Barcelona Beer Festival 2020 - A quick guide
After close to a whole year of work, we are in the final stretch to start the Ninth Edition of the Barcelona Beer Festival. Below I set out to summarise those key points to take into account to enjoy the Festival in its fullness, whether this is the first or the ninth time you join this great celebration of beer as a drink and cultural element.
- Venue: La Farga de l'Hospitalet -map-.
- Dates: March 13, 14 and 15, 2019.
- Timetables: Friday 11am - 11pm. Saturday 11am - 11pm. Sunday 11am - 9pm.
- Edición: Ninth.
- Attendees: 35.000 -in 2019-.
- Purpose: a Beer Festival for tasting, for the disseminatation and knowledge of the beer culture, and for the industry professionals to meet and share.
- Organised by: Beer Events, S.L.
How does it work?
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| Original picture: Jordi Bertran Hermosilla. |
Tickets for the Festival can be obtained at the door or through the website. Unless you have professional accreditation, you have three different options:
At the BBF we use tokens to pay for the drinks and food: 1 token = 1 euro. The price is variable in the food, moving between 2 and 4 chips in the case of beer. If you have the special tasting glass, you can ask for reduced pours of 10cl. for just 1 token. Beer is only served in the official glass or the special tasting glass of the Festival.
To know which beers are available at any time, you can check the blackboard behind the large bar -main bar- or the official app, available both for Android and iOS. Each time a keg is emptied, the next one is tapped. When a beer is replaced, the blackboard staff eliminates the old reference, and chimes our characteristic bell.
- 1 day ticket (€ 7): includes access for 1 day, the official glass of the BBF, the Craft Beer Map and 2 tokens.
- 3-day pass (€ 10): includes access for the whole weekend, the official glass of the BBF, the Craft Beer Map and 2 tokens.
- BBF-Experience (€ 50): includes access for the whole weekend, special tasting glass -small tasting option-, limited edition BBF 2020 T-shirt and tote bag, the Craft Beer Map and 20 tokens.
At the BBF we use tokens to pay for the drinks and food: 1 token = 1 euro. The price is variable in the food, moving between 2 and 4 chips in the case of beer. If you have the special tasting glass, you can ask for reduced pours of 10cl. for just 1 token. Beer is only served in the official glass or the special tasting glass of the Festival.
To know which beers are available at any time, you can check the blackboard behind the large bar -main bar- or the official app, available both for Android and iOS. Each time a keg is emptied, the next one is tapped. When a beer is replaced, the blackboard staff eliminates the old reference, and chimes our characteristic bell.
Beer and food
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| Original picture: Jordi Bertran Hermosilla. |
In this eighth edition, we have a variety of up to 672 different beers, from 314 breweries, which rotate through the 159 taps available, distributed between the main bar -50 taps- and the different fixed stands, collaborative stands with befriended festivals or guilds, and fixed taps of different brands. The beers available at any time can be checked on our blackboard, as well as in the official BBF application.
To facilitate the election, we use a special BBF categorisation to divide all Festival beers into seven families: Acid, Barrel Aged, European Classics, Dark Side, Hop Head, Lots of Malt and Miscellaneous. You can learn more about this initiative and the characteristics of the beers of each family in the explainatory videos that were created for this purpose.
If you still need help when choosing among so many beers, the Beer Informers are at your disposal to guide you. You can identify them by their colourful yellow vest. In addition, if you feel like it, you can sign up for the BBF Discovery, an activity consisting of a tour around the Festival that includes the guided tasting of 3 beers with a Beer Informer accredited as beer judge.
In terms of food, we have local businesses that offer high quality products that pair very well with beer: from Asian food to burgers, as well as tapas, Latino, Indian or local dishes. And since a good beer festival would not be the same without coffee, we also have a stand to enjoy high quality coffee.
Note that we offer gluten free and non-alcoholic beers. The allergens associated with food and beer are indicated in the descriptions in the application of the Festival.
To facilitate the election, we use a special BBF categorisation to divide all Festival beers into seven families: Acid, Barrel Aged, European Classics, Dark Side, Hop Head, Lots of Malt and Miscellaneous. You can learn more about this initiative and the characteristics of the beers of each family in the explainatory videos that were created for this purpose.
If you still need help when choosing among so many beers, the Beer Informers are at your disposal to guide you. You can identify them by their colourful yellow vest. In addition, if you feel like it, you can sign up for the BBF Discovery, an activity consisting of a tour around the Festival that includes the guided tasting of 3 beers with a Beer Informer accredited as beer judge.
In terms of food, we have local businesses that offer high quality products that pair very well with beer: from Asian food to burgers, as well as tapas, Latino, Indian or local dishes. And since a good beer festival would not be the same without coffee, we also have a stand to enjoy high quality coffee.
Note that we offer gluten free and non-alcoholic beers. The allergens associated with food and beer are indicated in the descriptions in the application of the Festival.
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| Original picture: Óscar Sánchez de la Torre. |
The dissemination of beer culture is one of the purposes of the Barcelona Beer Festival. That is why a wide range of beer-related activities, open to all audiences, are planned every year to complement the long list of beers on offer.
Lectures and tastings
- Brewdog OverWorks: Wild & Sour tasting, with Jonny Reid, commercial director at Brewdog OverWorks.
