The NYC Craft Beer festival will returning for its 20th year of delicious craft beer tastings from some of the best and most exciting breweries in the country. This year’s two-day event will happen at the all purpose Manhattan events space the Metropolitan West kicking things off on Friday October 19th and wrapping up on Saturday October 20th. Giving you enough time to recover on Sunday before heading into the work week.
NYC Craft Beer Festival — Everything you need to know
A scene from last year’s NYC Craft Beer Festival.
This year’s festival will bring over 50 different breweries ranging from the larger names on the scene down to the young nano-breweries that have been building their presence through word of mouth. The opening night on Friday will be at 7pm and will be open on Saturday starting at 1pm. Tickets will range from general admission $65 for general admission to $75 and $85 for VIP options on Friday and Saturday, respectively. Admission to the festival will get you 2 hours of unlimited free tastings from all of the participating breweries while the VIP options will give you one extra hour of tasting as well as access to special perks such as oysters, a silent disco, special craft cocktails, and much more.
When the festival first started, the craft beer landscape was not nearly as burgeoning and vibrant as it is today. Now it seems like you can get off at any subway stop in the five boroughs and only be a short distance from a craft brewery. “The fact that we now have about 40 different breweries calling NYC home and about 30 of them are actually brewing here in the city is phenomenal,” says Ann Reilly, the Events and Promotions Coordinator for Five Boroughs Brewing Co.who call the Brooklyn Neighborhood of Sunset Park their home.
The founder of the festival, Ken Tesler, sees this explosion of craft beers in America as a the more the merrier scenario than an oversaturation of the market. Afterall, beer is delicious and even if this has been causing some of the bigger corporate breweries to buy up some of the big names in the little leagues, the quality — for the most part — has not seemed to decline and has only flourished.
Kesler believes that the goal of this festival is to introduce beer enthusiasts to some breweries that they would not normally be able to try. “I think that are a few guys that will surprise people that haven’t been there before,” says Kesler. “I think that people will be real pleased to find a bunch of very small guys. They’re not going their local liquor store and finding them. They need to come to our festival to try some really cool stuff.”
For more information and tickets to the NYC Craft Beer Festival head over to nyccraftbeerfest.com. Don’t forget to enter here for your chance to win a pair of free tickets!
