Shore Craft Beer Festival coming this fall, with changes

OCEAN CITY, Md. – Organizers for the Shore Craft Beer Festival in Ocean City are getting ready for this year’s event. But it’s going to be different than in years past.

Typically, people can walk around to vendors and mingle with others at the event. But this year, they have to buy a table, and beer will be distributed to the tables every half hour. People have to stay seated. If they want to order food from the food truck on site, they must do so in advance. “They’ll actually get a more intimate experience with the brewers. But people cannot stand up and drink beer, which is what everybody does typically. So they have to be seated when they’re going to drink, and we also have a food truck. We only have on food truck – The Street Kitchen,” said CEO of Shore Craft Beer Ann McGinnis Hillyer.

Organizers say that despite the changes, it was important to keep the event going and support local breweries. “We really want to be known as a craft beer destination and the breweries are struggling. Just prior to the PPP loan coming out, 56% of breweries said they were going to close if this COVID thing lasted three months. It’s super important to us to keep those businesses top of mind,” said McGinnis Hillyer.

McGinnis Hillyer says that people will have to check in when they arrive and have their temperatures checked. Also, they’ll be served canned or bottled beer to cut down on the handling of glasses. McGinnis Hillyer says that if COVID forces them to shut the event down – it is completely refundable.