Festival fatigue: it’s when you find that the juggernaut gatherings you once looked forward to every year suddenly feel more like mandatory work conferences. (Those lanyards have something to do with it.) And it applies to the very best festivals in life, too, like those ones focused on beer. This is especially alarming. Has your passion for beer turned lukewarm, like a Sunday-morning wounded soldier on the coffee table? Is it all the talk of sales figures and changes in industry-related legislation? Perhaps you’re just thirsty for a shakeup. These 10 alternative beer festivals across the US will remind you that there’s more to celebrating craft beer than the Great American Beer festival. Chin up, meek beer geek; there’s plenty of buzzed adventures to be had.
Sly Fox Bock Fest & Goat Race
May 3, Pottstown, PA: Inaugurated in 2000, Sly Fox’s yearly beer festival is well on its way to canonization, and it’s right up there with rolling wheels of cheese down a hill in terms of weird backcountry tradition. Each year proud goat owners put their prized pets through a racing tournament; the goat that wins the hotly anticipated championship heat will have its name on that year’s new Maibock, released and tapped shortly after the winner crosses the finish line. (Previous winners include Peggy, Sundae, Savannah and Weird Beard.) This year the festival will take place at the Sly Fox brewery, which neighbors a wide-open field for the goats to hightail it across, and like every year, the brewery will offer up a their Slacker Bock, Helles Bock, Instigator Doppelbock, and two Eisbocks, in addition to a traditional German menu. All of the proceedings are accompanied by German Oompah music, really driving home that old-world feeling.
