World Beer Festival returns to Durham

“We’ve got two points to our job,” said Daniel Bradford, the producer of the World Beer Festival coming back to Durham on Saturday. “Those are educating the public about beer appreciation and beer quality and fostering the development of local positive beer communities. Those two things have been driving me since the get-go.”

Moving east from Denver, Colo., years ago, where he worked at The Great American Beer Festival, Bradford brought with him a magazine and an idea. The magazine was called “All About Beer,” and the idea was to start a festival. Thus, in 1996, the World Beer Festival was born.

In the fourteen years of its existence, the World Beer Festival in Durham has grown exponentially. “All About Beer,” which acts as “host,” also holds the festival in Raleigh, Columbia, S.C., and Richmond, Va., each year. But Bradford says Durham’s is the best.

“They don’t call it the World Beer Festival in this town,” he said, referencing the eight-thousand Triangle residents who attend the event.

“They just call it ‘beer fest.’ They own it. This town has a hilarious passion for this event.”

The festival’s growth is charted not just in the number of attendees, nor the growing media attention — including a recent write-up by CNN — but also in the ever-expanding number of beers the festival showcases. Visitors can sample any of the hundreds of different varieties of beer provided by one hundred and eleven different breweries.

“We’ll get most of the breweries in North Carolina,” Bradford said. But he also acknowledged that, as its name implies, it’s not just locals and domestics that people will find in Durham, but internationals as well.

“We’re the World Beer Festival. Most other festivals don’t cover that range.”

To compliment the beer tasting, there will be a plethora of food stands, and festival organizers will be hosting a series of seminars on beer-related topics for both new-comers and veteran enthusiasts. One such seminar will seek to pair different kinds of beer with the best corresponding chocolate flavors. Another will explore the many varieties of hops, sampling brews with various signature hop flavors.

“It’s so easy to talk about cascade [hops],” Bradford said. “I’m not sure I could do Fuggles and Golding. How do you verbalize the distinctions between those two?”

But even with this level of sophistication, Bradford insists that the festival is at no risk of going snobby.

“I’ve been to wine tastings and they crack me up,” Bradford said. “They’re silly. And you go to a beer event and everyone’s having a hell of a lot of fun.”

That’s an evaluation of the World Beer Festival with which Sumit Vohra could agree. As C.E.O. of Lone Rider Brewery in Raleigh, Vohra’s company will showcase its beer in Durham on Saturday, including the decorated “Sweet Josie” American brown ale, which recently pulled the gold medal in its category in Denver.

“I think it’s a great beer festival,” Vohra said of the Durham event.

“We’ve had a very good experience there. The folks really take good care of the brewers who come by. It definitely denotes the enthusiasm that people in the area have for craft beer.”

One of the festival’s strong points is its sheer number of beers.

“Honestly, I get lost in the amount of beers that are there to try,” he said.

What doesn’t get lost in the hum of the festival’s crowd and the number of brewers looking to show off their craft is the fact that Durham and Raleigh have become powerhouses of beer culture.

“Raleigh, Durham and Asheville have become some of the east coast beer meccas,” Vohra said.

Though he’s well aware of the significance of having so many breweries in the area, along with a festival that has grown to such prominence, Bradford is keeping it real.
“What’s the phrase that people use when they’re thinking about famous people?” Bradford asked. “‘I’d love to have a beer with him.’ That’s the ultimate in social conviviality. That’s the world that we’re trying to create, inspire, and motivate. That’s what the festival does. I’m just having a beer with eight thousand of my closest friends.”

Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.