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NH Craft Beer Week Returns, Along With New Indie Film Fest
Written By Angie Sykeny (asykeny@hippopress.com)
Images: Stock Photo
From a beer and chocolate pairing to bend-and-brew yoga sessions, there will be all kinds of things for craft beer enthusiasts to do and see during the third annual New Hampshire Craft Beer Week, happening Friday, March 31, through Saturday, April 8 — plus a new indie film festival created specifically to coincide with the nine-day brew celebration.
Craft Beer Week highlights New Hampshire’s craft beer industry and culture with more than 70 events statewide, including tastings, brew nights and tap takeovers at bars and restaurants, beer dinners and food pairings, brewery tours and demonstrations, workshops, discussions with brewers and more. There will also be a few breweries having special beer releases and anniversary parties, and New Hampshire’s newest brewery, Aigean Ales in Manchester, will celebrate the grand opening of its tasting room.
“New Hampshire is in between two of the larger-known states for beer, which are Vermont and Maine, and we often get bypassed,” said Renee Vannata of Brew NH, which is presenting NHCBW in partnership with the Granite State Brewers Association. “We’re trying to showcase the beer we have here with different events and hopefully encourage more people to stop in New Hampshire.”
The events have a variety of hosts, including craft breweries, restaurants and bars, home brewers, distributors, taprooms and bottle shops. Participating establishments are widespread across the state, making it easy for beer lovers in any New Hampshire region to take part in NHCBW.
“We try to have at least one event in every area so people don’t have to travel far and can still participate in some way and celebrate New Hampshire craft beer,” Vannata said.
While breweries are the focus, many brewers will be collaborating on events with chefs and restaurants, bottle shops and other beer-related businesses so that every sector of the industry is represented.
CJ White of the Granite State Brewers Association said unity within the state’s craft beer scene is part of what makes it unique.
“The majority of the businesses have a similar [goal]. They all tend to be focused on the local community and doing their part in the community,” she said. “That isn’t always true in other places and with the large corporate names in the beer industry.”
Vannata’s tips for making the most of NHCBW are to try something new each night of the week, and to engage with the craft beer community via social media by sharing photos of your beer adventures with the hashtag #NHCBW2017.
If you’re looking to plan your own tour of New Hampshire breweries and beer destinations, White suggests utilizing the New Hampshire Beer Map available at nhbeer.org/beer-map.
Indie Film Meets Indie Beer
This year’s New Hampshire Craft Beer Week will be accompanied by a new event celebrating independent film and local craft beer. The Derry Regional Ales & Films Together Festival — DRAFT Fest — will run concurrently with NHCBW from Sunday, April 2, through Saturday, April 8, with events in Derry and Londonderry.
“Derry and Londonderry have a lot of craft breweries, and a lot of great films are made in New Hampshire, so we wanted to tie those two things together with a unique event,” said
Jay Doherty, executive director of SNOB Film Festival, which is presenting DRAFT Fest in partnership with NHCBW and local businesses.
Around 30 films will be shown, more than half of which were locally produced. They range from full-length features to shorts and span a variety of genres including comedy, drama, horror and documentary. The diversity of the films, Doherty said, is meant to mirror the diversity of local beer.
Each film will be paired with or include a voucher for a local craft beer to drink during the screening. The pairings were constructed by a film/beer selection team and the head brewer at each brewery.
“A film that’s happy and light-hearted like a comedy might be paired with [a beer] that’s hoppy and light and has citrus flavors, whereas a drama that’s darker and more intense might be paired with a richer beer like a stout,” Doherty said. “It’s just like how you’d pair a fine wine with a meal, except we’re doing it with beer and film.”
Monday through Wednesday, three breweries will each screen a block of six film shorts, paired with a flight of six beers. On Thursday, there will be four beer-paired shorts at a brewery and two shorts at a meadery, paired with meads and followed by a time to learn about mead and sample additional varieties.
As part of their pairing flights, each participating brewery will also introduce one special beer, which could be a new one-off, a flagship with a recipe twist, a rarity or something they haven’t brewed in a long time.
Since the brewery events are intended to be more intimate gatherings, space is limited to a crowd of 30 to 50 people; buying tickets as early as possible is advised.
Doherty said that watching an indie film next to big fermenting tanks in a brewery atmosphere is sure to be “an interesting experience,” and that, in many ways, indie film and craft beer are a good match.
“I think the two cultures are very like-minded and mix together well,” he said. “The independent spirit of a brewer crafting a unique beer is a similar characteristic of a filmmaker who is crafting a film that’s unique and different.”