Let’s face it, there are so many craft beer festivals now, veteran beer enthusiasts have grown über choosy about who gets their event dollar, while those folks just finding their beer palates are searching for a broad-based adventure. Either way, everyone’s looking to maximize the experience of sampling beers with friends and indulging in some comfort foods, all to a great live-music soundtrack. That’s why we, as craft beer people, are keeping an eye out for festivals that really bring it, perfect mix of offerings from the food trucks, a smoke (if you’re a cigar aficionado), music, and, of course, beer. The reason is simple: Fests that crush it wind up on our calendars for next year. We plan to go back.
Blend Bar’s Central Jersey Beer Festival (Oct. 10) just notched another year – its second – and showed the great promise of being one of those festivals on a day in which beer fans had their pick of competing festivals to attend.
The fest site – Mercer County Park – is sprawling, well-maintained and outdoorsy inviting, care-free even, the kind of place where even a huge crowd has ample elbow room. Score big points for creature comfort.
The mix of beers was a lot of familiar faces via distributors – Victory, Neshaminy Creek, Firestone Walker. But who doesn’t respect something from those breweries’ portfolios? They’re foundational names.
Match them with respected Garden State brewers. For example: Carton and Kane (game-changers in New Jersey’s craft beer scene); Tuckahoe Brewing with its intrepid sour beer program (if you see Sean and Amanda pouring, it’s a good bet TBC brought a sour); Jersey stalwart River Horse Brewing; Spellbound Brewing, a pacesetter of an ale maker, to be sure; and the good-time guys from Bolero Snort, who can often be a barometer of how fun a fest is. If they’re having fun, it’s a good fest. At Blend, they were having fun. Good chance they will next year. Us, too.
-Jeff