St Paul Summer Beer Fest

I go to a couple brew fests a year in the Twin Cities growing craft beer scene and I love the St. Paul one the best.
Great location at the fairgrounds Bazaar with the major brewers out back on the grass along side a couple of food trucks. It is nice to have the grassy area out back where it doesn’t seem as crowded as inside the Bazaar.
They have lots of food stands available like Holy Land and a typical state fair stand when you walk in.
They have one main stage with great bands playing, but I think this year they added a blue grass stage out back. I love blue grass, so I could have hung out there all day.
There are hundreds of beers to try and everyone is happy to serve you. For a few thousand people drinking beer, everyone is cool and I haven’t seen anyone really get out of hand at these things.
All the major players like Surly, New Belgium, Sam Adams, Pour Decisions were all there. Great selection!
I was with some great friends and we had lots of laughs, even though it poured for about 45 minutes, we were in a tent and made beer runs here and there. It was actually not horrible.
Lots of restrooms are available which is huge at a beer festival and clean.
It was $ 40 for the ticket, and $ 50 for a VIP ticket that gets you in an hour earlier and some tent seats if you like. I may do that next year.
They have a designated driver ticket you can buy as well, which was kind of cool. Overall, this is the second time at this fest, and it was just as fantastic as last year!

A beer fest is a wonderful thing. They did a great job making sure there were a ton of interesting breweries present from all over the place, and I loved that. It was also a wonderful thing that there was a variety of food available and other interesting vendors. Over all, they did a good job.
What would have really improved my experience would have been:
–Dump buckets in more areas
–A whole lot more water available for drinking and rinsing glasses
–More space between beer tables. It was very crowded, and I know some people like the crazy bar feel… but we were pretty wigged out by it.

I like this one. The have many many vendors, the lines are always really short and it’s always spread out enough so that you don’t feel like you are shoved into a little space! Lot of local brews as well as others from all over the US.
If there is one beer festival not to miss, it’s this one!
This year, new location — and it was definitely a different set up, but it did seem to work (Fairgrounds) — even though the feel of it was a little different.
It was nice to have a grassy area to sit down and chill whereas before it was just in a parking lot — also nice to have the covers over the booths this year — vs. being exposed to the elements.

Why did I love this so much? Was it the huge selection of craft brews? Not really, there were some very conventional breweries (Sam Adams /​Goose Island /​etc) in addition to some really great little brewers. I loved this because it wasn’t an incredible crowd. After being in other major cities at festivals, it is enjoyable to be at one where you don’t have to crowd surf to get to a port-​a-​john. Sprining for the VIP tickets was wise as it gave access to shade and other perks. The day was little warm, but I’ll write a review on the Creator’s (she, he, it, or they?) weather planning skills later.

This past June played host to the second annual St. Paul Summer Beer Fest. Having been to both the inaugural tasting, as well as this year’s, I can confidently say that this event keeps getting bigger (over 70+ breweries in attendance this past year), better, faster (shorter lines), stronger (more high gravity beers) and depending on how many of the 175+ beers you try to sample — drunker.
This event caters to the true beer drinking crowd, meaning that you’re going to find many more of the small and obscure breweries in attendance than you would at any of the other local tasting events. As a result, the crowd is generally a bit older than you’d find at some of the other local beer festivals — which is fine by me as you can tell people are there for the beer sampling and not for the sole purpose of getting drunk.
The event is held in the Midway Stadium parking lot and as a result there is plenty of room to spread out the tasting tents and for people to linger. Only downside to that is you’re standing in a parking lot with minimal to no shade/​cover on either a rainy, or like the last two years, very sunny and warm day (my farmer’s tan is now better than yours).
Make sure to stop by the tents of the event sponsors, YMCA silent auction and Midway Stadium food vendors while you’re at it. This event will definitely get the 5^th star from me if the stadium ends up moving to Lowertown and this event comes with it.