Best Beer Festival

Carolina Brew Scene readers are in good company in selecting Brewgaloo as Best Beer

Festival, as earlier in 2019 USA

Today named the festival the best of its kind in the entire country. While North Carolina can lay claim to some of the best barbecue and college basketball in the United States, this is certainly a feather in the Old

North State’s cap. The festival, which celebrated its eighth year in downtown

Raleigh this past April, featured over 100 North Carolina breweries as well as local food trucks and music, making it a must-attend for any serious North Carolina craft beer enthusiast. Jennifer Martin, executive director of Shop Local Raleigh, which puts on the festival each year, says that the effect of seeing residents from 44 other

U.S. states attending Brewgaloo is energizing: “Seeing the people continuing to make plans and travel to

Raleigh for the event — they are the stimulators of our economy,” she says. Martin sees Raleigh as the perfect site for an event like Brewgaloo because of the Capital region’s massive population growth over the last decade. This expansion, she says, “has created a community, a culture and some incredible craft beer.” This community atmosphere is what drives Shop Local Raleigh — a nonprofit merchants group that’s been around since the 1940s under various names — to create positive change for the Raleigh business community.

“I’m consistently in awe of how fast the state’s craft brewing scene has grown,” Martin says. “The quality and sustainability of what’s being produced, and how the brewing community show love and support for each other” is what makes an event like Brewgaloo possible.

She notes that while brewing in North Carolina is undoubtedly a competitive space, working with brewers to put on the festival means she sees them come together and work as a team to help each other.

The quality — and quantity — of beer available at Brewgaloo is undoubtedly what keeps attendees coming back and opens the eyes and palates of newcomers. Shop Local Raleigh brings in out-of-state beer writers for the festival, which Martin sees as an investment back to the breweries, helping them gain exposure on a larger scale through the event.

“The bloggers in the beer industry are continuously impressed by the beer and the large availability of what they see and taste at Brewgaloo,” Martin says. “They go back home and tell others about what they saw, tasted and experienced.

“For us, Brewgaloo is a way to drive people to taste North Carolina that helps achieve the goal of creating a national awareness and buzz about the talent that’s brewing — literally — in our state.”

Brewgaloo

BY KEVIN FLINN

2nd - Lighthouse Beer & Wine Festival (Wilmington, NC) 3rd - Live & Local Tryon Palace Beer Festival (New Bern, NC)

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