One of the best beer fests I've been too. I've been to suwanee beer fest 5 years in a row and this…read moreone tops them all due to the fact that it was organized , plenty of bathrooms, breweries that were new, more food trucks, Steve Perry cover band,, different games, optional seltzer and lemonade , cbd tents and my favorite local breweries. I'm not bragging but I am the inventor of the homemade pretzel dip necklace. You will see that idea blow up,next year. Yours truly Roy Montelin

We bought the VIP 3-pack at last years Wine Fest; this is our first time attending the Beer Fest…read moreand we had a great time! The VIP tent makes it so much better. Catering by Marlowes and access to some really fantastic reserve beer makes it worth the extra money. Not much of a crowd inside the tent, but after they opened the gates, lines started piling up quick. Still, no waits more than a couple minutes, unless you wanted to use the VIP bathrooms. They really needed more... BTW, if you had a problem with traffic or parking, it's because you didn't take Uber. It's a BEER FEST; don't drive!!! We won't make the mistake of missing this event again...

Oktoberfest in Lilburn has always trumped this festival for me in the past (both are annually held…read morethe first Sat in October), but this year I managed to do BOTH. I think I may have started a new family tradition, we had so much fun. In 2013, the prices were $30 for general admission, $45 for VIP tickets. As a newbie, usually I would go economy class until I had a chance to "see how things go", but I knew I would want the shirt either way so it was a bargain price for me. Lots of VIP tables near the food and the bandstand, and event volunteers bringing your beer. Yep, the VIP tix are worth it... Admission allows for unlimited* tastings, and that's really what brings everyone out. I was expecting a lot more draft selections; most of the 120 beers available were in bottles. Also mostly absent were the owners/bottlers/distributors. The few that I did meet were very excited to talk about their line, and I love meeting people who enjoy what they do. The other tables were manned by volunteers, many of whom studied up on the beers they were pouring. I may have imagined it, but I think at *least* half of the attendees were volunteers. Which is an even more economical way to attend. A lot of them had either just ended their shift and were off to tasting, or had been tasting and were about to begin a shift. Food from local restaurants was good, too. Weather was perfect. Next year, the first Saturday in October is the 4th. Don't ask me to come to your your aunt's birthday party. No, I can't drive you home from getting your wisdom teeth out. So sorry, your wedding will just have to go on without me - I'm busy that day. (*Unlimited = drink as many as you want, there are rideshares available; but if you start to make an ass of yourself you will a) appear in your friend's youtube video and/or 2) be asked to leave - possibly while wearing some shiny new bracelets courtesy Gwinnett Co Police.)

You can find the Brookhaven Beer Fest in Brookhaven Park, right in the heart of the new city of…read moreBrookhaven north of Atlanta but still inside the perimeter and part of the Atlanta Metropolitan area. This annual event has run for the past 8 years starting in 2000 (prior to 2017 it was held in a different location) - I first attended in 2016 and volunteered to pour for the event organizers in 2018. My review will reflect both years. The park is only a few blocks from the Brookhaven MARTA station - I would recommend taking the train, especially with alcohol involved. The event is organized by Spiral Entertainment, which also does Oysterfest in February and Luckyfest in June (St Paddy's Day) at the Park Tavern. The Brookhaven Beer Fest is held in June. I found the organization as a volunteer to be fairly well done - these are nice people trying to create fun adult events with a variety of food, drink and entertainment. For 2018 the event had 150 beers from nearly 50 vendors (this number is mixed between beer, wine and food providers - there was also a Vendor Expo that showcased items that don't fit into the food/drink category). There's also music and a food truck or two. When I attended in 2016 the crowd was quite thick and a bit rowdy - it was extremely hot and I probably drank too much. For 2018 the scheduling was a bit different with the hours a bit later in the day but still extremely hot - the park setting is also much more spacious so you aren't stepping all over people. As a volunteer I worked the first shift for Left Nut Brewing up in Suwanee - we had four different beers (all in cans) available for a good mix of styles: The Lappland Blonde (Blonde Ale), American Obsession (Pale Ale), The Bridge to Nowhere (IPA and the Mighty Banyan (DIPA) - all are quite good. At the end of my volunteer shift I was allowed to wonder the remainder of the event with a sample cup (this is a perk of volunteering) - I enjoyed Green Man, Southern, Southern Tier, Wild Leap, Catawba, Gate City, Southbound, Cedar Creek, Session, and Blue Point - basically the end where I was working - that's when the beer started to run out. I think the event was a bit under-provided when it comes to beer as there was still a couple of hours worth of event schedule left. In 2016 I tasted about three times as much beer (I basically was incapacitated before I could finish trying everything). For drinking events I recommend that you only do about an inch of beer (or less) and taste what looks interesting before committing to any more - you get pretty messed up before you realize it and then start forgetting what you had. In all the crowd was better managed than when I attended in 2016 but I don't believe there were as many beer vendors - it troubles me that it started running out so early. If you're thinking about going make sure you get there early or you may not have the greatest variety available to you (this is a good general-rule for all beer festivals but this one in particular). I hope to attend as a volunteer again in 2019 as I had a great time - always good to meet the distributors and staff that are on hand from each of the regional breweries.

