Flour City Brewers Fest Returns, Takes a New Form

Flour City Brewers Fest, hosted by Rohrbach Brewing Co. at various locales around the city over the years, has been a Rochester staple for over 25 summers. The festival has grown in size just as the industry has grown in our area. With breweries invited from all over the state, 2019 was the festival’s biggest yet with over 75 New York State breweries. Then, we all know what happened.

Determined to provide the community with a safe and enjoyable Flour City beer experience in 2021, the event will take on a new form–not a beer festival, but a beer tour. The event will still take place at the Rochester Public Market, as it has for years, on Friday, August 20, 2021.

“Flour City Brewers Fest found its home at the public market. There isn’t a more perfect venue in the state. Not only is it a symbol of community for our city, but it’s logistically built for a vendor-style event. We can’t imagine having it anywhere else” – John Urlaub, Founder/Owner of Rohrbach Brewing Co. 

Instead of a free-flowing festival of thousands of people, the event will take place in two sessions — Friday afternoon and Friday evening — and hold just 300 people each. Attendees will purchase tickets for a specific group and remain with that group through the entirety of the event. Groups will move from station to station throughout the public market, where they’ll enjoy local breweries thoughtfully paired up with great local food vendors. 

While attendees may not get to try quite as many beers, this event will offer a more intimate connection with the great people of our craft beer and hospitality industry. The beers will be great, the food pairings will be out-of-this-world, and the stories in between will be even better. 

This new format will allow us to be slightly more dynamic as guidelines change. People may not realize the months of advanced planning that goes into hosting such a large event. Even if things were to completely tomorrow, not only would it be logistically impossible to pull off, we also wouldn’t feel right doing it. We’re excited to offer a more controlled, but still unique and fun experience for people who are really missing this social connection in the craft beer community.” – Brittany Statt, Marketing Director

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