- Maridatge d'embotit de muntanya i cervesa, with Josep Dolçet -Fundació Oficis de la Carn- and Ariel Caballero -BJCP judge-. Budejovický Budvar: Czech classics, with Jiří Pekhart, brewer at Budejovický Budvar.
- BioLupulus: presentació de nous llúpols, with Albert Vilaplana from BioLupulus.
- Escape Room: "Escape de la Abadía", with the master brewers from La Fábrica.
- Mastering the BJCP Exam, with Omer Basha, Master BJCP judge.
- Oud Beersel: a bag-in-box tasting, with Gert Christiaens, founder and blender at Oud Beersel.
- Presentación del cómic "Cervezas", with Mauro Entrialgo -illustrator- Bar & Beer and Astiberri Ediciones.
- El Racó d'en Cesc, with Edgar Rodríguez -beer sommelier- and Toni Romero -chef- from the restaurant.
- Simposi: Independent, Craft, Artesana?, with Aran Leon -GECAN-, Javier Donate -AECAI-, Maria Vicente -Pink Boots Society- and Mikel Rius -BBF-.
- Extreme tasting with Les Trois Mousquetaires, with LTM's director Christian Marcil.
- Live-Tasting: Portugal!, with brewers from Musa, Dois Corvos, Letra and Nortada.
- Cascade Brewing: Wild American Beers & tasting, with Mike Mathis, brewer at Cascade.
- Mexican Beer Scene, with Alberto Herrera and Mario Caballero -Festival de la Cerveza de Monterrey- and Mario Medina -BJCP judge-.
Our Meet the Brewer, on the other hand, gives the opportunity to meet the people behind the beers that are poured from the taps. In 3-hour time slots, the people in charge of 7 reputed breweries 'occupy' several taps of our classic bar to offer their products, while being able to chat with the attendees. This year we have the award-winning breweries at the Barcelona Beer Challenge 2019, Península -Madrid- and La Pirata -Catalunya- as well as reputed international brands such as Ayinger -Bavaria-, Cascade Brewing -Oregon-, Brew Division -Russia- Oud Beersel -Flanders- y Soma -Catalunya-.
To check the details of each activity, the schedules and the availability of tickets, you can follow the links below.
BBF-Vibes
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| Original picture: Óscar Sánchez de la Torre. |
There is life beyond beer, and under the BBF-Vibes concept this year we planned all kinds of parallel activities, which through their different expressions and their cultural aspect have a certain link with the Festival and its beer focus. Thus, the different initiatives of the Vibes include:
- Craft Beer Sketch: permanent exhibition and live sessions of beer illustration by Dimitry Ignatyev, known for his profile Craft Beer Sketch in social networks.
- Cornhole: the trendy sport among American breweries. Two teams compete to get the maximum number of cereal bags in the hole of a wood platform. In addition, the breweries will compete in the second edition of the 'CornHole BBF-Cup by PolyKeg'.
- Homebrewing: a corner to discover homebrewing live, with Family Beer.
- Children's area: area supervised by a team of educators, so that the little ones can enjoy themselves in a safe and fun environment.
- PizarraCall: our iconic blackboard at a small scale so that everybody can take souvenir photos.
- The Cellar: an exclusive bar for accredited professionals and BBF-Experience in which very exclusive beer bottles are served in small tastings.
- Music and shows: Atomic Leopards, Say it Loud!, Bzomb, Ke Desastre & Juane.T.Clown, Barna'n'Roll - Deadyard.
For more details about the different initiatives included in the BBF-Vibes, you can check the following link.
Professionals
More than 1,500 accredited professionals will be present in this ninth edition of the Barcelona Beer Festival. Under the scope of BBF-Pro we offer a full range of services for professionals who visit us, with the objective of facilitating the exchange, business and relationships between companies in the beer industry.
Among other offerings, professionals with a BBF-Pro accreditation have a meeting point, an exhibition area, a special guide for professionals, an information dossier, a programme of professional conferences, BBF Pro Point as an exclusive space for meetings and a digital tool to ease dating and networking.
Related with professionals, one of the highlights as in previous editions is the awards ceremony of the V Barcelona Beer Challenge, on Sunday at 1pm. We will also award the II Premi Steve Huxley, as a recognition to a remarkable career in the brewing industry.
Among other offerings, professionals with a BBF-Pro accreditation have a meeting point, an exhibition area, a special guide for professionals, an information dossier, a programme of professional conferences, BBF Pro Point as an exclusive space for meetings and a digital tool to ease dating and networking.
Related with professionals, one of the highlights as in previous editions is the awards ceremony of the V Barcelona Beer Challenge, on Sunday at 1pm. We will also award the II Premi Steve Huxley, as a recognition to a remarkable career in the brewing industry.
BBF-Off
The city of Barcelona has been welcoming the celebration of the BBF for years, and the beer businesses offer all kinds of events during the BBF week for everyone to enjoy. If you want to get on your marks for the Fest, in the following link you can find some of these parallel events. Through the social profiles of the different bars and shops in the city they will surely announce more.
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And this is as far as this quick guide went. I hope you find it useful to see this BBF 2020 from a bird's-eye view, remembering that this information can be complemented with each of the website links provided.
I hope to say hi to you all from Friday, March 13. I'll see you there!
Salut i birra!
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