Special Event

Brewers, beer fans to gather for conference, public festival

Stone’s Throw Brewing will be one of the participants at Saturday’s Arkansas Brewers Conference and Festival.
Stone’s Throw Brewing will be one of the participants at Saturday’s Arkansas Brewers Conference and Festival.

Craft beer lovers and brewers across Arkansas will converge at the State Fairgrounds in Little Rock this weekend for the first Arkansas Brewers Conference and Festival.

Brewers from several Arkansas-based breweries will gather to talk beer and business on Friday and Saturday afternoon, and on Saturday night, the grounds will open to the public for the festival.

Arkansas Brewers Conference & Festival

7 p.m.-10 p.m. Saturday, State Fairgrounds, 2600 Howard Street, Little Rock

Admission: $9.99 for 10 samples, $19.99 for 25 samples

(501) 908-1816

etix.com (search: Arkansas Brewers Festival)

Breweries will be serving samples of beer at the event, including Bubba Brew's, Lost Forty, Rebel Kettle, Stone's Throw, Saddlebock, Damgoode, Diamond Bear, Vino's, Fossil Cove, Leap of Faith, Apple Blossom and Ozark Beer. Also in attendance will be Gravity BrewWorks and Superior Bathhouse Brewery and Distillery.

The festival is being organized by the Arkansas Brewers Guild, a nonprofit group dedicated to promoting Arkansas breweries. Ian Beard of Stone's Throw Brewing in Little Rock says the festival was created after the guild decided it wanted to gather as many Arkansas brewers as possible in one central location.

"I said, 'If we're all going to get together and learn something about each other, if we're gonna get together at all, we better pour some beer too,'" Beard says. "We wanted to make it worthwhile for everyone to make the the trip."

Tickets are available for $9.99, which includes entry and 10 beer samples, or $19.99, which includes entry along with 25 beer samples and a souvenir glass. Tickets can be bought online or at the door, but prices will increase to $15 and $30 the day of the festival.

Proceeds from tickets to the Saturday night festival will go to help fund the guild, Beard says. But the weekend will also be a chance to help promote the Arkansas brewing community.

"The brewing industry has been growing across the country, and that growth got to Arkansas a little late," Beard says. "We're making up for lost time."

The Friday and Saturday afternoon conference, which is exclusively for brewers, will feature panel discussions and workshops on professional and home brewing, Beard says. Scott Parton, a Little Rock-based beer blogger, will be on a panel discussing beer blogs and critiquing local beer.

"We'll talk a lot about how to spot a bad beer, the challenges of a brewery startup, things like that," Parton says.

Parton is most excited to interact with brewers from Northwest Arkansas and other parts of the state.

"I have a lot of brewers I like that I don't get to see often, so for me it's a good chance to see what they're up to," Parton says.

The afternoon session will also include a talk from Gary "Bud" Roberts, director of the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Control agency, as well as Dan Kopman, a board member for the national Brewers Association and co-founder of Schlafly Beer in St. Louis.

"We'd be happy to get enough attendance to pay the bills with a little left over," Beard says.

Parking at the fairgrounds is free. Uber, a taxilike service that allows users to call and pay for a private car using their smartphone, will be running free promotional rides to the festival, which ends at 10 p.m. For more about Uber, visit uber.com.

Weekend on 07/16/2015

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