WEST READING Spring into a Festival this Season

By Mark Ratcliffe, West Reading Main Street Executive Director

In West Reading, spring is the beginning of our festival season starting with the Craft Pretzel & Beer Festival on April 29. This year’s event focus is on regional pretzels and beers with an occasional tasty, national malted product. This festival celebrates our area’s pretzel heritage thanks to the immigrants from southern and western Germany who bought land from the Penns and started making pretzels. The Pennsylvanian German dialect was spoken in the area well into the 1950s, and you can occasionally hear it today. The Reading area has been known as “Pretzel City” because of its numerous local pretzel bakeries such as Savor Street (formally Bachman), Fallers, Uncle Henry’s, Pretzel Revolution, Tom Sturgis, and Unique Pretzel along with the numerous soft pretzel bakeries in our farmers markets. Fun fact, this area produces 80% of all pretzels consumed in America.

At this year’s Craft Pretzel & Beer Fest, we will have a very special home brewers competition. The winner of this competition gets to brew their beer for public consumption at Chatty Monks who will put it on tap sometime in 2023. The festival is free and will include West Reading shops along with specialty pretzel food and gifts. Beer can be purchased at the local bars; however, the beer tasting is a ticketed event. Tickets can be found on Visit West Reading Facebook page or website, visitwestreading.org.

Art on the Ave is June 17 and is one of the biggest events of the year in West Reading. We look forward to including more local artists along with the Goggleworks and Berks Art Council. Our Plein Air event hosted by Art Plus Gallery will be bigger than ever this year. This event leads up to Art on the Ave and attracts fine artists from around the region who take this week to paint tableaus of the local area. The paintings are judged and will be auctioned off Friday, June 16.

Other events are our Sunday Farmers Market that continues every other Sunday until May. Second Fridays will gear back up and this summer will also bring the French Fry Festival hosted by West Reading Tavern. The West Reading Shopping Center will be getting a facelift this year and will be adding a Cigar Lounge to replace Chef Alan’s. With over 30 food and drink locations in West Reading, this will be a nice addition to the community. There is no better time to spend the weekend meeting friends and enjoying everything West Reading has to offer. CQ