From Friday, April 21st through Sunday, April 30th, the first ever Vancouver Brewers Fest is happening in tasting rooms and breweries across the city.

Although good beer is obviously the focus, the brand-spanking-new local-brewery-run event aims to be much more than a ten-day-long marathon of craft-beer-drinking. As the VBF website puts it, it’s a “celebration of the breweries, the people and the communities that have developed hand in hand.”

The calendar of happenings is shaping up to be both diverse in theme and reflective of just how entrenched in the local restaurant and food and beverage culture that craft beer has become: expect behind-the-scenes tours, brewer-led tastings, meet-the-brewers situations, and at least one patio party, as well as some more outside-of-the-box scenarios. For a better idea of what we’re hinting at, here are a handful events that are jumping out at us so far: Introduction to Lino Cut Images and Print Making with Christine Moulson; Callister Brewing’s Crib Tournament; a pizza collab between Aftermath BBQ and Luppolo; and an open house-style deal (with free beer and tacos!) at Vancouver’s newest brewery, Brewing August.

There are too many (more than two-dozen) local breweries involved to include the full list here – but you can scope out the entire line-up of participants yourself by clicking on ‘Breweries’ in the dropdown box located in the top right corner of the VBF website. Note that for this first iteration of Vancouver Brewers Fest, each participating brewery will be organizing and hosting their own events (as opposed to the classic one-venue-multiple-breweries fest format), so ticketing, reservations, dates, times, etc. vary widely, and details are still trickling in. Keep informed by regularly checking the Vancouver Brewers Fest website here. Cheers!