American Craft Beer Fest

Really well organized and laid out. There are a lot of places to get water (which might just be for washing your cup, but you can drink it if need be!) and the food is all in one spot so you don’t need to worry about where you’re going to get food.
Lines for the beer move fast, and you can ask questions after you try, which is a lot better than other sample events I’ve been to where they try to tell you about the wine (oops) before you’ve even tried it – what if you don’t like it?!

This is a great event, a must for anyone who is a fan of craft beer. You will end up getting to sample great beers that are generally not available in MA as well as all of your local favorites.
The Extreme Beer Fest in the winter is also great fun. Smaller but more focused on higher ABV beers like barrel aged stouts, etc.

We have honestly been to scores of beer festivals, GABF, GBBF, Pumpkin Beer, Sour Beer, Cask, Avery Strong… we are beer tourists. Did we enjoy the beer at this event? We’re the facilities agreeable? Was the price reasonable? Did we feel satisfied with the quantity & quality of beer on offer? Yes, all. But I am writing a stand-​out single star review because of 2 major issues. We arrived 30 minutes early to a massive line. Lines are to be expected but we were in the bright hot sun with no shade available for 45 minutes, meaning by the time we were thru the doors we felt sun stroked. The event was so oversold (there are 3 sessions that aren’t really that long by beer fest standards, why would you have to cram them all so full??) that not only were we herded through an epic line to get in, every single taste we had required a wait in line. You basically spend the entire event IN LINE because apparently Beer Advocate is so hard up they had to cram us in like sardines. Very disappointing. If the organizers pay any attention to Unilocal: CHARGE MORE & LET FEWER PEOPLE IN. You could only sing the praises of this event if you hadn’t been to others that have this element figured out. Beer events are not meant to be a 4 hour long «line ride»!

This event get better every year. This was my third time attending. Your ID was checked and bracelet on while standing in line waiting to get in. So much better than in years past when they did everything at the door. Helps to have checked out the map prior to the event to know which breweries to hit up. LOTS of beer to choose from and many had fest only beers (and most were sours-​yum!). Even though there are people everywhere there’s hardly any line to stand in because it’s spread out so well. Lawson’s finest should have multiple booths to help with the line… but as always so worth it!

I didn’t bring a pretzel necklace because they said not allowed. Everyone seems to ignore this.

I have been to 3 of these events so far, and I feel like it just gets better and better. My first time wasn’t so good, since I got tipsy early on from trying too many beers at once. Oops. I learned my lesson and paced myself for my second and third time. There are SO many different beers to try that you’re bound to like something, even if you aren’t a beer drinker. The people at the stations were all friendly and ready to talk about their brand. It’s an open layout, so despite there being lots of people in here, I found it still easy-​ish to maneuver about.
A word of advice is to get here early. Makes a huge difference not only because you don’t get cranky from waiting in line, but there’s not as many people inside when you first walk in, making it easier to beeline for specific tables you want to go to. There are some snacks (you have to pay of course) but it seems like each year they have more and more options which is good. All in all it’s a fun outing to go to with friends

HUGE festival with a large number of beers. Super fun experience that is totally worth it. Don’t forget to bring your ID.
There is food inside that you can buy, lots of people bring pretzel necklaces to snack on.

Amazing. Great event. Really well organized. Huge selection, with very short lines. I went for the first time in 2014, and I can’t wait for the next one.
NOTE:
No need to drink before hand. Made that rookie mistake. I thought the samples were going to be so small and the lines so long, a couple (4) pints ahead of time would help. Not needed. Lines are short and you get four samples a booth times 80 booths.
Bring pretzels. Some of the folks had them as a neckless. No need for that, but some would have been nice.
Eat plenty before hand.
Take a cab or Über. Über was offering a deal this year, and it was perfect.

Outstanding place for happy hour.

