Bend Brewfest

We have been attending Bend Brewfest for 6 years and by far this year was the worst! Why, might you ask? WHAT IS UP WITH THE AWFUL FRAT PARTY DJ MUSIC??? DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT TOWN YOU ARE IN!!! Seriously. Mountain town. Bend Oregon. There has always been a DJ from what I recall but each year seems to get incrementally worse. this year was beyond offensively bad. Plenty of incredible local musicians that would have fit the bill much better. I hope Brewfest will consider doing live music like Portland and many other places do, this was the year that we felt like not getting more tokens because we just couldn’t take any more and we left.

Do you have 5000 friends? If you go to brewfest they may all be there. This is CRAZY packed with happy friendly people, I think they all knew me. If you go to check out all the cools new brews you may be disappointed. the lines are huge and only 2 taps per vendor. Still Bend is the brew capital of the universe as far as I am concerned so it’s fun to see all my friends there.

One of the best brewfests in Oregon I’ve ever been too. What brewfest opens till 11pm, has loud music and dance party with super friendly people. Being from Portland our brew fests were like black friday. Long lines, closed early, no loud music. Just lots of chaos and confusion in the crowds.
This fest was well organized there were no lines at the booths. Everyone was chill and beers were awesome. Place was easy access to the river, downtown and various restaurants. It was also extremely clean and no overflowing trash cans and soliciters standing outside the fest. Atmosphere was very relaxing during the day and a chill party at night. I would love to come back for this fest again.

We had a blast here, but I was a bit bummed about some of these things: I will say that they stopped allowing dogs at the fest after 7. so we had to take ours home. The last day was Sat :(why could they had not gone Sunday too? It was a cluster F*ck just bc the vendors were all in rows under 3 different sets of longer tents. I like going to brew fests where the vendors all have their different tents set up, and they breweries/​brew master is actually there representing his/​her own brand/​beer/​company. At this one… they were all volunteers pouring the beer, and if I had a question, they had no clue about the beer they were pouring. I also felt like we were rushed… and just stand in lines all right side by side, so when people would step away from getting their beer, if they just turned around, and stood, they would be in EVERYONE’S way. Also the songs they were playing, the DJ, was lame as shit! They kept playing crappy ass rap music or the same Micheal Jackson song about 4 times within 2 hours. Don’t get me wrong I would definitely go next year, I was just a bit disappointing with these things thats all.

SO AWESOME! I prefer this venue over the Portland Brewfest any day! 42 Breweries, 80 different beers and a great variety of food carts.
The Les Schwab Amphitheater was such a great place to host this event. Grassy with lots of space to never feel crowded, extremely short lines, if any, friendly volunteers, dog friendly and cool people.
Old Mill Shopping area and restaurants in walking distance.
I will make every effort to make this festival every year!