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Author Topic: First Annual Hogtown Craft Beer Festival  (Read 3214 times)

Offline tumarkin

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First Annual Hogtown Craft Beer Festival
« on: March 04, 2012, 02:31:04 pm »
Hey y'all,

(Not sure if this is the correct place to post this, please move if not)
Our homebrew club, Hogtown Brewers, is putting on the first of what's to be an annual event, the 2012 Hogtown Craft Beer Festival in Gainesville, Florida. The inaugural event will be held on Saturday, April 14th at Kanapaha Gardens. Three of us, Alex Pries, Craig Birkmaier, and myself, having been spearheading our planning process for the last several months. Our website just went live for info & ticket sales.....  http://www.hogtownbeerfest.com

The event will be held at Kanapaha Gardens. This beautiful botanical garden will be an awesome venue, and one that will accommodate us as we grow the event in future years. Most of the festival will be out in the garden grounds, but we also have use of the Summer House for our VIP area and for seminars/presentations. There will also be music on an outdoor stage. The weather in mid-April should be perfect.

Our goals for the event are to:
      Promote and celebrate quality beer through craft beer offerings and pairings with local restaurants/caterers.
      Educate event attendees about craft beer and beer styles through seminars and discussions with professional brewers, experienced home brewers and nationally recognized beer judges.
      Recognize and raise monies to benefit our local charity co-sponsors – Alachua Conservation Trust and St. Johns Riverkeeper.

Attendance at this inaugural event will be limited to 1,500 total attendees, with the expectation that attendance will grow in successive years (although we always plan to have a limit to ticket sales to keep the event from growing out of hand). We plan to grow this event into a premier regional beer event. We'd like to invite you to join us for this first celebration of craft beer in North Central Florida. We've invited all the craft breweries (and many brew pubs) in Florida, as well as regional and national breweries. There will be no crap on tap. If the event grows & improves as we hope, you'll be able to say you were there for the start of a great beer festival.

Hope you can join us!
Mark Tumarkin
Hogtown Brewers
Gainesville, FL
Mark Tumarkin
Hogtown Brewers
Gainesville, FL

Offline tumarkin

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Re: First Annual Hogtown Craft Beer Festival
« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2012, 11:32:26 am »
Well, our first annual Hogtown Craft Beer Festival is behind us. It was a complete success. Of course, there were some wrinkles & problems, but nothing major - and I don't think they were things that were noticed by the attendees or detracted from their experience.

It was a huge amount of work, and we learned a lot for next year. We plan on doing the fest every year, and we're committed to keep making it better each time. We had capped attendance at 1500 and we sold out!!!

Here is a video shot by one of the happy attendees. We're actually having a professional video shot for pr use for next year (being done by a friend of one of the other organizers), but this was a pretty decent amateur effort. I think they did a good job and it certainly gives a feel for the event and our great venue (Kanapaha Botanical Gardens).  Check it out .....        http://youtu.be/DEWQSBVoc3c

Hope you can join us next year!
Mark Tumarkin
Hogtown Brewers
Gainesville, FL

Offline ccfoo242

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Re: First Annual Hogtown Craft Beer Festival
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2012, 10:02:35 am »
Sorry I missed it.  Kanapaha is a gorgeous place for anything. Glad to see turnout was so good, I'll make it out next year.

-Sent from the future.
Intra cervisiam est deus.