| - Georgia Breweries Stay Relevant by Embracing Big Annual Events |
| By Don Beistle Breweries everywhere are turning to creative and engaging events to retain existing customers and attract new faces to their taprooms. Most already host various seasonal or holiday events throughout the year, but some also bank on one or two big annual events. The Georgia breweries profiled below take divergent paths, but each is known for a major, brand-defining annual event.  The folks at StillFire Brewing in Suwanee, GA embrace the “more is more” philosophy with gusto. Brewmaster Phil Farrell acknowledges, “We definitely go all in when it comes to music, decorations, and costumes – Gladiator procession of brewers for the release of Glorius Maximus DIPA, full Ricky Bobby for Talladega races,” and so on. StillFire opened in late 2019, and Farrell wanted to celebrate keeping the lights on throughout a grim first year: “After surviving the COVID lockdowns in year one, I wanted to start something that would be fun for the brewers, staff, and especially the customers.” He had something in mind; the only question was when. “We had a lot of set events from late summer to the fall through the Christmas Holidays, but January seemed to be an empty reset month for most customers.” Thus was born the Battle of the Brewers. Farrell explains, “We had four brewers, so I came up with a competition. The rules were simple. Each brewer would brew a unique beer that StillFire didn’t offer. The identity of the brewer was kept a secret from the staff and the customers by naming the beer after a boxer. We wanted it to be about the beer rather than the brewer.” Each year since, four beers are released on the first open day of the new year, and the contest runs through Super Bowl Sunday. Customers who purchase a Battle of the Brewers (BOB) beer flight circle the name of their favorite brew on a “Fight Card” that comes with the flight.After the first year, the contest adopted a wrestling theme with a massive championship belt for the winning brewer. “For 2025, we upped our game even higher,” says Farrell. “Longtime StillFire fans and former professional wrestlers Marcus and John Laurinaitis helped us choreograph a promotional video to kick-off BOB IV. We all had a blast filming it and getting even more people participating in our competition.”  Come February, North Georgia’s NoFo Brewing throws a party at all three locations (Cumming, Cleveland, Gainesville) to celebrate their best-selling Snow Ghost NEIPA. Winking to Snow Ghost’s name, the “Get Ghosted” bash has a winter theme, with snow machines, wintry cocktails, food trucks, and plenty of Snow Ghost. No matter the weather, guests are encouraged to dress in their best winter wear or ski gear for a day of après ski fun without having to hit the slopes.At the other end of the calendar, NoFo celebrates the beginning of autumn with a pair of back-to-back parties. First, NoFoberfest falls on the last weekend of September, the same weekend Munich’s Oktoberfest kicks off. Three or more German-style fest beers are on draft in each taproom, and food trucks offer a special Oktoberfest menu for the weekend. Festive contests – including stein-holding, barrel rolling, and sausage tossing – keep the fun going. A week later, it’s time for NoFo’s anniversary celebration, featuring food trucks, music, games, and – of course – special anniversary brews and cocktails at all three locations.  Meanwhile back in the spring, warm weather and sunny skies herald the return of outdoor events at Georgia breweries. Toward the end of March or early April, Good Word Brewing partners with the City of Duluth to host Little Beer Festival, an outdoor celebration of sessionable lagers and English-style beers from some of the most renowned breweries in the country. Hundreds of “little” beers – all under 5% ABV – are available for sampling, along with food, live music, an artist’s market, and occasionally raucous panel discussions with brewers and personalities from the beer world. “Little Beer continues to grow in both visitors and brewery invitations,” notes Good Word’s Todd DiMatteo. “We’re proud that the event has become nationally recognized as one of the best annual beer festivals in the country. Since opening in 2017, Good Word Brewing has built a following and reputation as a premier location for high-quality craft beers. It’s known for collaborating with some of the best breweries across the country.” Mid-April brings Kölsch Fest to the beer garden at Halfway Crooks in Atlanta. True kölsch can be brewed only Cologne, but Halfway Crooks’ kölsch-style Farina ale is a faithful homage. Festivities kick off with a 5K Kölsch Fun Run and Race on Saturday morning, followed by live music and drinks in the beer garden. Race organizers emphasize that the run “isn’t chip-timed and streets are not closed. It’s just pure fun, cold