Like craft beer, music and the outdoors? No?
Like craft beer, music and the outdoors? No? Well I suggest you leave Richmond immediately because if you haven’t noticed we like to combine all three and squeeze them into as many festivals as we can in a year.
This weekend, Black Bear Productions will bring us the Know Good Beer and Music Festival, an event with 60 craft beers from local, state, and national breweries, bands and food all culminating on the beautiful Brown’s Island.
The festival has been held in Charlottesville the last two years and was such a hit that organizers Jeremiah Jenkins, Andrew Craft and independent radio station WNRN decided to expand to another place where more people could appreciate live music and good beer. Their first thought? Well, Richmond duh.
“We just had the conservation we love Richmond, WNRN has a growing number of members and sponsors that are from Richmond, and they wanted to do more programming and events in Richmond,” said Jenkins, managing partner of Black Bear Productions.
Independent radio WNRN, which partnered with Black Bear Productions for the festivals, is based in Charlottesville and broadcasts in Richmond as 103.1 FM. Jenkins works frequently with WNRN and is no stranger to the festy scene.
“I do a festival that we’ve done for six years in Harrisonburg called the Rocktown Beer and Music Festival,” he said. “I also do the Red Wings Roots Music Festival.”
Craft and Jenkins started working with Venture Richmond to plan the Know Good Beer Festival in Richmond about a year ago.
Music lovers will be able to hear live tunes from Blitzen Trapper, Kopecky, Those Darlins and Richmond-based alt-rock band Sleepwalkers at Saturday’s festival.
“I knew I wanted to do Sleepwalkers, I knew I wanted to do a Richmond band,” Jenkins said. “Those are bands that get played on WNRN anyway and is music that we think its appealing to lots of different people.”
Nashville rock and roll group Those Darlins played the company’s IX Art Park in Charlottesville in May and are stoked to play in Know Good’s first Richmond fest.
“Well we love Ian and the rest of WNRN so we’ll pretty do anything they ask us,” said drummer Linwood Regensburg. “But seriously, I’m from Richmond and Nikki is from Rappahanock so it’s nice come back here and see our families. And hopefully squeeze in a meal at Kuba Kuba. I really miss not living a few blocks away from that place. What a gem.”
And come thirsty because the festival has more than enough brews for the craft beer lovers as well.
Festival-goers will have the chance to sample two beers from 30 local, regional and national craft breweries including Devil’s Backbone, Blue Mountain Brewery, Ardent, Dogfish Head, Lagunitas and more. Check out the full list here.
“Andrew has got a great relationship with lots of breweries, he already had some of the Richmond breweries at the festival in Charlottesville,” he said.
Jenkins added that adding Virginia and national breweries to the festival would give attendees a bigger variety to sample all in one place.
Tickets are $20 to $40 which gets you 12 four-ounce tastings and a Know Good Beer 12 oz glass. Jenkins said the festival will also have full pour beers available for those up to the challenge.
Jenkins wanted to go for beer samples at this festival as opposed to tickets to make the festival run a little more smoothly.
“You don’t end up spending the entire festival standing in line,” he said. “My two least favorite things about other beer fests are that there’s so much standing in line you feel like cattle and the music is terrible it makes me want to put ear plugs in. We want to have an experience where people can sample new beers, find something new that they love and watch a great show.”
And for those worried about the UCI Bike Championship Race kick off this weekend, well Jenkins said it’s not going to be much of an isusue.
“We kind of think that’s just a little exaggerated this is the opening weekend so it’s really just time trials,” he said. There will be an increase in traffic, but Richmond is used to having events; it might take you five more minutes to find a parking spot.”
The Know Good Beer Festival kicks off this Saturday, Sept. 19 at Brown’s Island from 2 to 9 pm. Grab your tickets online in advance here. Tickets are $50 at the gate.
