Beer festival season begins this weekend in West Virginia

The 2020 beer festival season has arrived. The new year of West Virginia beer festivals kicks off this weekend with the Wild & Wonderful Winter Beer Festival taking place Saturday in Huntington. Featuring IPAs this time around, the indoor event will bring 400 to 500 beer fans together for some much-needed winter fun.

An updated 2020 listing of WV beerfests (through the summer) is now up on BrilliantStream.com. It contains our picks for fun, and includes ticket links as they become available.

Returning this year are many of the popular events that WV beer fans have come to greatly enjoy. After this weekend, the next hot festival is Winter Warmer on February 22 in Bluefield. Then comes the beer and baseball themed Brewfest CharlieWest, which takes place at Appalachian Power Park in Charleston on April 5. That one is allowed by the West Virginia Craft Brew Festival at the State Fairgrounds in Lewisburg on April 25. This festival also does some serious beer judging to select the festival’s top brews.

On May 2, we find the Foam at the Dome festival. This large event takes place along the riverbank in front of the beautiful State Capitol Building in Charleston. The state’s largest beer festival returns for its 7th edition on August 8 when Rails & Ales begins pouring beer again at Harris Riverfront Park in Huntington.

One of the state’s most interesting festivals comes up on August 15 in Wheeling, where Mountaineer BrewFest has led to the development of a several-day celebration of local beer culture. The festival also excels in raising funds for local charities.

In addition to the bigger craft beer festivals, numerous festival-style events are hosted and promoted by our local WV breweries. Follow their social media for details.

The fall festival schedule will be updated at a later time.

One winter festival we previously enjoyed was not repeated this year. Cabin Fever Craft Beer Festival in Morgantown is not happening.

Around the region too

For folks interested in getting out of state to explore a wider range of brews, there are several great options we can recommend. SAVOR, the festival put on by the national Brewers Association happens on May 15 this year in Washington, DC. For drinkers interested in diversity in our craft beer community, get up to Pittsburgh for Fresh Fest Beer Fest, which occurs on August 8 and features black-owned breweries from across the country. To explore the widest range of exciting Pittsburgh area beers, try the Beers of the Burgh festival on June 6. Fans of farmhouse styles and beers featuring local ingredients, you can’t do better than the State of Origin festival on June 13 in Morganton, NC. Of course, their are tons more out-of-state festivals, but these are ones we can wholeheartedly recommend.