Bend Brewfest won't be happening in 2023. The Old Mill announced this week that it would put on hold its annual beer festival – the second-largest event of its kind in the Pacific Northwest – due to construction at the location of the event. Crews have been doing upgrades and expansion of the Hayden Homes Amphitheater over the last several years, with a third round of updates happening over the winter and spring of 2023. Because of that construction, Brewfest is just too hard to pull off, said Brewfest marketing director Beau Eastes.
"We loved the turnout last year and are so thankful we could all get back together again," Eastes stated in a press release. "But to be able to put on the kind of brew festival guests want, we need to wait until it can return to the amphitheater."
Last year's event happened in May, featuring 65 breweries and cideries that poured around 100 different beers and ciders. More than 10,000 people attended the event – the return of the annual event after the pandemic shut it down in 2020 and 2021. But in 2022, the event happened with a different format, with brewers pouring beer samples throughout the Old Mill District rather than inside the amphitheater.
Bend Brewfest's 2023 cancellation comes on the heels of an announcement by the Oregon Brewers Festival that it would not be putting on an event this year, citing costs, low attendance and extreme weather as reasons for the closure, Willamette Week reported.
Bend Brewfest is not calling this year's announcement a "cancellation," but rather, a "postponement" of an annual event that was founded in 2002. Since then, it's been widely recognized in the beer world as a place for beer lovers to sample hard-to-find brews on the festivals "X-taps."
"The Bend Brewfest will return to its original home, the Hayden Homes Amphitheater, upon completion of all phases of construction at the venue," read an announcement on the Bend Brewfest website.
