The 8th Annual Vancouver Brewfest, presented by Great Western Malting, takes place at Esther Short Park in Downtown Vancouver this weekend - August 9th & 10th. 54 breweries, cideries and meaderies will be pouring 114 different beers, ciders and meads. This year's event includes the return of the Rare Finds Gazebo and the debut of the Global Beers area. Live music on the festival's Main Stage present by The Herbery will feature bands playing hits from the 1960s as an homage to the 50th Anniversary of a little party in New York called Woodstock.

The taplist for the festival, as seen at VancouverBrewfest.com, includes a wide variety of styles. The organizers put a greater focus this year on farmhouse ales and classic German styles like Lager, Pilsner, Hefeweizen, Gose and Berliner Weisse. That's not to say you won't also find plenty of IPAs, pale ales, hazies, stouts, sours and fruited beers available to enjoy.

Tickets for Vancouver Brewfest start at $25 for entry, a pint glass and 8 event tokens. Tokens may be used individually for 4oz tastes or 4 tokens for a full pint. Additional tokens are $1.25 sold in sets of 4 and carry the same cash value at the food vendors.

Official Beer of Vancouver Brewfest

Each year Vancouver Brewfest selects a brewery to create a unique beer to be featured as the official beer of the festival. This year, they collaborated with Brothers Cascadia Brewing and The Couve Brew Bevy from Final Draft Taphouse with malts provided by title sponsor, Great Western Malting. The beer is aptly named Brothers & Sisters Pale Ale and it features a delightful bouquet of Cascade and Cashmere hops.

The Rare Finds Gazebo

The Rare Finds Gazebo presented by ZZEPPELIN will feature 2-token 4oz tasters of hard-to-find beers like Dwinell Country Ales Fuzzless Fruit, Pelican Brewing 2018 Queen of Hearts, Grains of Wrath Mots Fantasie, Pfriem 2018 Flanders Blonde, Logsdon Farmhouse Ales Eagle Kriek, Block 15/Great Notion's Peach Punch (You In The Eye), Fortside Brewing Take Me To Funkytown, Allegory Brewing Keg-Conditioned Peche and many more. Fourteen offerings in total were selected for this area.

Global Beers

This marks the first year Vancouver Brewfest will feature a Global Beers area provided by Kendall's Pioneer Distributing. This beer trailer will feature beers by breweries from across the pond like Omnipollo, Gaffel, Steigl, Wittekerke, Brouwerij Verhaeghe, Maisel and Bavik.

New Beers and Notable Beers

Scanning the 114 beers of the festival, here are some that we're looking forward to:

Brothers Cascadia Brewing's Allegro - A sour ale from The Chromatic Series with blackberries added. This has been an exciting series of wild ales so we're puckered up and ready for this one.
Gaffel Kolsch & Kascadia Kolsch - A fun opportunity to enjoy Bolt Minister's award-winning Kolsch side-by-side with one of the original Kolsh ales that inspired it.
Captain's Brewing Co. - A new brewery out of Ridgefield, WA is bringing a cryo hop IPA and an "orange ale" called Beach Bum. As 'The New School', we're always down to check out the new local nano.
Dwinell Country Ales Rootdown - A rhubarb ale from a brewery that continues to make new and exciting farmhouse ales.
Grains of Wrath Frost Hammer Helles - When Mike Hunsaker makes lagers, you drink them. This is top-notch life advice you won't find in any other publication.
Little Beast Brewing Vermillion - Described as a live sour ale with marrionberries and watermelon juice, this sounds like it'll hit the spot.
Fortside Brewing Bramble-Bomb - A new collaboration with the Vancouver Farmers Market made with blackberries from Jones Farm.
Heathen Brewing Berry Limeade Sour - These guys have been killin' it with kettle sours. Just ask fellow New School contributor Don Scheidt.
North Jetty Brewing Taco Beer - A collab with Little Conejo (recently named a Top 40 Portland area restaurant by The Oregonian). Definitely gonna enjoy this at the fest and around the block at their restaurant this weekend.
Level Beer Brothers Gotta Hug - A 4.8% IPL collab between Level and Brothers Cascadia Brewing. Good things happen when these two get together.
Evil Twin Passionfruit Margarita IPA - Because rules are meant to be broken and margaritas are yummy.
Trap Door Brewing/Barlow's Brewery Pina Colada Hazy IPA - This will be the first beer available to the public from the new Barlow's Brewery opening on the Vancouver Waterfront later this summer. And a new hazy by Trap Door? Full pour, please.
Victor-23 Craft Brewery Adrenaline Sports Ale - A low carb ale with added electrolytes. Not sure what to expect, but we're intrigued and ready to hydrate.

More details on Vancouver Brewfest:

Vancouver Brewfest takes place at Esther Short Park in Vancouver, WA on Friday and Saturday, August 9th and 10th. The festival runs from 4PM-9:30PM on Friday and 11AM - 9PM on Saturday. 114 beers are featured from 50 different breweries, cideries and meaderies. The event is 21+. Dog-friendly.

Proceeds from Vancouver Brewfest go to support Disabled American Veterans, Second Chance Companions and The Mount St. Helens Institute. Over $90,000 has been donated in the festival's 7 year history.

All the details are at www.VancouverBrewfest.com.