Postseason play

CLARIFICATION: While 35 breweries were registered for last year's festival, only 32 actually showed up.

 

A slightly leaner, slightly later Inland Northwest Craft Beer Festival returns to Avista Stadium in October.

Tickets went on sale Monday for the event Oct. 2-3 – a week later than last year – which so far features 31 breweries, down from the previous 35.

This year’s roster is capped at 32 breweries, based on how things went last year, says Eric Radovich, executive director of the sponsoring Washington Beer Commission. More could be added if advance ticket sales look promising, he says.

“You don’t know what the weather’s going to do, what the attendance is going to be,” Radovich says. “We want everybody to get value from being there. Based on what we saw last year, 35 might be too many.”

Among the newcomers are a pair of local breweries that opened since last fall – Black Label and Badass Backyard – and Moses Lake’s Ten Pin, which also is joining the Inland Northwest Ale Trail.

New faces from the West Side include Der Blokken (Bremerton), Pike (Seattle), Pyramid (Seattle), Stoup (Ballard) and Three Magnets (Olympia), along with such returning favorites as Fremont, Elysian and Boundary Bay.

Several Eastern Washington breweries that poured at previous festivals aren’t returning, including Bale Breaker, Iron Horse, Laht Neppur, Northern, Old Schoolhouse and Riverport.

“It was first come, first served,” Radovich says. Overlap with Yakima’s Fresh Hop Ale Festival on Oct. 3 also could be a factor, he acknowledges, though several breweries are doing both events.

Last year’s festival, the final weekend of September, was a week later than the previous events in downtown’s Riverfront Park. It moved back another week this year because the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, which the Washington commission attends, switched to the end of September from the beginning of October.

The local festival couldn’t move up a week because the Spokane County Interstate Fair runs through Sept. 20, Radovich explains.

Ticket prices haven’t changed, at $20/advance, $25/gate ($15/military with ID, $5 for designated drivers with water/soda). That includes six 5-ounce pours; extra tokens are $2 each (up from last year’s $1.50), or four for $5.

As before, there will be live music, food trucks and baseball-themed activities in keeping with the setting, the home of the Spokane Indians. More details about all of that will be announced after Labor Day.

And as always, the commission is looking for volunteers (21 and older) to help staff the event for four-hour shifts; they receive free admission at a time when they aren’t working. If you’re interested, email hayden@washingtonbeer.com.

Bowling for barrels: Speaking of Ten Pin Brewing, the offshoot of Moses Lake’s venerable Lake Bowl bowling alley is breaking ground this week on a new facility for a 30-barrel brewing system, up from the current 3-barrel operation.

Full production is scheduled to begin in March with kegs, cans and bottles being distributed throughout the region from Spokane to Portland.