Last weekend, we hosted our very first international beer festival in Madrid, Spain and, now that the dust has settled, we thought we’d share a recap!
When we started planning the Madrid Beer & Music Fest months ago, the first step was securing a location. We chose Madrid because 1) our Spanish brewery partners (and friends), Mahou San Miguel, are based there and 2) we still have a lot of room to grow in Spain. Having the Mahou team on the ground helped immensely with logistics and, before we knew it, a location was secure (the Conde Duque Courtyard) and the pieces started falling into place.
Our goal from the beginning was to have an event made for new and experienced craft drinkers. It’s still a relatively new industry in Madrid so we treated the festival as an opportunity to introduce not only our beer to a Spanish audience, but some of our favorite international breweries as well. We brought in big and small breweries alike: from Deschutes to Ballast Point, to Proof to Dark Horse to Basqueland.
We also brought in our Founders employee-run band, The FBC All-Stars, to perform at the festival. It was their first-time playing overseas and they brought the house down!
Here are some more fun facts:
- 5,000 in attendance over the two-day fest
- 50 breweries participated from 11 countries (USA, Canada, Taiwan, Spain, Portugal, UK, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Russia)
- Over 250 kegs depleted of 200 different beers
- Green Zebra and All Day were top two kegs depleted by Founders.
- Fastest keg depleted was Dark Lord by 3 Floyds (~15 minutes)
- “Buzz-worthy” up-and-coming breweries included Proof, Aslin, Triple Crossing, Lervig, Basqueland Brewing (all were amazing, but a couple that seemed to generate buzz)
- Styles that seemed most popular were IPAs (especially hazy) and goses/sours with bright and vibrant color (Proof, Jopen, Collective Arts, etc.)
Check out some photos from the event below:
