this year there’s over 20 breweries from New Brunswick,” said Chambers.
While the majority of breweries featured this year come from New Brunswick, beer from Nova Scotia, PEI, and Maine will also be available.
Fredericton’s local brewery Picaroons has been a part of the festival since its inception in 2013.
“We’ll be bringing a line up of seasonals, one-offs [a beer that will only be brewed once], as well as hosting Half Cut Brewing Company on our draft system. Half Cut is a brewery that we’ve been helping to incubate on our brewing system at the Brewtique on Queen St.,” said Brendan Moore, Picaroons’ events and community support manager.
“This particular festival is important for us for a couple of different reasons. First off, it’s our home town; the people of Fredericton have really helped to get us to where we are today so we need to be there for them alone,” said Moore.
“…we’re just a small group of people who love NB, making beer and supporting local growth.”
Chambers said that he’s seeing a shift throughout the years of more and more younger people attending the festival.
“I think they [university students] want to support local,” said Chambers. “I think they want more of an experience as opposed to just coming and getting boozed up, which is good because I think we tend to stereotype that that’s why they want to come to the events.”
“I think that’s the wrong assumption. I think a lot of them are coming because they enjoy craft beer, and they enjoy sampling the variety that we’re offering,” he said.
A Designated Driver Pass is also available. DDs can enter the festival at a discounted price to drink non-alcoholised beer, pop or water, and talk with the brewers.
The Fredericton Craft Beer Festival takes place Fredericton’s Convention Centre on March 12. Regular and DD passes for the evening session are sold out, however the afternoon session still has tickets available. Tickets can be bought at frederictoncraftbeerfestival.com.
Additional events aside from the main sampling sessions will take place throughout the week, including trivia, a rock, paper, scissors tournament, and beer and yoga. Check out the Fredericton Craft Beer Festival’s Facebook event for details.
