Farmhouse Fest

The Story

Similar to the motives behind creating Style & Class, myself and a team of co-organizers felt a need for a Vancouver beer event that would fill a hole in the local beer scene.

We wanted to create an event that would focus on one style of beer, farmhouse ales (think saisons, wild ales, sour beers, and wild ciders), and cultivate an atmosphere that would focus on experience over profits. We consciously chose to avoid everything we don't like about other beer festivals, which meant making decisions to avoid crowding people into every last space, prevent long lines, and ensure the servers could tell attendees about the beer they were pouring.

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The first year happened June 27th, 2015. We invited 15 local breweries and 8 importers to represent 80+ different beers and ciders, many being special imports not available elsewhere, debuts of new limited beers, or beers created specifically for our event.

We came back for a second year on June 18th, 2016. Opening up tickets for 200 more people than the previous year, we also brought in 40 breweries & cideries representing 120 products.

And the third year was bigger than ever. On July 8th, 2017, we hosted over 1300 people and poured just shy of 200 beers and ciders.

Despite a higher-than-normal price tag for Vancouver, we continue to sell out weeks before the event, bringing ever-larger crowds people out to the UBC Farm. Each year we get an overwhelmingly positive response online and in our attendee survey.

Photos by Jonathan Evans