400 Beers in the Park: Suwanee Beer Fest Returns

Every March, Suwanee Town Center Park turns into the biggest taproom in Georgia for one afternoon, and Saturday was that afternoon. The Suwanee American Craft Beer Fest poured more than 400 different beers from 1 to 5 p.m. — regional craft breweries, national names, and a long tail of small Georgia operations you will not find on a shelf.

If you've never been: this festival is a machine, in a good way. General admission ran $60 in advance (it climbs to $75 the day of, when it hasn't sold out), VIP got in early at $135, and the pour lines move fast because there are simply so many taps. Live music carried the whole afternoon and the food truck row earned its keep. Pro move for next year: the organizers floated discount codes through their email list and Instagram back in January — between those and early-bird pricing, planning ahead genuinely pays for your lunch.

The real story, as always, is the setting. Most beer festivals happen in parking lots and convention halls. Ours happens on a great lawn with a fountain, ten minutes from I-85, in a downtown that was built for exactly this kind of day. People plan trips around this festival now — I talked to a group who drove up from Macon.

Tickets for next year will go on sale in early January on BigTickets, and the advance tiers genuinely do sell out. Set the reminder. This is one of the days that makes living here fun.