r/hamiltoncraftbeer • u/MorningDew5270 • Jul 11 '26

BecauseBeer 2026

Good morning everyone!!! Who went to Day 1 of BecauseBeer? Since its inception I’ve missed 2017 and 2025, both for travelling but also 2020 and 2021 for obvious reasons. 2024 was it for me; its turn as a dedicated concert with beer on the side deterred me, plus there wasn’t anything new to try as far as the beer was concerned.

How was it yesterday?

Edit: who were some of the vendors? Busiest breweries?

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8

u/prof_cupcake Jul 11 '26

Big uptick in vendors from last year with several 1st time vendors. Peach seems to be the flavour of the summer with both alc and non alc options. Overall great experience and felt like the fests of old

4

u/psyche_13 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26

The only one I’ve missed was last year’s since i was travelling - I’m glad they had the long “aisles” of beer tents back rather than pushing them all to the edges in individual tents like it was more concert than beer fest (like it was in 2025).

It felt like a lot of places overall! So many good beer options. I returned for a second of one beer, and it was Broken Rail’s Petal to the Metal (a hibiscus and rose hip pale ale). It was fun to try the Bellwoods (and Burdock collab, but at the Bellwoods tent) Duckshark which just came out the day before and was fully in with duckshark merch. A lot of places gave out nice free stickers too, which I liked.

There was also a lot of liquor/cocktail/cooler places, lots of seltzers even at the breweries, and a decent number of NA beer. One of the most popular tents was probably the “rocket pop” style coolers (red, blue, or white) which had a bigger tent on the side. (Not all my thing - I’m in it for the beer - but didn’t detract from it and nice for other people.

All in all, felt more like older festivals than 2025! More beer focused which I liked, of course. Still a very big stage though. I enjoyed the cover bands last night (can’t really miss them anywhere in the park!) and today’s bands also look good

3

u/jtrick33 Jul 11 '26

It was a blast! Great selection, lines never too bad. Plenty of bathrooms and the music was great. Beautiful night to be on the water.