It wouldn’t be summer in Richmond without festivals, and it wouldn’t be a festival without craft beer and music, right? So if you like that combination, the second annual JamPacked Craft Beer and Music Festival on Aug. 12 should be a no brainer -- especially if you like your jam band music funky.
“It's really a mash up of live music and artisanal crafted beverages,” says organizer David Hayeslette. “So, craft beer, cider and kombucha.”
More than 30 breweries will be on tap for the Saturday event, which includes local stalwarts Ardent, Hardywood, Stone, Triple Crossing, and The Veil. But the list of available brews stretches even further, with choices from Aslin Brewing (Alexandria, Va), Benchtop Brewing (Norfolk, Va), and Solace Brewing (Dulles, Va), plus six other breweries and cider makers from across the state.
“On a more national level, we're actually bringing in some breweries that don't typically distribute beer in the Richmond market,” says Hayeslette. “So Live Oak Brewing from Austin, Texas as an example, Drekker Brewing from Fargo, North Dakota. It's a really diverse mix.”
Other breweries of note also include Green Man Brewing (Asheville, NC), and Terrapin Brewing (Athens, GA). Add several others coming from Florida, Colorado and Texas to that list, too. Beverage tickets will cost $8 this year, says Hayeslette. Last year more than 4,000 people grooved to the music and consumed over 14,000 cans of beer.
The Terrapin Brewing addition should go hand-in-hand with the musical lineup—since, you know, it seems to have that Grateful Dead/jam band vibe going. “In that genre, [the music is] probably leaning more toward like the funk side of jam,” he says. On the bill are Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, Circles Around the Sun, Eggy; Dogs in a Pile and Yam Yam.
Hayeslette notes that, besides the good beer and music, the goal of the event is to be as sustainable as possible. “By making sure that we're generating as little landfill waste as possible,” he says. “We are making conscious choices.”
He says instead of serving draught beer into plastic cups, like you see at many festivals, they’ll be serving the beer in aluminum cans and having all the food vendors not use Styrofoam containers or plastic water bottles. “We capture the cans on the island,” he says. “We're having our food vendors use paper-based. food containers, and canned water.”
Even the tickets and the lanyards will also be paper-based.
“Again, the goal being that we sort of demonstrate that you can do a spectacular live music event, coupled with a really great offering of 30 plus craft beverage companies and do it in a very responsible way,” Hayeslette says. “We think that's a model that can be replicated for other festivals.”
On the food side, Goatacado, Auntie Ning’s and 1115 Mobile Kitchen are among several choices.
The JamPacked Craft Beer and Music Festival takes place at Brown’s Island on Saturday, Aug. 12. General admission tickets are $35. Beer tickets will be $8. Doors open at 2:30 p.m. and show starts at 3:30 p.m.
Entrance to Brown's Island is through the 5th Street entrance only. No dogs allowed, no re-entry allowed and refillable water bottles are allowed but must be empty—there are water filling stations.
