Beer on the Bay is Erie, Pennsylvania's signature summer beer festival, held on the waterfront where the city meets Presque Isle Bay. Each year around fifty craft brewers pour alongside more than twenty vendors, with a silent disco, VIP tasting experiences, and a full afternoon of live entertainment set against one of the best views on Lake Erie. It is the kind of festival where the setting does half the work - a summer Saturday on the bay with a fresh pour in hand.
Brew Five Three is downtown Tacoma's beer and blues block party, named for the 253 area code it calls home. The festival brings together more than thirty breweries and cideries from Tacoma and the South Sound, pairing the tap list with live blues from local bands and a lineup of food trucks along a closed-off downtown block. It is a 21-and-over event, and proceeds have traditionally supported local community causes.
Gherkinfest is Knoxville, Tennessee's festival of all things pickled, hosted at Schulz Brau Brewing Company - a German-style brewery and biergarten on the north side of downtown. For one weekend each summer the castle-styled brewery fills with pickle-themed food and drink, craft vendors, live music, and special appearances from the festival's beloved Pickle Princesses. It is exactly as delightfully odd as it sounds.
Milwaukee's Original Oktoberfest is held each fall at the Bavarian Bierhaus in Old Heidelberg Park in Glendale, Wisconsin, and is billed as the Milwaukee area's longest-running Oktoberfest celebration. Old Heidelberg Park has been a home of German culture in greater Milwaukee for generations, and the festival keeps the tradition intact: authentic German bier poured in the park, German food, live music, and family-friendly fun across multiple weekends from late September into early October.
The Oregon Brewers Festival is one of the longest-running craft beer festivals in the United States, held each summer at Tom McCall Waterfront Park on the banks of the Willamette River in downtown Portland, Oregon. Since its founding in 1988 the festival has showcased independent brewers from across Oregon and the wider Pacific Northwest, pouring a rotating lineup of IPAs, lagers, fruit beers, sours, and experimental one-offs to tens of thousands of attendees over multiple days.
The Portland Craft Beer Festival is an annual summer celebration of Portland brewing, bringing together dozens of local breweries and cider makers for a multi-day festival of beers made in and around the city. Attendees can work through a deep lineup of hop-forward ales, crisp lagers, barrel-aged projects, and seasonal releases while meeting the people who brew them.