I not only attended the 2013 American Craft Beer Fest, but I also covered it as a part of the press, for my LIVE Podcast talk-​radio show, Bottoms Up: Appetite for Discussion, LIVE every Wednesday evening at 8PM est…
I never saw so many cool people, so many proud brewers, and so much tasty beer under one roof! I am not particularly a beer drinker, so I was very curious to see what the buzz was all about.
Well, it was totally worth it!
I was able to sample so many types of brew [many were local brewers who are passionate and really care about what YOU drink] and let me tell you, there are many brews out there that even the most fickle of beer drinkers will love! I myself found at least a half dozen brewers who made me a true believer in their product, and I implore anyone who reads this who may be a beer lover to give our local brewers a fair chance… they «get it’!!!
LIVE EVERY SATURDAY EVENING!!!
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— Ashley
LINK TO MY STORY:

The American Craft Beer Fest is fantastic and totally worth the money, IMHO.
This was my second year to the festival and I came way more prepared than my first — this time I came armed with a pretzel necklace and a plan! This year’s festival had over 640 beers from over 140 brewers. Insanity! If you are looking to try anything specific, making somewhat of a plan beforehand is a must. Luckily this is super easy to do through their website, where you can find a list of all the breweries and beers offered, a floor plan, and links to the Beer Advocate profiles. The program they give out that day is also incredibly helpful, and it’s fun to check off/​rate all of the beers you taste throughout the day!
I made a list of about 12 beers to try and was able to hit just about all of them. I’ve heard that the offerings aren’t as unique/​limited as in years past, but there are still some pretty awesome brewers to grab a taste at (Lawson’s, Tree House, Dc Brau, etc.). There are tons of people, but I don’t think I ever waited more than 10 – 15 minutes for a beer. I probably sampled over 30 beers (holy cow) by the time the session was over, so with some patience and strategy you can totally get your money’s worth!
I do wish they had some additional food options, but what can you do? Bring a pretzel necklace!

First time attending the American Craft Beer Festival and had a great time. They have over 150 breweries present, serving over 600+ beers what more could you ask for?
I recommend getting there early. We got there around 5:20pm and we were ½ way up the side of the convention center. The doors opened at 6 and the whole process was still pretty effective. We were in by 6:10pm.
Although, it was crowded, I never really waited in lines. My strategy was to go to the ones with the shortest lines. Many of these were small breweries and the people were great to talk with. The ones with the long lines tended to be the larger craft beer distributors that you can easily get in restaurants so why waste time on them anyway.
Word of warning, they do not sell discount tickets for DD’s or people who do not want to drink. Which I completely understand since they do not sell discount tickets to people who are not riding rides at Disney so plan accordingly and choose an event all people can attend (if they do not want to pay full price) and enjoy or have your DD enjoy Boston for 3 hours while you are at this event
In closing, I had a great time. I will be back next year. I made my first pretzel necklace for this event and plan on making a bigger and better one next year.

Not my first beer festival, but my first time to this one.
Yea, they probably sell too many to many tickets. I had read up on this and from what I read, on Beer Advocate & elsewhere, I knew to get there early and stand in line. Should I have to? Ehh, beer geeks are passionate about their beer and there were some great beers and people wanted to make sure they were there and in early.
All that said, the longest we waited for a beer was perhaps 15 minutes and that was at the beginning and it was one of the breweries that a lot of people were saying to get to. To be honest, a line, a wait of like 10 minutes to get your next sample is not a bad thing. Face it, if you can get a beer real quick, you are going to get pretty drunk, pretty fast. Because of that, if I had to wait 10 minutes I didn’t complain. If I had to wait, it was one of the primo breweries for one of the prime beers.
Lines are also good because you find yourself trying beers that you know nothing about and you might discover something that you really like. That happened to us, we got in line for a brewery we really wanted to try, that people were talking about and loved it. Then we wandered up to a local brewery that had a short, maybe 10 people, line and found another beer we really liked.
We went to the Saturday afternoon session and from what we were told, that session is the mellower one, but it also sells out first. No «frat boys» as someone complained of. The ages seemed to run all ages, from 20’s to 60’s I’d say. All in all, it was a fun time with the worst part being the wait to get in. Next year we just might buy some cheap chairs to sit in while we wait.
If you like beer, real beer, check it out.

