08/15/2019
Friends, after a lot of discussion and reflection, we have decided that the 2019 KC Nanobrew Festival will be our last. This was the 10th consecutive year we hosted an event to bring together amazing local homebrew talent and craft breweries. It's hard to believe that we reached that milestone. We could have never done it without your support.
Hosting the festival has been a labor of love by five friends, who shared a love of craft brew and home brewing. Over the years, as the festival grew in size, it got to the point where we're spending more time on the organizing and logistics tasks, than our hobby of craft brewing. We all decided that we needed to take some time off and get back to the basics. Get back to brewing and making great brews. Make some trips to local breweries that have opened over the years. Host some small brewer meetups.
When we started out, our mission was to give local homebrewers a chance to serve their brews to the public. We also wanted to increase awareness of the great hobby of homebrewing, how easy it is to get started and make quality brews. We also wanted to give our local community a chance to experience craft brewing and the extreme diversity of brew styles, at the most "nano" level possible.
Over the years, we've grown from a backyard celebration of brewing hobbyists into a marquee event that brings together home brewers from the local KC metro area as well as across state lines. We've made many friends. We've heard from local craft breweries that we served as a platform to gain the confidence they needed to "make the leap" into moving from hobby to business.
Every year, the festival continued to grow, until we reached capacity at Berkley Riverfront Park with around 2000 guests! Every year had it's own "personality" and it was fun to watch the festival evolve.
2010: small backyard Brookside party
2011: probably a little too big for the backyard, serving out of the "piano tap"
2012: Original Juan. First year of public event. Who tried the hot sauce?
2013: Big Rip. Brews & BBQ. Crane dominated the brewing competition.
2014: Liberty. Hold down the tents! Wait for it to blow over! (RIP Rock & Run)
2015: West Bottoms, Stockyards. First year with Food Trucks, last year on asphalt.
2016: Berkley Riverfront Park. Can we sell 1500 tickets? I guess so!
2017: BRP. Beautiful June day. 2000 people shared brews together.
2018: BRP. Sooo hottttt. At least the bathroom lines were short!
2019: BRP. A little rain never stops a good time. Unforgettable day. Beer and mudslides!
We know this is probably a sad message to hear, as the festival is something that many people have looked forward to on an annual basis. But as with all change, there comes the opportunity for something else to emerge and for other ways of embracing our local craft brewing culture.
Cheers to all and thanks again for your support and please continue to support our local craft brewers!
