This Year’s Biggest Craft Beer Festival Is Happening in Angeles City This December

The 1^st Annual Angeles City Craft Beer Festival will bring 17 microbreweries and over 100 craft beers to Marquee Mall’s outdoor Marquee Park in Angeles City, Pampanga from December 2 to 4, 2016. It’s the first festival of its kind in Central and Northern Luzon.

Ted Lerner, the American pool announcer and author who organized the festival, says that in his 21 years of living in the Philippines he was often frustrated by the lack of choice in beer. “In the States and Europe, craft beer is everywhere and it’s delicious and way better than the mass-market beers.”

About a year ago he visited the Pinatubo Craft Beer brewery run by two Germans in Angeles City. “These two guys were brewing real German beer, made to exacting German Purity Law [a set of German beer-making rules established 500 years ago and still followed to this day], right near my house,” he says. He soon became a regular there, and he started learning more about the country’s small but growing craft beer industry. “What I discovered was, however, was that craft beer was very much a Manila-centric trend, geared toward mostly the very high-end crowd.”

He decided to organize an event that would bring the best local microbreweries to one place and introduce craft beer to a wider audience. One of the reasons he chose Angeles City was because of its thriving nightlife scene. “The city doesn’t have natural tourist attractions like beaches or mountains. But it does have a party culture. Plus, it’s a great place for foodies with a thriving restaurant and food scene. Craft beer seemed like a natural. Also, people in Angeles and Central Luzon love to try new things.”

Lerner says that he’s on a mission to upgrade people’s ideas of what beer can be. It’s a sentiment many local craft brewers have also expressed—they want to change the idea that all beer has to be bland, mass-produced, and served with ice. “I can honestly say that my social scene has taken a serious upward leap since I discovered Pinatubo and other craft beers. The taste is better, the buzz is better, there’s no noticeable hangovers, and it makes people happy,” he says. “Craft beer actually makes for better living. We want to help build the craft beer market so more and more people will get into brewing beer and more people will start to enjoy craft beer.”

Five Things You Should Know About the 1^st Annual Angeles City Craft Beer Festival

(Dec. 2-4, 2016 at the Marquee Mall’s Marquee Park in Angeles City, Pampanga)

How to buy tickets: Tickets are available online at P250 per day (includes one craft beer). Two-day passes are P350 (includes one craft beer) and the three-day season pass is P500 (includes one craft beer). Purchase tickets before November 15 for special early bird rates (P200 for one-day pass; P250 for two-day pass; P400 for three-day pass).

What’s pouring? Seventeen Philippines-based microbreweries will be selling over 100 different craft beers at the festival. Some big names include the Crazy Carabao Brewing Company, Joe’s Brew, the Laughing Carabao Brewery, and Nipa Brew, with more to be announced. Imported brands courtesy of The Bottle Shop include American craft beers Gorden Biersch, Anderson Valley, Stone and Rogue, Hitachino Nest from Japan, and Fuller’s from the UK. There will also be several imported brands that are not craft beers—such as Magners Irish Cider, Heverlee Belgian Wheat Beer, and Tennents Scottish Lager—available on tap.

There will be beer-making seminars and craft beer appreciation classes. Tim O’Rourke from the United Kingdom—a Master Brewer with over 35 years’ experience who currently runs the Brilliant Beer Company, a consultancy that provides technical support and training for breweries—will speak about how to taste and understand craft beer and craft beer’s increasing popularity and where it’s heading in the future. Also giving talks are Michael Schittek, the brewmaster of Pinatubo Craft Brewery, the first micro-brewery in Angeles City, and Michael Nikkel, the brewmaster from Turning Wheels Craft Brewery in Cebu City.

A portion of the proceeds from the festival will go to the Tuloy Foundation, a charity that houses poor and abandoned children and helps them develop skills to reintegrate into society.

The festival is “cashless”—NFC technology by festival partner Pouch Nation will make payments faster for guests and vendors and cut your time spent waiting in line. At the entrance guests will be issued a card to load with money at a nearby loading station. The cards will be used to buy food and drinks at the booths.

The 1^st Annual Angeles City Craft Beer Festival is endorsed by the Philippine Department of Tourism and the Angeles City Tourism Office. It is sponsored by CPI Call Shop & Business Café, Harrier Magazine, DrinkManila.com, Cool Breeze Hotel, Royce Hotel and Casino, Hotel Euro Asia, WheninManila.com, Harry the Horse, WhereinPampanga.com, Sunstar Pampanga, Philippine Ink Master, Systems Plus Foundation, and is powered by Pouch Nation.

For tickets and more information visit the Annual Angeles City Craft Beer Festival website.