RICHMOND, Va. — It’s July, which isn’t June and isn’t September or October – or too close to the February Wine Expo event.
Therefore, it’s the perfect time to brew up a huge craft beer festival: The Capital Ale House National Beer Expo(organized by the same folks behind the wine expo).
From July 15-20, let’s just call Richmond Brew City instead of River City.
Breweries from across the country, along with a ton of local and regional brewers, have gathered in Richmond to showcase over 200 of today’s best craft beers.
A whole slew of events, about 26, will happen around Richmond as part of this six day extravaganza.
The main event of the week will be the Walk-Around Grand Tasting, which will feature over 150 craft beers from around the country. That will be held Saturday, July 19 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
There are V.I.P tickets still available. For $10 more you get in earlier and have access to 18 limited release, rare and vintage beers.
You can keep track of all those beers at the grand tasting via a handy app by Pombe.
It’s a free download that has a lot of data about the layout of the venue by brewery, what brews will be served, and the option to mark what you’ve tried. Give it a whirl, pretty handy way to see all the brews.
Alex Papajohn, executive director of the event, is manager of Variant Events, who host the popular Virginia Wine Expo.
Papajohn said that much like the wine expo, they hope to build the beer expo into a national destination over the next four to five years.
“People from 26 states attended in the seventh year,” he said of the wine expo.
The past 15 months of planning is now on tap around Brew City.
Papajohn said that, aside from the grand tasting on Saturday, Friday’s Taco Throwdown is likely to be the biggest side event.
The Taco Throwdown, sponsored by Style Weekly, is going down at the Greater Richmond Convention Center 5:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Your tickets gets your unlimited tacos until 9:00 p.m. and unlimited beer tasting along with a National Beer Expo tasting glass to take home. It’s $39.50 for entry.
Click to see the list of beers and taco slingers here. Cider and wine will be available as well.
Attendees can purchase tickets to individual events, or select from various ticket combo packages allowing for the purchase of tickets to multiple events, while saving money.
Capital Ale House is the sponsor for the next three years, and then naming title is up for negotiation after that.
Click for complete schedule and pricing.
Greater Richmond Convention Center
403 North Third Street
Richmond, VA 23219
