Aug 27th Plainfield, IL Midwest Brewers Festival

The Midwest Brewers Festival is being held at the Plainfield Riverfront Park here in Plainfield, Illinois on August 27th. The Plainfield Riverfront Park is located on Route 126 just West of the DuPage River on the West side of downtown Plainfield. The gates will open on Saturday the 27th at noon and the festival will end at 8pm.


http://www.midwestbrewersfest.com/

Getting my tickets this week, they've added some excellent brewerys, can't wait.

The Midwest Brewers Fest is a craft beer festival organized by local brewing enthusiasts. This is our inaugural year and we expect over fifty breweries, brewpubs, and AHA registered homebrew clubs to serve about 200 different beers right here in Plainfield, Illinois on the banks of the DuPage River. We will have local artisanal food, great craft beer, local musical artists and brewing expositions. Come join us and meet some of your favorite brewers!

Some of the breweries attending: 5 Rabbit, Big Muddy, Brickstone, Destihl, Finch's, Flossmoor Station, Founders, Galena, Goose Island, Haymarket, Lagunitas, Limestone, Mendocino, Metropolitan, New Belgium, Rock Bottom, Smuttynose, Stockholm’s, Two Brothers, Wild Onion.

Stop by the homebrew tent and say hello!
http://www.midwestbrewersfest.com/

We are thrilled to announce that noted beer authority Marty Nachel (The Ale-Conner) will be joining us at The Midwest Brewers Festival (www.midwestbrewersfest.com) as one of our Craft Beer Celebrity guests. Marty has written articles that have appeared in print and online publications such as Brew Your Own, Brewing Techniques, Celebrator Beer News, Cooking Pleasures, Fine Cooking, Epicurious.com, Malt Advocate, and Zymurgy.

Marty’s books include "Beer Across America”, "Beer For Dummies" and "Homebrewing For Dummies" he is also a contributor to Microsoft's digital Encarta Encyclopedia.

In 1996, Marty was named one of the Top Three Beer Writers in North America by North American Guild of Beer Writers. In a span of six years Marty won eight Quill & Tankard awards for excellence in beer writing.

In addition to being an award-winning homebrewer, Marty has been a BJCP Certified Beer Judge since 1986 (first BJCP judge in the state of Illinois) and was a beer evaluator at Beverage Testing Institute's World Beer Championships from 1994 to 1998. In 1998, Marty was appointed to the Professional Panel Blind Tasting at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, Colorado, and in 2008 Marty joined Jim Koch at the Boston Beer Company to judge the LongShot Homebrew Competition finals.

Marty’s booth will be in the Homebrew Pavilion. Visit his website at http://www.ale-conner.com/

Wanted to bump this up, as it is getting closer. From what I hear from people I've talked to, there should be a large turnout. I was fortunatle enough to be at The Map Room last Saturday and saw posters placed on both bathroom doors!

I can't wait to be there!

I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas waiting for the 27th. Thrilled that they are gonna have some Mendo brew and saw on their page that Shipwreck is gonna have some brews too.

Check attending breweries here: http://www.midwestbrewersfest.com/breweries.php

shameless bump!

5 days to go...

Just bought my tickets.

It was awesome, they need to add a home brew competition for next year.

agreed

I had a great time.

Thanks for coming out! I poured practically non-stop in the Homebrew Pavillion from 3:30pm until the 7:30pm cut-off! A competition might be a good idea in the future. As it is, I was amazed at how much work went in to pulling this Fest off - by a lot of people far more involved than me.

Good article here:
http://plainfield.patch.com/article...ewers-fest-draws-more-than-3000#photo-7516721

Tips for next year:

- Commemorative glass glasses (see Great Lakes Beer Fest for example)
- do away with the drink tickets. Most people are not going to sample more than 25 with or without the tickets. Selling them for $0.50 each additional was just a waste of time.

Other than that, it was a great event. Thanks to those who organized and volunteered.

Unfortunately, Plainfield village mandated both of these issues, and a bunch more things... my personal feeling is you would still see tickets again next year. But I would hope with the stunning success of the event, Plainfield will loosen up on a couple of their mandates. One can hope.

But totally agree - what I great fest, esp. for a first time, grassroots (no paid planner) brew fest, it was amazing!

jtlawlor said:

Unfortunately, Plainfield village mandated both of these issues, and a bunch more things... my personal feeling is you would still see tickets again next year. But I would hope with the stunning success of the event, Plainfield will loosen up on a couple of their mandates. One can hope.

But totally agree - what I great fest, esp. for a first time, grassroots (no paid planner) brew fest, it was amazing!

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Sort of expected that to have been the case, but I would hope the success would help sell those issues to be lifted for next year. Could probably show the entry ticket sales vs extra tickets and they would realize very few extra tickets were actually sold/used. The coordination and overhead of it all was just useless overhead. Even if the event were an hour or 2 shorter it would have been fine.

Great event, though.

Randar said:

Sort of expected that to have been the case, but I would hope the success would help sell those issues to be lifted for next year. Could probably show the entry ticket sales vs extra tickets and they would realize very few extra tickets were actually sold/used. The coordination and overhead of it all was just useless overhead. Even if the event were an hour or 2 shorter it would have been fine.

Great event, though.

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Under State law and local ordinance you may not sell tickets to an event for the consumption of "unlimited drinks". This is why we must provide tickets for individual samples, otherwise it is considered "unlimited".

How do all you can drink bar specials fit in then? I've been to probably a hundred of those!(not arguing, just curious)

I know this is over and done with but I was at the Wheaton ale fest and they had no tickets and it was unlimited. I skipped the Plainfield fest because of the tickets. Hopefully it will change next year. Not sure about the state laws or anything like that but the cities pretty close to each other.

kramerica said:

I know this is over and done with but I was at the Wheaton ale fest and they had no tickets and it was unlimited. I skipped the Plainfield fest because of the tickets. Hopefully it will change next year.

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Two different counties and two different towns, Plainfield was worried about a big drunk fest! Although Plainfield has grown they still have a small town mindset.

Do yourself a favor and come next year, it should only get better!