International Beer Fest makes comeback to the Crescent city

By: Todd A. Price, NOLA.com | Times-Picayune
January 12, 2013

The New Orleans International Beer Festival, after two years in Mandeville, moved to Champions Square near the Superdome. When it was over, Jay Wilson, whose Birmingham-based Red Mountain Entertainment produces the event with Mandeville's Blue Deuce Entertainment, put one thing at the top of his agenda: call Hogs for the Cause and make sure the 2013 beer tasting wouldn't again be the same day as the charity barbecue cook off.

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This year, the New Orleans International Beer Festival will be Saturday, March 9. And this year, it won't conflict with Hogs for the Cause, the Zapp's International Beer Festival in Baton Rouge or--Wilson hopes--any other event that draws the beer drinking crowd.

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Like last year, the festival will feature 175 different craft beers along with seminars on cooking and pairing beer. One area will be devoted to cask ales. A special VIP section will have harder to find beers. And Wilson plans to add this year a "cider garden"

"A beer fest is a beer fest," Wilson said. "We try not to make it too complicated. We like the beer to speak for itself. But we're really challenging the distributors to go to their suppliers and get them to ship in some special stuff."

Tickets for the festival went on sale Friday at www.neworleansinternationalbeerfest.com. General admission tickets are $40 and VIP tickets are $75. Discounted admission is available for designated drivers.

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