Is there such a thing as too much beer? If you don’t think so, then you may not have been to ACBF. Or the concept of «the beer that got away» doesn’t bother you. There are so many vendors with so many different beers, that it’s nearly impossible to try all the ones that sound good… and there’s really no point in trying to sample each one. And even with the list of beers in the booklet, it’s hard to keep track of everything you’ve had. But then again, that’s not really a bad thing.
Get there early — 30 minutes beforehand is plenty of time… line is super long, but it took about 5 minutes to get in once the doors opened — bring some food to eat while you wait in line, and bring a pretzel necklace! Water stations are easily accessible, and there’s an overpriced, greasy food section. You can bring your own food if you want — they don’t check bags or anything.
Some lines were longer than others, but most lines had less than a minute wait. Even the longer lines only took a few minutes. Apparently they cap attendance at 5000, but the space could definitely accommodate at least three times that — loved that it didn’t feel too crowded.
If you love beer, this event is worth the $ 45 ticket.
And seriously, bring a pretzel necklace!

Beer= good
120 brewers + 500 kinds of beer= amazing
Me drinking those beers = very, very happy
Line to get in was very long, but the lines at each brewer moved pretty quickly. Got to meet a lot of nice people and drink some amazing beer (and a couple of beers which I wanted to spit out). Heavy on Northeast/​New England breweries which is to be expected, but overall a great mix.
I went on Friday night, the eventt was run pretty well as far as I could tell.
TIckets were $ 50, but the experience was priceless.

Wicked good time! That’s a cute little word I learned on my trip to Boston! While planning a vacation to Boston, my friends and I realized that the ACBF would be there the weekend we were planning on coming up from Florida, so we called a few friends and scored some complimentary tickets to the event. It was worth the $ 45 ticket, but free beer was even better.
Getting into the event was a bit disorganized, but they seemed to be doing their best to move everyone in quickly. They had plenty of tables set up to rinse our tasting cups, but the venue was definitely lacking enough bathrooms for this particular event.
The event had over 100 brewers and over 500 beers. Here’s a rundown of some of the ones we remembered to mark down in our event program (How much we enjoyed it on a scale of 1 – 10, 10 we love it and 1 we hated it):
Cambridge Brewing Company– Kissmeyer Citra Tripel (2)
Frosty Knuckle Brewing Company– Frosty Knuckle Ale (3)
Magic Hat Brewing Company– Blind Faith English India Pale Ale (8)
McNeill’s Brewery– McNeill’s Ruby Ale (7)
Mendocino Brewing Company– Summer Ale (8)
New Jersey Beer Company– 1787 Abbey Single Belgian Pale Ale (4)
Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project– Baby Tree (6)
Sebago Brewing Company– Full Throttle Double IPA (5)
Smuttynose Brewing Company– Smuttynose Summer Weizen (7)
Stoudt’s Brewing Company– Stoudts American Pale Ale (8)
Widmer Brother’s Brewing Company– Drifter Pale Ale (9)
The Miami Brewjas and resident Unilocal Miami Beer Snob would be so proud!

At $ 45 a ticket, it may not be the cheapest of festivals but we had a pretty good time attending it. And by we, I mean Erick H., Marissa C. and myself.
After taking the T to South Station and making our way over to the Seaport area for the event, things were a bit rocky at first to say the least. Despite arriving about thirty minutes before the doors were to open, we faced a line that must have been around a half a mile long. I’m not exaggerating. It was the longest line I’ve ever been into and made the DMV look efficient.
Fast forward about an hour and we nearly made our way into the festival amongst hundreds of other attendees. Instead of having a full three hours, we now lost thirty minutes which is a real shame considering the amount of beers and stands present in the festival. Just over a hundred brewers were present to be exact, each refilling cup after cup furiously as the long lines moved slowly.
While the event’s location itself was spacious enough to accomodate everyone, the lines at just about every stand were very long and despite our best efforts to sample as many beers as possible, it was hard and we had about forty of the hundred before the whole thing shut down (10 minute early I might add!)
All in all, the event was worth the money but I would have loved had they given us more time there. The gates opened at 6, we didn’t get in until 6:30 the earliest and the event was supposed to run until 9 but a lot of places stopped pouring the beers at 8:45. What gives? Why? Annoying to say the least.
Also the sheer volume of people made it very difficult to try and talk and connect with some of the brewers present there. Aside from asking for a pour of a specific brew, little talking was possible as the lines were just too long. They should consider having one more session during the afternoon or something if there’s that much demand. Also, the food options were seriously limited — how about some catering from local joints much like Wine Riot does? Doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult…
But it was still a good time and I’m definitely going to attend the ones to come.

