KINGSPORT, Tenn. – If you can’t get to a brewery, wait – and watch – to find listings for beer-tasting festivals like Racks By the Tracks in Kingsport, Tenn.
Held each May, Racks by the Tracks attracts about a dozen breweries from places like Jonesborough, Tenn., and Asheville, N.C., and helps benefit Second Harvest of Northeast Tennessee and Keep Kingsport Beautiful.
From booth to booth, beer-lovers can sip samples from the likes of Asheville’s Highland Brewing Co. “And we like people to have a good time – catch a buzz, whatever,” said a smiling Steve Schwartz, the Highland brewery’s marketing director.
More fun can be found on Labor Day weekend at Boone, N.C., during the High Country Beer Fest, held at the Broyhill Resort and Conference Center.
Here, the first beer fest fizzed in 2008. “And it was very well received,” said Todd Rice, a co-owner of the locally-based Boone Brewing Co. “There were brewers there from all over the country.”
In Southwest Virginia, the Davis Valley Winery, near Groseclose, stages its own festival during summer, offering a day’s worth of bluegrass music and wine-tastings. “It’s good for business,” said winery owner Rusty Cox. “I was doing a festival once a month. But why do five of these a year when you can do one big one?”
Other regional festivals include September’s Brewgrass Festival in Asheville and May’s BrewRidge Music Festival at Mountain Lake Resort Hotel in Pembroke, Va.
This year’s BrewRidge event at Mountain Lake featured six breweries – from the big-name Starr Hill Brewery of Crozet, Va. to the newly opened Shooting Creek Farm Brewery of Floyd County, Va.
Both breweries are slated to pour samples at the 2010 event, scheduled for May 8.
The 2009 BrewRidge Music Festival raised about $4,000 for the Mountain Lake Conservancy – and was suds of fun, said the conservancy’s managing director, Emily Woodall.
“I love microbreweries,” Woodall added. “And I love testing different types.”
jtennis@bristolnews.com|(276) 791-0704
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