Thirsty yet? Given the number of summer beer fests this year, you really don’t have an excuse not to go to one, two or five… Border Battle Beer Fest is a two-day event in Somerset, Wisconsin that promises something for everyone, including whiskey, wings, beer, live music and camping. I’m hoping it’s nothing short of awesome.
The beer fest portion of the event is on Saturday, July 14th from 3-7pm. Over 100 Minnesota & Wisconsin beers are pitted against one another in a knock-down, drag-out beer battle (or something like that) with “celebrity judges” picking the winners. Music follows. Tickets are $30 advanced/$40 at the door.
Whiskey & wings? Why not? On Friday, July 13th from 6-8pm the event will feature a sampling of 20 different single malt, blended and designer whiskeys with wings available for purchase & pairing. $20 advaned/$30 at the door.
If you’d like to make a weekend of it, camping is available for the weekend in several different packages. You’ll be on the Apple River, so tubing might be a nice daytime option as well.
Visit the Boarder Battle website for tickets and complete information.
I dig the concept, but Summit and Schell are the only MN breweries there? Weak.
I saw that. I think as more and more beer fests pop up, smaller breweries are going to have a more difficult time deciding on which events to send people to. For my day gig, I have a hard time finding budget to participate in all of the bike events during the summer. I’d love to, but with the costs and staff to pay, it ends up being a judgement call.
The number of fests in the area have exploded in recent years. There is one almost every weekend this summer. Definitely stretches budgets thin.
For many Minnesota breweries, what benefit is there to them to goto out of state events like this? The prospect of maybe a few people drinking your product if they ever get to the cities? Is that really worth all the money they’ll spend to attend and give away their product? Or would that be much better spent somewhere closer to home serving samples to people that live where their product is sold and could drink it every day?
From what I understand, beer fests don’t help increase sales for breweries and distributors. I could see it helping to get your name out there when you’re very small and starting out but do you really think theres any tangible benefit to someone like Summit or Surly to attend these type of things? How often have you ever bought more of one guys beer later on because you’d had them at a beer fest (from companies you were already aware of)?
Go two tickets for half off, thought what the hell…
http://kstpfm1.hubbarddeals.com/index.php?index_type=promo-detail&h=1654498
The beer list is pretty sad, hope they will have a couple of casks
They’ve added to the list now and added a couple more breweries from MN.
Crowd Cut is offering tickets at 50% off.
http://www.crowdcut.com/r/921735
That list is solid! I haven’t tried most of those Wisconsin beers. The music line-up after looks cool too. Whiskey tasting might be in the cards too.