Coming Up in 2014 #3

2014 marches on, but it seems with every new day there’s something else to do in our fair city. You can check out the previous posts this year here and here. And, if you’re wondering, I take on my own recommendations! Of things I mentioned in the previous posts, I was lucky to get along to:

• AfterDARK Grazing Tour at the Botanic Gardens
• Enlighten Canberra, including Deviator
• Valentine’s Day dinner at Pod Food
• Summer of Riesling finale at Parlour Wine Room
• The National Multicultural Festival (of course!)
• The Canberra Food and Wine Expo
• Canberra Cake Club (I’ve now been to two of three events and it’s fun and delicious!)

Here’s what’s caught my eye over the next few months:

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Small Brewers Beer Fest – take two

In March, we had a good time at the inaugural Small Brewers Beer Festival at the Botanic Gardens (not to be confused with the Canberra Craft Beer and Cider Festival). It had a huge turnout, and, with it, a few teething problems: the lines were enormous, there wasn’t water available on the hot day, and some of the beer served was hot. With news that the festival was returning for a second time in late September, I was excited – the second time was surely going to be better, with the benefit of lessons learned from the first festival. The first good news is early bird tickets: for the same price it’s 20 tokens instead of 10, meaning double the beer. The second good news is its move to EPIC – an inside event, like Oktoberfest, will be ideal. Even though there are 50km/h winds, I don’t bring a jacket – what will be the point if we’re inside? My expectations plummet when we arrive to find the festival in …

Canberra Craft Beer and Cider Festival

Just a month after the Small Brewers Beer Festival at the Botanic Gardens, we arrive bright and early to the Canberra Craft Beer and Cider Festival at the Mercure.

Small Brewers Beer Festival

We thought the Small Brewers Beer Festival was going to be a small event. I hadn’t seen much advertising (except for the Riot Act and beer loving Twitter friends) and I thought it might be confused with the Craft Beer and Cider Event next month (13 April). We were wrong. It was huge.