Suwanee Beer Fest

I’ve gone here 2 years in a row and it always seems disorganized (hour+ long lines both to get in to the event and to use the porta potties). Stage performances and music selection (not even a live band — from a CD playlist) aimed at a middle-​aged crowd. With such a large amphitheater I definitely think there’s a lot of potential. Beer and food tent placement concentrated in 2 or 3 small areas with large, unused grassy areas.
Having been to other beer fest in Atlanta there is definitely room for improvement.

As beer festivals go, this one does not compare to the better ones in the Atlanta area, such as Decatur.
Too many tickets are sold, entrance is always a mess, the bathroom lines are not well managed and all the beer stalls are crammed in to one part of the park

For value, this is probably the least oney I’ve paid to get into an unlimited beer festival. Do yourself a favor and go 30 minutes before they open to get parking and get in line. They let people in very slowly, thats good for the early birds. I was able to make it through once without lines.
Later though, the bathroom lines were rediucouls. Not enough porty potty for the amount of tickets they sold.
the breweries themselves, I found towards the end were getting volunteers. They were not able to tell me anything about the beers. They didnt know what things were.
Bring yourself a bag of pretzels. The food is expensive and whatever. Maybe next year they can get some gourmet foodtrucks to make me want to pay money for the food there. I probably won’t go back. Its mostly local beers, not alot of out of state beers. Unless they bring in more breweries next year.

Had a beautiful day for this festival this year. The food was great, the beer was plentiful, the weather was perfect, and all was well with the world. Glad we could make it this year. It’s all you can expect from a beer festival, and was nicely managed. I imagine the prices will increase in 2015, since they sold out early in 2014 (the $ 80 VIP tix were gone first! and the designated driver tix, and the gen admin tix were gone a few days later). Portajohn availability and placement can probably be planned better, but overall a great event.

Really good fest. Plenty of room and lots of music. Keep the 80’s vibe coming guys. VIP may be the way to go to get the «interesting» stuff here.

What a great event. A ton of people well managed by great volunteers and an organized staff. Suwanee’s Town Center is large beautiful space that was able to handle such a large group of people without us feeling like we were on top of each other or always bumping into on another.
The weather wasn’t too warm or too cold, but the wind was an attendee of its own. So much so, that you didn’t realize the sunburn you were getting while hanging out all afternoon. One of the vendors should have been smart and had sunscreen as a schwag giveaway.
All the great beer vendors came out to show off their kegs while some of the great food folks came and fed us to make sure we were okay to drive after the event. There were even turkey legs!
All in all it was a great experience, the people were fun and the vendors were really friendly. I would say it was a big success.

I had a lot of fun at this beer fest. Suwanee’s Town Center is new and beautiful. Admittance was handled nicely by the staff and we were inside the gates far before I thought possible (considering the length of the line). Everyone was pretty friendly and the crowd was quite mellow. People were overall polite, even after a few hours when we were all tipsy (or drunk)!
The selection of beers was pretty good. I found some old favorites and some new favorites, too. I do wish they had rinse stations. I only found one water fountain in the entire park; pretty much EVERYONE was using it to rinse their beer glasses. When you’re at a craft beer festival, it’s really important be able to cleanse the palate between tastes, especially if you’re going back and forth between porters, IPAs, etc.
All in all it was a great experience. I hope to attend again next year. I’m glad they decided to do it in the spring instead of August, like last year. Next time I attend, I will also remember to wear sunscreen. Ouch.

Suwanee Town Center’s a nice facility for this beer festival. There’s an amphitheater with bands playing at one end of the green. The green is surrounded by some neo-​traditional Main Street architecture. Parking and access seems abundant. Admission was well managed and relatively efficient.
Most of my favorites were there. There were some new faces that blew me away (must go find Son of a Peach!). Also appreciated are the numerous eateries surrounding the site to support sobering activities.
Moving the festival to the end of March from the middle of summer seems like a good idea. The weather was gorgeous, but high heat and the lack of shade on the green could have become oppressive.
The tasting glass was plastic and came with a fill line at 3oz. Although I like me some nice pint glasses, this seems like the best idea I’ve seen yet for the vessel at a beer fest: No dropped broken glass from someone who had a couple too many tastes; No goofy juice glass that I can’t quite justify throwing out.