The 20th anniversary edition of Fest-of-Ale gets underway today, bringing with it a total of 47 breweries and cideries from across the province and the Pacific Northwest.
Considering that there is about 110 craft breweries in B.C., that’s a significant portion choosing to make the trip to Penticton this weekend.
Ron Dyck, Okanagan Fest-of-Ale Society Director and co-owner of The Cannery Brewing Company, said that Fest-of-Ale has become an important venue, growing alongside the craft beer movement.
“As craft beer has become more visible, as it has become a larger part of the market. It is an opportunity for these craft breweries to come down, and show people what they are doing and how they are doing it,” said Dyck, noting that 15 of the participants are coming to the festival for the first time.
Fest-of-Ale has changed over the years, Dyck said, with the number of participants growing, and the society limiting tickets sales.
“I can remember one year going there, and there was only 18 breweries and we had 5,000 people,” said Dyck. “It was just jammed with people and their lineups were a mile-long. Now we have 45 breweries, and because you have more choices, the lineups won’t be long at all.
“More is not necessarily better. You should be comfortable in there, you should be able to walk around.”
One of the new participants this year is a local brewery, Bad Tattoo. Co-owner Martin Lewis said they were at last year’s Fest-of-Ale.
“We just didn’t have beer. We were tattooing people and talking about the beer. We knew what we were going to do,” he said. “This will be our third or fourth participating festival since then, but sort of our first one here in Penticton, in our home town.”
Lewis said he’s been involved with Fest-of-Ale “pretty much since the beginning,” and that it has become a significant festival breweries enjoy attending, partly because of the way they are treated.
“Our beer festival is different than others in that we buy the beer from the breweries, then we sell it to the customers,” said Dyck. “The profit all goes to charity. No one gets paid, everyone is a volunteer, so all that money goes to local charities.”
That means, said Martin, that the only responsibility of the breweries is to pour their beer and talk about their beers.
“The growth in the consumer is great, how much more engaged in beer culture the average patron of the festival is. People are coming in and seeking out new and interesting beers and pushing the brewers to be better at their craft,” said Martin.
“The consumer is more sophisticated. They come up to your booth and they ask intelligent questions. ‘Tell me what makes your beer special, that’s the kind of question you get today. The demographic is growing up in a beer culture that didn’t exist 20 years ago.”
Their are a number of changes to this year’s festival. Local breweries are doing food-beverage pairings with local restaurants.
The festival has expanded outdoors, including food trucks for the first time and a second entertainment stage along with a number of other firsts.
“The other thing that is cool is we have a liquor store. You can buy beer that you can’t find anywhere else,” said Dyck, explaining that people will be able to buy the brews they sample at the festival to take home.
“We’re the first festival to have a liquor store. There is a lot of interesting things happening,” said Dyck. “I am very optimistic this year, we’ve sold lots of tickets, everything is going swimmingly. We are going to have a good time. It should be a fun event.”