It's a small-ish festival, but I feel like it won't be small for long. The food here was fantastic…read more And people were friendly. The Polish Pierogi Festival is the annual fundraiser for the Saint John Paul II Polish Apostolate. There you'll find Folk Dancers, Pierogi, Gotabki (stuffed cabbage--delicious), Grilled Kietbasa, Polish Beers, and Polish merchandise. Food items are sold by ticket. (But everything else is free: free admission, free parking, free entertainment...) Definitely buy your food tickets in advance (pick them up at Will Call) and get there early. The food is good, and people are realizing this, so the line for tickets can get long, and they may run out of food if you show up late. Food tickets are $1 each. Savory dishes range from 3 to 8 tickets each. My favorite items were the Gotabki, and the Potato and Cheese Pierogi. (The Mushroom and Sauerkraut Pierogi were a close second.) The Grilled Kielbasa and Bigos is noteworthy. Bigos is NOT sauerkraut. It's something of a "stew" made with cabbage, pork, and tomatoes. Delicious. I do wish the festival were later in the year. Late August is brutally hot to be eating food at a sunny table. The food itself is sold inside Parish Hall. The line moves swiftly, but it does get crowded. And that room needs better air conditioning to handle those crowds. On the other side of Parish Hall you'll find a wide variety of baked Polish goods from Grand Bakery & Café. This line does not move as fast, and they take cash for their goods. But the baked goods are really good. We sampled a variety of sweet rolls, donuts, and turnovers. They also sell whole loaves of bread and boxed cakes. I took home a whole poppy seed roll. It is very dense. I can't wait to cut into it later on. So keep this Festival on your radar for next year. I'll be there. Holler if you're coming with.

Hosted by the Vietnamese American Community of Georgia, this annual event is held in the parking…read morelot of Hong Kong Supermarket. It is free to attend, also free parking! You cannot get any better than that! It is not a huge venue but there are enough vendors selling street and snack foods. There are a few toy vendors, as well. There are seats and tables set up for your convenience. The stage is set up for performances for dancing and singing. A few performances are also from martial arts studios. Towards the end of the night, there will be a Lion dance and free lanterns will be given to anyone who wants them. Everyone lights them up and come together and walk with the lantern. Overall, it is a fun event. I've been twice as a vendor, helping out CAAG (Cambodian American Association of Georgia) 137/2017

