Cornwall’s Summer Beer Fest comes back July 9th 2016

Cornwall Ontario — The Seaway Food Festival is excited to announce the second edition of Cornwall’s Summer Beer Fest, set to be held on July 9th, 2016 at the Jet Set Pub (NAV Centre). The Summer Beer Fest is an experimental marketing initiative created by the Seaway Food Festival that celebrates our amazing local food scene and our region’s craft breweries.

Last year’s inaugural event was a massive success, with over 1,250 guests, 5 food vendors, and 15 breweries. This was by far the largest craft beer event Cornwall has ever seen, and in the second edition we hope deliver and even better social experience for our community. Again, we are excited to announce several restaurants and eating establishments will be participating as food vendors during the event. They will be displaying unique menus representative of their establishments. Last years vendors were Love Love Food, Bar Q, Table 21, Truffles Burger Bar, Schnitzels, and the NAV Centre.

As for the participating breweries, guests can expect another diverse set of Canadian vendors. Last year, 15 breweries brought over 35 beers and ciders for guest to enjoy. We have already received confirmations from close to a dozen vendors. We will release the final list of participating breweries and restaurants in the upcoming months. Festival organizers Sebastien Manigat (Director of the Seaway Food Festival) and Ian Bentley (Food & Beverage Director of the NAV Centre) announced that the Summer Beer Fest would be held on July 9th from 11am to 7pm (tentatively). The event will take place at NAV Centre on the Jet Set Pub patio and surrounding area.

During the event, guests will be able to purchase $2 coupons, which can be exchanged for samples of alcoholic beverages and/or food items, subject to pricing. Live entertainment coupled with the “shared-seating” arrangement provided by the picnic tables will create a unique experience for all festivalgoers. Tickets will go on sale starting May 30th, 2016 at participating establishments, NAV Centre, or on-line.

So what can festivalgoers expect in the second edition? “Our goal is to continuously improve the social, cultural, culinary, and tasting experience for our guests. Since, the conclusion of the first Summer Beer Fest, we’ve been discussing the various ways for us to do so. We are currently finalizing some of those elements, but we do know that one of the areas of focus will be education,” said Sebastien Manigat, Director.

If you missed last year’s edition or were unable to purchase tickets, do not worry: “Right off the bat, at the conclusion of the first Cornwall’s Summer Beer Fest we knew we had potential to make it even bigger. This year we will be releasing 2,000 tickets, and our expectation is that this will be another sell-out event. All of our stakeholders are extremely eager and can’t wait to start putting all the various elements together. Obviously, we (NAV Centre) are very excited to host this event again. Summer Beer Fest was a resounding success and we know we know we have all the resources necessary to ensure that it will be as successful this year,” added Ian Bentley.

Planning for the second edition has been in the works for months now with expectations set pretty high by the organizers, as well as last year’s participants: “We received tremendous positive feedback last year. And, obviously, we’ve identified plenty of opportunities for this event to grow. But, an event of this magnitude requires lots of planning. We’ve already received confirmations from restaurants, breweries, partners, and sponsors. Everyone is eager to get to work and make this happen,” concluded Sebastien Manigat. If you would like to participate as a sponsor, vendor, or brewery, please contact the Seaway Food Festival at info@bastionhospitality.ca.

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by Jason Setnyk

Jason Setnyk is a high school teacher, journalist, published and award winning author and photographer.