Issaquah Chamber approves second beer festival for Gilman Village

Published 4:21 pm Friday, March 18, 2016

For four years, the Beat the Winter Brews Fest has invited beer drinkers to come in from the cold, dark days of February and sample craft brews while perusing Gilman Village’s shops.

Now the event’s organizers have decided cold beers might pair better with warm weather.

Beat the Winter Brews will still take place at the tail end of winter. But now a companion Summer Brews festival will be held in Gilman Village mid-summer.

The first Summer Brews festival will take place July 29.

“We had a lot of people in attendance [at Beat the Winter Brews] that would ask us to do this quarterly,” said Robin Kelley, the Greater Issaquah Chamber of Commerce’s director of festivals and community engagement. “I would tell them I didn’t think we had the capacity to do it that often, but we went back and checked with our board of directors and they agreed a Summer Brews fest would be a great addition.”

The warm weather could make the Summer Brews fest a bigger, better event, Kelley said. Breweries and vintners would be able to set up booths outside on Gilman Village’s boardwalk — not just inside stores — adding more capacity and variety overall.

“The Winter Brews Fest is cold and stormy,” Kelley said. “I think it will be really fun to host it in warm and sunny weather.”