New Concord fall festival to offer beer, blues {November 2012)

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New Concord fall festival to offer beer, blues {November 2012)
August 22, 2012
By: Michael Knox
IndependentTribune.com

ONCORD, N.C. — Downtown Concord will hold its first beer festival this November at the Running Hot Festival, celebrating homebrewed beer and blues music.

Organized by the Concord Downtown Development Corporation, the festival will feature homemade beer supplied by the Cabarrus Homebrewers Society and feature blues music provided by The Blues Providers and members of the Concord Blues Preservation Club.

The event is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 3 and the music is free to the public. Anyone wanting to drink the craft beer provided at the festival will need to purchase an armband for $10, according to Diane Young, executive director for Concord Downtown Development Corporation. There will be at least 25 gallons of homemade craft beer at the festival, which will be held on Means Avenue.

Young said the Cabarrus Homebrewers Society already lures a younger crowd down to Concord with their monthly meetings at Lil Robert’s Place. She added that Shannon Hill, who organizes the Concord Blues Preservation Club, does the same, with the group meeting each month at Speakeasy Alehouse in Concord. The festival will build on those groups already coming downtown for blues music and beer.

“It’s exciting to see that age group grow,” Young said. “We’re broadening our scope of what we have to offer.”

Young said they conducted research for about a year before sitting down in June to plan the festival. They are currently looking for sponsors for the event and have sponsor levels for $500 and $1,000 pledges.

Ford Craven, founder of the Cabarrus Homebrewers Society, said he can definitely see interest for a craft beer festival growing in Concord, especially with festivals in Charlotte and other nearby cities. Craven said this particular festival will only feature the Cabarrus Homebrewers Society’s beer, but he eventually hopes they can have a festival that celebrates all craft beers, bringing in local and regional breweries to the area.

For now, they are focused on the Running Hot Festival and are still figuring out what kinds of craft beers they plan to make, but are leaning toward developing some chili pepper-based beers. There are currently about 40 members in the Cabarrus Homebrewers Society, so there figures to be plenty of variety of homebrewed beer at the fest in November.

“We want people to know about craft beer and it’s not just Bud, Miller, Coors, and the people actually in there sitting are making it, and here it is right here for you to sample,” Craven said. “This is the first time that homebrew or craft beers will have been poured on the streets of Concord.”