Gus Clark, owner of Fine Wine and Beer by Gus, and Lisa Beck, owner of the Event Center Downtown, are excited to bring the first beer festival to the area.

The two discussed the idea before Beck opened the event center in downtown Opelika.

“There’s no brew festival around this area,” Beck said. “They have brew fests in large cities like Birmingham or Atlanta, but I have not been familiar with anything like that here. So, Gus and I started talking about possibly having a brewfest and, of course, barbecue fits well with beer.”

The Event Center Downtown has now been open for a few months and the BBQ & Brewfest is set for this Saturday.

The event will offer guests more than 30 beers to sample and will also offer live music and barbecue from the Barbecue House in Auburn.

The live music will feature Atlanta bluegrass band Cedar Hill, eight-piece all-female acapella group Cheaper Than Therapy, seven-piece show band Glow, Athens bluegrass band Packway Handle, and local funk band The Good Doctor.

“We’re going to have some very diverse music,” Beck said.

And the beer will be as diverse as the music. Great Divide Brewing out of Denver, Colo.; Unibroue out of Canada; Choc, a microbrewery that’s more than 100 years old; Thomas Creek out of South Carolina; and Back Forty Beer Co. out of Birmingham are just some of the breweries offering tastings of their beer. Beers that range from high gravity to pale ales will all be available.

“We’re trying to have beers from one end of the spectrum to the other,” Clark said.

The BBQ & Brewfest will take place this Saturday, Aug. 28, at 4 p.m. when the first band takes the stage. The barbecue and beer tasting will be available from 6 to 9 p.m. The music will last until 1 a.m.

Tickets are $25 and will be available in advance and at the door.

Beck and Clark are both excited about the event and plan to make BBQ & Brewfest an annual event.

“Our area, for the first time in history, has been able to carry these new beers,” Clark said. “How exciting that is! In order for people to have a venue to be able to taste these, we had to do something like this.”

Win tickets to this event beginning at 5 p.m. Wednesday here!