BEER! This was my first beer festival ever. Took Matt J. here for his birthday and boy was he excited. You walk in (after waiting in a long long line outside for the ID check which thankfully didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would! It was sort of like a Disneyland line, only you were waiting to get into a ride that would last 3.5 hours – a ride that involved drinking beer!!!)
They have a book available with all of the breweries listed in it with which beers they have in alphabetical order which works well, but I would have liked a a map of where each of the breweries were actually located because as we drank… we found it harder and harder to find the breweries we wanted to try! Surprise surprise ha. And they did try their hardest to make the lines not last too long, but we definitely didn’t end up having time to try every brewery we wanted to, because the lines at some were just too long.
Definitely glad we made our own pretzel necklaces too, because a) it made us feel like a cool kids when people asked us where we bought those and b) it helped break up all of the beer! Best $ 2 spent at CVS ever ha.
And then of course, in case you want to feel even more patriotic for beer, the moment they kicked us out of this event, everyone started chanting USA USA USA ha ha ha Hilarious. Drunken hilariousness.

My friend and I had been looking around for a good beer fest for a while. NYC doesnt always have the best of the best to offer despite its reputation… craft beer still isnt HUGE in NYC yet from what we can tell altho the interest is growing.
We decided to go to this years fest in Boston and it was a great choice. The fest was HUGE… like 80 breweries and easily a couple hundred different beers! SO much to try all at once… we didnt know where to start!
The fact that the fest is closely associated with
is great, as that is the site we use for all our beer needs, even tips for our homebrewing.
We got to talk to a lot of interesting and knowledgable people at the stalls about their beers, ales, porters and yummy yummy dark stouts.
The stouts and porters really did it for me for the night… and the ample selections of Heffe and Wit Ale really did well for my friend.
We had an amazing time at the beer fest, and an even more amazing time wandering and exploring Boston for our first time… and had it not been for the beerfest I prolly wouldn’t have ever gone up to Boston to begin with. My friend and I are both VERY glad we did tho and hope to make the American Craft Beer Fest in Boston an annual tradition for us! We cant wait to bring our BeerNerd friends: D

Unbelievable. So many delicious beers, so little time. Mark M., Melissa M. (no, not Gram) and I took this place apart, one 3 to 5-​oz tasting at a time, recording our beer nerdery on rating sheets, trying things we’ve never had, visiting old favorites, and making faces at some truly weird brews.
The highlight of the beers, for me was, as I expected, Cody Brewing Company’s American Pale Ale.
You’ll never find a more balanced blend of good flavor, sessionability, clean finish, refreshing taste and varietal spot-​on flavor as you will with Cody’s APA. Look for it whenever you can — enjoy a case with some friends over a game.
Some other great highlights were Rapscallion’s Honey — another great session brew with light, almost airy honey notes. Narragansett had a truly surprisingly bold and chocolaty Bock offering. And of course, your good friends from Plymouth, MA — Mayflower, with their near-​perfect Porter — an almost contractory blend of drinkability, strong chocolaty-​coffee boldness and clean finish that is the mark of a well-​crafted varietal that is INCREDIBLY difficult to do well.
The Seaport Convention center was nice and airy, with plenty of fresh breezes blowing through. I could complaint about the bathroom situations, but what can you really do with that many beer drinkers in once place?
Food though — it’d be nicer if you didn’t try to roger us drunchie-​cravers quite so bad, but hey, you can’t blame an entity too much for trying to make a buck where he/​she/​it/​they can.
All in all, I enjoyed the crap out of this event, and if you love beer like I do, you’ll make a point to get to next year’s — bring a friend, and bring a checklist, and make a day of it! Such a blast!