DC Craft Beer Festival

Overall I thought it was a good event. I was only slightly aware of the previous issues with scheduling but at least this time the organizers did a decent job. It felt like the space could have been a bit better organized and they definitely need a couple dozen more staffers to speed things up. But the beer selection was pretty good and every one was friendly.
The time felt a bit short given the wide selection of beers available but they weren’t rushing people out at the end. Also the advantage of having an indoor space with real bathrooms is massive. One other thing though was they should have provided more clearly marked dumping areas. I like to try as many beers as possible and not waste space on those I don’t like.
Overall I think I’ll be on the lookout for this event next year. It has a lot of potential.

I went to the DC Craft Beer Festival on 5÷9÷15.
I am going to start with what I liked about the festival compared to others I have been to. The first and probably most important is the variety of the beers offered for tasting. I couldn’t finish all of them and still expect to get home in one piece. In contrast to other festivals, I have been to where the beer is served in kegs; this festival serves the beer from bottles or cans. This method of delivery might have allowed the organizers to get more beer into the event.
The second thing I like about this festival was it going to happen rain or shine. The festival is in convention center which extremely convenient and its location to the metro is ideal.
The third thing I liked about the festival were the ample amount of clean restrooms available. It might seem a little odd to mention this but if you go to enough of these festivals you get tired of waiting in long lines for port potties.
The things the DC Craft Beer Festival could improve on is the staffing the event. I had to wait longer than I should have on several occasions because someone from the DC Bartending School and/​or a volunteer was manning 3 different pouring stations. I was also surprised on how few breweries had people from their own business pouring. (I like having employees of the brewery pour because they know the product.)
The second thing is although the space is very convenient it might actually be a little too large for this event. 1 of the things that is nice about festivals is you get to mingle with people who share a similar interest (s). However the space in the convention center didn’t «force» mingling of any kind.
The third thing the DC Craft Beer Festival could improve on would be to extend the event by an hour. The 2 hours was not long enough to sample all the beers. The additional hour would make it a much pleasant experience because I felt a rushed towards the end of the time slot.
The fourth and final improvement the DC Craft Beer Festival could make would be to place some dump bins around the event. The only place you could dump beers you didn’t care for was in the compost trash bag. (I felt bad for the person who had to pick this up when the event was over.)
Overall, a good event I would consider coming back next year, if the event was extended by an hour and the price was fair compared to similar festivals in the area.

This beer festival was supposed to take place on March 21^st and 22^nd. On March 18^th, the company
cancelled it via email! They gave everyone 2 days to request a refund through a website portal. They have never responded to my refund request, nor apparently anyone else’s request either, if you follow their Facebook page.
They rescheduled the event for May 9^th, but don’t buy any tickets — who knows if they’ll actually be there. I can tell you for sure you won’t get a refund if you do buy tix.