Atlanta Eats Live! is a new annual food tasting festival that takes place at the Verizon Wireless…read moreAmphitheatre at Encore Park in Alpharetta. I attended this year's event on Sunday evening, October 5, 2014. I believe this was only the event's second year in existence. It's organized and produced by the folks behind the Atlanta Eats TV show, hosted by Steak Shapiro and Mara Davis. Both Steak and Mara made appearances at the event. Atlanta Eats Live! is the best non-Yelp-related food tasting event I've been to locally. I think it's marginally better than Taste of Atlanta for the following reasons: 1. Your ticket includes unlimited tastes from every vendor. At Taste of Atlanta, you must buy additional tastes. 2. Free parking. 3. Vendors are mostly high quality restaurants. There aren't nearly as many non-food vendors or sponsors, like Xfinity or American Family Insurance, trying to advertise or sell you their stuff. It's very food focused. 4. The event is nicely laid out in a contained space and the lines - even the long ones - flow well. 5. Related to #4 above, the Atlanta Eats event is smaller, so it feels more "intimate" and less crowded and chaotic. In 2014, tickets started at $45 per person, not including ticket fees which bumped the cost up to about $56-57 per ticket. Like Taste of Atlanta and other food tasting events, VIP tickets were available for $100+ each. VIP tickets allowed access to a roped off club section with a few additional tents such as one belonging to Woodfire Grill. VIP tickets also included complimentary drinks and a special parking section. At a minimum of nearly $60 per person, not including extra beverage costs, plus the drive up to Alpharetta for the non-North Fulton folks, I'm just not sure Atlanta Eats Live! is completely worth the price of admission. Though I do have to admit, there was plenty of good food and I stuffed myself silly. Beverage costs were $9 for draft beer, $7 for single wine, $13 for double wine, and $4 for bottled water. The event ran from 5pm to 10pm. Food was served from 5pm to 8pm. Some vendors ran out of food as early as about 6:15pm, but the majority of vendors were well stocked. Advice: Go early. Live music was performed on-stage from 8pm to 10pm. Yacht Rock Schooner was the band for the night and they performed some great covers of 80s songs such as "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" by Hall & Oates. Along with food and live music, there were supposedly cooking demonstrations by local Atlanta chefs, but I didn't see any. Over 40 restaurants were "hand-picked" for the event. Most of the restaurants have already been featured on the Atlanta Eats TV show or web site. I was impressed by the restaurant lineup. They got some good ones from all over town. It's nearly impossible to try food from every restaurant unless you just take one bite from each restaurant and throw the rest of the dish away (#firstworldproblems - I did not do this). You really have to pace yourself. I tapped out maybe two-thirds of the way through all the tents. I physically couldn't put more food or drink into my body. It also didn't help that I'd indulged in a brunch buffet just hours earlier. Here's a list of most of the vendors I visited and the foods I tried: 4th & Swift - Fall Vegetable Minestrone with Crispy Pork Shank Takorea - Gogi Nachos (pork and beef) Crawfish Shack Seafood: Cajun Infused Poached Scallops and Andouille Sausage Sugo - Meatball al Sugo Double Zero Napoletana - Butternut Squash Fritelle Cooks & Soldiers - Bikini - truffled, Iberico grilled Mahon cheese sandwich Muss & Turner's, Local Three, Common Quarter - Meat Butter - chicken liver, foie gras, cherry, cola St. Cecilia - Smoked Trout Roe & Harissa Seed Kitchen & Bar - Fall Mushroom Crostini and Tres Leches Cake Alma Cocina - Butternut Squash and Pork Cheek Posole Canoe - Slow Braised Southern Family Farms Pork Belly and Flavored Pops Kimball House - Pate a Choux - chicken liver mousse, jam Gu's Bistro - Chengdu Cold Noodles Heirloom Market BBQ and Sobban - BBQ pulled pork, scallion potato salad Villains Wicked Heroes - Nick the Pig Cuban Sandwich Lottafrutta - Miniature Cuban Coffee Ovations Food Services - Avocado Mac & Cheese Bite, Espresso Pumpkin Cheesecake, Ginger Apple Lime Soda The Ice Cream Bar - various spiked ice cream samples (e.g. bourbon, mojito) In general, the food was pretty good. My favorites included the Butternut Squash Fritelle from Double Zero, the "Meat Butter" chicken liver and foie gras spread from Muss & Turner's, Local Three, Common Quarter, the Tres Leches Cake from Seed, the Chengdu Cold Noodles from Gu's, and BBQ and sides from Heirloom and Sobban, the plate of which was big enough to almost be an entree all its own. I like how the restaurants didn't hold back in terms of the dishes and ingredients they served. An estimated 2,000 to 3,000 people attended. Overall, I had a good time.

This is my first food festival/event. We got there a little after 5 and it wasn't too crowded yet…read more There was still PLENTY of food and almost no lines. I tried one of each thing and my friend had probably 3 servings of the pork belly. The selection of beers was actually surprising big, and bottled waters and small bottles of coke and diet coke also came with the ticket. As the night went on, it got more and more crowded and lines took 10-15 min for the highly sought after restaurants. I quit caring because my tummy was so bloated (I really can't eat as much as I used to haha). I went back to get some water, and the line took upwards of 15 min. (and they ran out of water). By that time though (7ish), the sky had darkened and it started to rain pretty hard. We hadn't even gotten to the last section yet. Rathbun's and a few others had run out of food and I was bummed. Towards the end, I could only pick and choose and take bites of some dishes since I was so incredibly full and wet. So I guess the purpose of this event--getting my belly full to the brim with yumminess--was served. Overall, they have to know the attendance of the event and they shouldn't have run out of food only halfway through the event. I found a coupon code and paid $65 or so for the GA ticket, so I'd say it was alright for the price. I would not have paid full price though.

