SAVOR returns to Washington, D.C.

After a one-year sabbatical in New York City, SAVOR, the two-day beer festival touted as "the benchmark event in craft beer and food pairing", returns to its Washington, D.C. home, at the National Building Museum, on May 9 and 10, 2014.

The festival's organizer, the Brewers Association (BA) —an advocacy and lobbying group for breweries producing fewer than 6 million barrels of beer per year— conducts a lottery to determine which member breweries are invited to serve their beers. I'm not privy to how it's conducted, but I can only assume that it's done non-nefariously, double-blind. According to the BA, one-third (76) of the 224 that applied this year received slots, representing 29 states. Some breweries are present every year: the BA also gives automatic slots to breweries that drop a significant "supporting sponsor" or partnership fee.

Ten breweries from the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia (home-base for YFGF) are participating.

• Washington, D.C.
  • Atlas Brew Works
  • Bluejacket
• Maryland
  • Evolution Craft (Salisbury)
  • Flying Dog (Frederick)
  • Heavy Seas (Baltimore)
• Virginia
  • Devils Backbone (Roseland)
  • Hardywood Park Craft (Richmond)
  • Lickinghole Creek Craft (Goochland)
  • Port City (Alexandria)
  • Strangeways (Richmond)
• The full list of all participating breweries: here.

Tickets go on sale 26 March (25 March for members of the BA). They aren't cheap. $135 for the "Grand Tasting", and $155 for an even 'grander' session that includes speakers and demonstrations, which the BA, highfalutin, calls "salons". Nevertheless, the tickets sell out quickly. Disposable income and enthusiasm for 'craft' beer run rampant in the Washington, D.C. area.

SAVOR is 7 years old this year, but, despite its aspirations to be a beer and 'foodie' event, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who has gone for the food. They go for the beer. It's the Great American Beer Festival 'lite.'

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• Great Raft Brewing, a production brewery that has only just opened in Shreveport, Louisiana, could be considered an honorary DMV brewery. The principals of the start-up are Lindsay and Andrew Nations. Mr. Nations was a long-time editor of DC Beer, a primary web-based source of news of beer in the greater Washington D.C. area. He is still listed as editor emeritus. Lindsay and he will be pouring their beers at SAVOR.
• I participated in the very first SAVOR, in 2008. Report: here.