Beer Run Blog

Anatomy of a Beer Festival, Post-Covid

About 45 minutes into the Vail Craft Beer Classic on Saturday, a feeling wafted over the event that was, well, strangely normal. Beer geeks discussed the early finds of the day. A local brewery circulated word of a special tapping. Taster glasses jutted out from hands, subsequently filled with suds.

What no one talked about was coronavirus, except in terms of "hasn't it sucked that the pandemic has knocked out events like these for 17 months?" Glasses were cleaned well, but not excessively so. Hugs and pats on the back marked the day. Masks were nonexistent.

If there was an impact of the pandemic seen on the first specialty festival to come back - for a second straight year - since the world shut down, maybe it was the crowd limit self-imposed by Team Player Productions, which made the event all the more free-flowing and celebratory. Lines never exceeded about eight people for the 40 tents of booze purveyors, and that lent to an atmosphere where you stopped and chatted and even planted yourself in front of the band for a few minutes rather than rushed to the hot brewers to beat everyone else there. (Note the below picture of the lineless Weldwerks tent, which happened several times during the event.)

There was just a hell of a lot of smiles. Heck, this open-air festival even took on rain, but people ducked under tents or under their own umbrellas (see bottom of article), too eager to take part in the communal enjoyment of beer again to bother seeking more permanent shelter when the skies opened. And the Vail Craft Beer Classic offered a lot more reasons to stay than to overthink what might be purely the safest course, which frankly seemed an appropriate theme for a day when no one felt they were taking an undue risk.

Lagers ruled the roost at this summer gathering. Both the 4 Noses Jasmine Rice Lager - incredibly smooth with just a wanted hint of non-Rheinheitsgebot addition - and the perfectly crisp and clean FlyteCo Chinese Rice Lager just felt right to be consumed in an open green field. Wibby Brewing's Volksbier Vienna reminded you why the Longmont German beer specialist is one of the most underrated brewers in Colorado. And if Wild Blue Yonder Brewing's Oak-Barrel-Aged Lager added only a hint of vanilla to the backtaste of the creation, it was enough to let you know it still was something special.

But the creativity was big too. The aforementioned Weldwerks brought its Rockets Red Glare Berliner that was nothing short of the alcoholic version of a Bomb Pop. Bakers' Brewery's higher-alcohol In Bloom Saison served as a reminder of the creativity of brewers whose products don't make it to the Front Range - as did Ramblebine Brewing's incredibly drinkable Demberries, a slightly tart and fruity ale that doesn't forget that it's a beer first and foremost. And if you didn't get a sip of Launch Pad Brewery's Peacemaker Porter, the term "smoked session porter" may not light up a smile for you the way it does for me.

All in all, the event was a reminder why beer festivals remain both relevant and extremely doable. Conversations with folks you know and folks you don't make the beer-tasting experience a more elevated one because of thoughts shared in a collegial way. Good gatherings are ones where the brewers pour and then discuss their offerings. You leave wanting to seek out more adventures for your palate, both from the creators who just lit it up and others you hope to find.

Beer festivals are back, and they can be done safely and in a less crowded way than maybe we knew before. And events like Vail Craft Beer Classic show that it's time that more come back too.

Labels: 4 Noses Brewing, Baker's Brewery, Beer festivals, FlyteCo Brewing, Launch Pad Brewery, Ramblebine Brewing, Vail Craft Beer Classic, Weldwerks Brewing, Wibby Brewing, Wild Blue Yonder Brewing

Beer Festivals Are Back. Here is How One is Pulling That Off.

The Vail Craft Beer Classic is coming back for its second straight year of socially distanced drinking with limited crowds in just two weeks. But the moves it's making to stay safe and relevant this year may impact the way that it and a whole lot of other beer festivals change permanently.

Unless you were one of the 700 people spread across four sessions who attended the event in 2020, you may not realize there was actually one beer festival last summer. Organizers cut capacity crowds by 82%, eliminated lines at booths for the sake of keeping groups of attendees apart and reported zero transmissions of coronavirus at a time when most people still were hunkering down in their homes.

They expected to put the same safety measures in place this year but have been pleased to see a loosening on everything from mask requirements to crowd constraints. Still, Team Player Productions is limiting each of the four sessions on June 25 and 26 to 250 people, even in a park that holds about 1,000, and it believes it may have hit on the sweet spot of attendee comfort and crowd optimization.

Kristen Slater, event director for the Denver-based organization, noted that while many festivals run on a ratio of one brewery for every 50 people, the Vail Craft Beer Classic will offer one beverage provider for every eight to 12 attendees. While guests this year will be able to sample the beers at the booths where they're poured — something they couldn't do last year, when they had to remain masked and take them back to designated areas for each cadre of attendees — she expects lines won't grow more than two to three people long, and the vibe will be very relaxed.

"That's really a decision we made early on that we didn't want that environment," Slater said of the typical throngs converging on the most sought-after booths. "And people loved it and they loved not having the pressure of having to get your beer and move to the next line."

This year, to meet all guests where they are on their public-mingling comfort levels, the festival will offer reusable taster cups if they want to take them from booth to booth or will offer compostable single-use cups and frisbee trays that attendees can use to gather the cups and bring them back to their stations. The festival will take place in Ford Park and Sculpture Garden, and there will be the usual trappings of a beer festival as well, including music.

And, yes, there will be 40 breweries, with a mix of Colorado star players (WeldWerks, Odell, Great Divide, 4 Noses) and local finds that would make you want to travel into the mountains for the weekend (Vail Brewing Co., Ramblebine, Cabin Creek, Baker's Brewery). And the pour list is not, well, poor, offering treats from WeldWerks' Pop-Rocks-inspired Rockets Red Glare Sour to Cheluna Brewing's Rojo Tamarindo Gose to a Chardonnay-barrel-aged saison from Cabin Creek.

By keeping ticket prices relatively close to 2019 levels — $64, with tickets available still to the 2 and 5 p.m. Friday sessions and a small wait list building for the noon and 3 p.m. Saturday sessions — and crowds small, Slater believes the whole festival will feel like the uncrowded but higher-priced VIP sessions of other events. Plus it will have a special touch — West Vail Liquor Mart will have QR codes at the booths of each of the breweries whose products it has in stock (about two-thirds of them), and attendees can order those beers for post-festival pickup or delivery if they would like.

Organizers certainly look forward to welcoming in more guests in future years. But Slater, for one, doesn't think that the elbow-to-elbow festivals of pre-pandemic times will return fully at any point. And these less crowded, more experiential gatherings that are taking place this summer may just offer a peek into how beer events will be redefined in future years.

"I think we're kind of going to see a hybrid. I think there is a knee-jerk reaction to big crowds for some people," Slater said. "But we're also seeing that people are willing to pay more for an elevated experience."

 

Labels: 4 Noses Brewing, Baker's Brewery, Beer festivals, Cabin Creek Brewing, Cheluna Brewing, Great Divide, Odell Brewing, Team Player Productions, Vail Craft Beer Classic, Weldwerks Brewing