The Elisha Winn House and the Gwinnett Historical Society are celebrating its 200th Anniversary…read moreSaturday, October 6th, thru Sunday October 7th just off Dacula Road near the Apalachee Farms Golf & Tennis Community. Admission is $3 for 12 and older and free for those under that age. This home was built in 1812, about 6 years before Gwinnett County was first established in 1818. The county was named after Button Gwinnett, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. This particular area of the county was once part of Jackson County. The home quickly became an important part of the history of the county because much of the early planning for the county was performed here. Many of the very first functions of the new county government were carried out in the rooms of this home, including the first elections (held in the parlor) and early sessions of the Superior Court held in the barn (believe it or not). The 1st Gwinnett County Jail was built on the property but was demolished in 1933. The current jail on the property was built in Lawrenceville in the 1920's and donated to the Gwinnett County Historical Society in 1986. It is believed to be of similar size and construction as the original. Interesting construction of the jail shows hundreds of nails were imbedded in the wood to keep prisoners from being freed by their gangs from the outside. Strong iron beams also wrapped over the roof of the building and back into the ground to keep it from being moved. (see pic) In 1819, the first 5 judges of the Inferior Court were commissioned, one of which was Elisha Winn. He served from 1820-1825 and was a state senator for Gwinnett from 1830-1837. The Winn House was EXTREMELY important to Gwinnett County until the seat of government was relocated to the newly created city of Lawrenceville in 1820. The Winn House Fair highlights the buildings remaining on the property and the main house. Other fun things include re-enactments of cannon shootings, Historical Society representatives in period clothing and local businesses with a variety of goods for sale. I bought some awesome natural lotion from one vendor and some incredibly tasty boiled peanuts from another. http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/7HzQ1igipDBlJBz7YyV1oA?userid=JjXuiru1_ONzDkYVrHN0aw#bYynOpeeGXXaaL4XPt2nvQ Hot dogs, burgers, music and crafts give you reason to stay a while as well as demonstrations of what it must have been like to live here back when this house was in it's heyday. Photography is not allowed in the main house, but I managed to get some fantastic shots of the other building on property which include: * Barns http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/7HzQ1igipDBlJBz7YyV1oA?select=afWKVBqjGMhHDtVkWwGt4g#G0QaXfPLS34x-P2J4Eblgg * Blacksmith Shop http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/7HzQ1igipDBlJBz7YyV1oA?select=afWKVBqjGMhHDtVkWwGt4g#pS5ANF-VIyb5MZEosze8dQ * 1875 School House http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/7HzQ1igipDBlJBz7YyV1oA?select=afWKVBqjGMhHDtVkWwGt4g#5vwe70LfeViYjKm3iwDhIg * Outhouse http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/7HzQ1igipDBlJBz7YyV1oA?select=afWKVBqjGMhHDtVkWwGt4g#vpeppNFAKlc7fo4f98iLZA * Jail http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/7HzQ1igipDBlJBz7YyV1oA?select=afWKVBqjGMhHDtVkWwGt4g#ZXsWABg0qlDgtO0wXH7hJw * Cotton House * Log Cabin Nearby there are also many archaeological sites for Indian burial grounds as well as dinosaur fossils (or so I've been told)... but the locations are secret. ALL in all it's a fun was to spend a beautiful weekend day with your kids learning a little history. Some of the names associated with the building give clear definition to local names of streets, parks and trails... which makes history come alive.

My review will equal Richards. Hey! My photos equal Richards!…read moreRichard beat me to the first review punch! Buy he sure did save me a lot of posting time. A great morning so close to home!

The Taste of Taiwan Food Festival was a lively event that my family and one of our best friends who…read morehappen to be visiting out of country truly enjoyed last Saturday. There was a lot of diversity within the crowd, which was so nice to see others getting to learn about a really cool culture, they had different shows performed on stage throughout the day from a big selection of different types of dancers, to live cooking demonstrations by acclaimed Taiwanese chefs to Tibetan Buddhist monks chanting from the Drepung Loseling Monastery. They had an excellent selection of food, all which was exceptionally delicious and was really affordable (the majority was $2 to $5) and was served in good portion sizes. There were also kid activities in the tents as well as a playground and water fountain where kids were cooling off in. In some of the tents they were selling really cool custom art pieces, some of which were custom and handmade, like the Buddhist bracelets from the Drepung Loseling Monastery that I purchased two of, they were beautifully made. I definitely look forward to the next Taste of Taiwan International Food Festival. [Review #205]