16th annual Beer Festival returns to Bloomington

Three hours. 300 beers. This combination can only mean one thing: It’s time for Beerfest.

The 16th annual Big Red Liquors’ Beer Festival returned to Bloomington on Thursday and will continue Friday.

The festival is taking place at the Bloomington Monroe County Convention Center, where hundreds of beers from around the world will be represented by more than 100 different vendors. Entry to Beerfest was $30, but people who waited to buy tickets until the day of will pay $40.

Bloomington Ivy Tech sophomore Brandon Lee Hicks said he thinks he can make it through many of those beers when he attends. The Tell City, Ind., native is a sports medicine major who turned 21 on Thursday, so his roommates planned to take him out that night for his first legal drink.

“I should be able to muscle through most of them,” Hicks said. “I’m sure the fact that it’s my birthday should encourage me to get all the free alcohol I can. Let’s just say I shouldn’t be able to count that high by the time I’m done.”

Rob Williamson, director of the event and director of marketing and promotions for Big Red Liquors, is entering his seventh year as the director of the festival. He said he has seen people from all over come to the event.

“There have been a lot of people from surrounding states,” Williamson said. “Most of them, if not all, are grads of IU and have been to the festival before.”

He said most of the audience is comprised of college students, but a lot of non-students in the community appear as well.

“I see the same faces year after year who wouldn’t miss Beerfest for anything,” he said. “Thursday night is more calm, when more of the locals are there, and Friday is when we see the majority of the students.”

For Williamson, planning for the event starts a year in advance, with him securing hotel rooms for vendors and anything else that needs to be done ahead of time.
IU alumnus Tito Santare doesn’t remember how many beers he sampled when he attended the festival last year.

“I usually lose count halfway through the event,” he said. “I try to hit up something from every table, though. I have been so full of beer and foam that I thought I was going to explode.”

Santare said he is enthusiastic about the event and has been waiting to come back for months.

“My roommate and I have been talking about this for the past two months,” he said. “I started a countdown timer on my Google home page a month ago so I would know exactly how much time was left.”

He also engages in a few activities leading up to the festival.

“We usually watch the movie ‘Beerfest’ before the festival to really get pumped up,” he said. “We’re having some friends over to cook out and watch it before the festival.”
Hicks said he was looking forward to trying new beers of which he might not have ever heard.

“I’m hoping to have a good time and possibly find a tasty new brew to enjoy when I’m not using Keystone for beer pong,” he said. “I’m pretty excited. I’m sure I’ll be ready to drink everything from the domestic to the mini-brews.”