Foam & Chili prove a good team

A totally revamped festival set-up greeted attendees at Charleston’s main showcase for West Virginia brewers yesterday. All in all, it proved to work out well as over a thousand craft beer fans enjoyed a gorgeous afternoon on the city’s East End.

This year, due to COVID-influenced schedules, the Foam at the Dome and Hops & Heat craft beer festivals were combined into one event with a new location along Washington Street East. The large turnout of enthusiastic beer fans delivered further proof that Charleston remains a city thirsty for more craft beer experiences and expansion.

The festival drew a healthy combination of small brewery tents and beer distributor draft trailers, which together offered over 150 different beers and ciders from 50 breweries and cideries. Among them were 14 West Virginia breweries and two WV cideries pouring samples. And the chili was good too.

The pleasantly warm day with occasional cloud-created shade kept everyone comfortable, and it seemed folks relished this opportunity to get outside and socialize among a crowd of fellow craft beer lovers. Even though it’s a lot of work for them, the brewery and distributor personnel in attendance were obviously having a great time too.

New brewery meets its future customers

It was great seeing the owners of Charleston’s next brewery arrival, Fife Street Brewing, showing off their tasty white chili. They couldn’t serve beer since they don’t have their brewing license yet, but their head brewer, Gil Peterson, was on hand meeting and greeting his future customers. The brewery plans a March 2022 opening.

Weathered Ground beer wins Best of Show

Always a fun part of a craft beer festival is the judging of beers. This combined festival had two competition categories: Best Chili Beer and overall Best of Show. Bearer of Fruit – Blood Orange & Pomegranate from Weathered Ground Brewery in Cool Ridge took home first place in Best of Show. Mark it Zero! Coffee & Vanilla Golden Stout by High Ground Brewing finished second and Short Story Brewing’s Repeat After Me Double IPA finished third. All were absolutely excellent examples of their styles. In the Chili Beer competition, Appalachian Bandido Mexican Lager with Lime and Jalapeños took the win for The Peddler brewpub in Huntington.

Each brewery in attendance could submit one beer to the festival’s Best of Show competition and one to the Chili Beer competition. A team of local craft beer aficionados judged the entries. The judging team was organized by Libby Rojas, who is also meetings coordinator for the K.R.A.Z.E. craft beer club.

Foam volunteers bring cheer to beer

A strong team of hard-working volunteers made sure the beers were flowing and kept chilled all afternoon long. No festival can happen without a great outpouring of volunteer effort and that was true at this event. We craft beer lovers owe a big debt of gratitude to our beer volunteers. We offer a big thank you to each and every one of them.

Festival draws out-of-town attendees

While most attendees were from the Charleston area, a festival of this type is also good at attracting guests from outside the area. Craft beer fans are known for their beer travel. Because so few West Virginia-made beers are available outside of the state and with WV surrounded by major population areas, beer fans from other states are attracted to festivals such as From at the Dome specifically to sample beers from West Virginia breweries. With the growing number of high quality breweries in the state, WV has become a destination for those seeking new artisan beer experiences.

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Proceeds from the festival fund the community development programs of Charleston Main Streets.