Kölsch, and a great time!” Traditional “Kölsch service” comes to the beer garden on Sunday. Wait staff serve Farina the traditional way, in slender stange (meaning “rods”), cylindrical 6.75-ounce glasses unique to Cologne, carried a dozen at a time in circular trays called kranzen (“wreaths”). The small glasses allow drinkers to drain them before the beer warms, and servers continuously weave between tables replacing empty stange with fresh pours. The beers keep coming until the patron covers their empty glass with a coaster and the server tallies the bill. Late April brings the Normaltown Music Festival to Athentic Brewing in Athens, GA. Once home to REM and the B-52s, Normaltown is a funky corner of the Classic City where the music scene remains as vibrant as ever. The festival is a weekend-long “fusion of music, community, and philanthropy” established in 2023 to engage the community and benefit local non-profits. Diverse musical acts from the Athens area perform on two stages on the brewery grounds. Multiple food trucks offer festivalgoers a variety of tasty eats, and Athentic’s Paul Skinner promises “plenty of great beer” to wash it all down, including Ryeding High, “a refreshing and easy drinking Rye Pale Ale” specially brewed for the occasion.  Georgians know that July is too hot for anything but escaping to the beach, which is precisely why Round Trip Brewing throws a Pilsner Patio Party the last weekend of July. Round Trip’s Billy Rudolph explains, “The idea is it’s hot, too hot, and we roll out a variety of different pilsner styles for people to enjoy in a summer setting. We try to bring a beach atmosphere to our taprooms in Atlanta and Marietta to let people just hang out with live music and good food.”Round Trip maintains a laser focus on Czech and German styles, and their brews encompass both traditional styles and creative riffs on the classics. Previous Pilsner Patio Parties have featured an array of pilsners and pilsner-adjacent brews, including German-style Pilsner, Léto 12° Czech-style pilsner, Gizza New Zealand-style pilsner, Keller Pils unfiltered pilsner, Instant Krüsch extra pale kölsch, Straight Outta Munich helles lager, Resolution Nein champagne-style brut pilsner, and more. Rudolph hints that “a couple firkins” of cask-conditioned pilsner could join the lineup this year. He concludes, “What we like about this event is it allows us to showcase our crushable lagers while encouraging people to explore the subtle distinctions across the pilsner spectrum. But really, it's a lot of fun in the middle of the hot summer sun.”  Up in the foothills of the North Georgia mountains, RockSolid Brewing dedicates a weekend to local agriculture and crafts each August. Head brewer Thomas Muhs explains, “Ball Ground is a huge producer of locally made honey, and many apiaries continue to operate and thrive in the north Georgia climate. Queen Beez Fest is a weekend-long celebration that we host at our brewery to celebrate pollinators and all of our local beekeepers and artisans.” The festival features an artisans’ market, spelling bee, honey-centric food and beverages from local vendors, educational seminars about beekeeping and native pollinators, and more. It’s an amazingly popular event, drawing up to 1000 attendees in a town of just 3000.And don’t forget about the beer. Beez Knees, RockSolid’s flagship honey blonde ale, is front and center at the fest, with both the original and fruited versions on tap. Joining them are a pair of special releases, a “double honey blonde ale made with 50 pounds of local honey called Queen Beez” and a very limited barrel-aged brew. The 2025 version, says Muhs, “is our double honey blonde ale aged one year in a Richland Rum barrel.” Sometimes an event can arise organically. Football, Halloween, and Oktoberfest-themed events help keep taprooms lively throughout the fall, but December can be hit or miss. Stillfire Brewing typically has a half-dozen winter seasonals on tap in December and January, but one stands out. Back in 2022, brewmaster Phil Farrell got the urge to “make a really special beer for the holidays.” Inspired by Samichlaus Classic doppelbock – once the world’s strongest lager at 14% ABV – Farrell created Suwanee Claus imperial doppelbock. At just over 12% ABV, Suwanee Claus is ever so slightly paler and smaller than Samichlaus, but like the original, it is brewed only on St. Nicholas Day (December 6) and lagered almost a full year. Farrell describes its initial reception in 2023, “In a short time, Suwanee Claus captured numerous awards, including Best of Show and People’s Choice at the Georgia Strong Beer Festival and was named the Best Beer in Georgia.” He goes on to describe how StillFire has built an event around that success: “We now have a Suwanee Claus Release Party each December 6, with limited numbered bottles and draft Suwanee Claus in the taproom.”  |
