Bennington gets hoppy as Homebrew Festival returns this spring
Vermont Business Magazine
Sat, 04/01/2023
The brews will flow once again as the Southwestern Vermont Chamber of Commerce and Hopridge Farms partner together to produce the thirteenth Homebrew Festival and competition. Saturday, April 29th at the Bennington Sports Center in downtown Bennington, brewers will go head-to-head to be named the best homebrew in the land.
The festival invites Northeast’s top home brewers asking them to bring their very best home brewed beer, cider, mead, braggot and wine for a chance to be crowned "Best Home Brewery." In addition, this year the festival has also invited home chefs to participate in a cook off to be crowned “Best Home Chef.”
Homebrew is the craft of brewing beer or other alcoholic beverages on a small scale for personal, non-commercial purposes. Supplies, such as kits and fermentation tanks, can be purchased locally at specialty stores or online. People choose to brew their own beverage for a variety of reasons including avoiding higher costs of buying commercially equivalent beverages, the freedom to adjust recipes according to one's own preference, creating beverages that are unavailable on the open market, or beverages that may contain fewer calories, or less or more alcohol. Homebrewing can also reduce the environmental impact of fermented beverages by using less packaging and transportation than commercially brewed beverages, and by the use of refillable jugs, reusable bottles or other reusable containers.
“I think one of the main traits of this chamber and our various partners is to develop festivals and see how they work over time,” says Matt Harrington, one of the creators of the festival and executive director of the Southwestern Vermont Chamber of Commerce. “Over the past twelve festivals we have gotten better and better at not only the festival process, but the brews have really gotten better too. In 2023, we are no longer offering the Winter Homebrew and Summer Homebrew, but instead have combined the festivals and their brands to be able to offer Homebrew festivals whenever. This year we are focusing on spring and fall seasons to host the festivals. We realized over the years that the winters were just too cold and limited by indoor space, and the summers were too hot and close to our other major festivals. We are excited to launch the new combined brand in partnership with Hopridge Farms; we think spring and fall will be ideal times to have some fun and gather as a community.”
The Homebrew Festivals over the years have given homebrewers the chance to showcase what would have otherwise sat in their basements and only handed out to friends. Now homebrewers have the chance to have their brew critiqued both by popular vote, as well as professional judges in the business.