Jungle of beers — more than 350 — available to taste at annual fest

How to go

What: Beer Fest

When: 7 to 10 p.m. June 17

Where: Jungle Jim’s, Oscar Event Center, 5440 Dixie Highway, Fairfield

Cost: $40 drinker, $15 non-drinker. Ticket prices include admission to get in, beer samples, a beer tasting glass and picnic style food. Water, soda and food are available for non-drinkers.

FAIRFIELD — Going to this year’s Beer Fest at Jungle Jim’s might be a bit like playing detective.

The sixth annual event, scheduled for June 17, will feature about double the number of vendors as in previous years, with some 70 vendors serving up more than 350 different kinds of beers, said Jimmy Bonaminio, the creative director of Jungle Jim’s.

However, this year’s Beer Fest will feature a number of exotic, hard-to-find brands, said Ed Vinson, the beer and wine operations manager at Jungle Jim’s.

He cited as examples Oracle from Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazoo, Rich., Kentucky Breakfast Stout from Founders Brewing Company in Grand Rapids, Mich., Big John beer from Goose Island Beer Company from Chicago, Ill., Ovila Abbey Dubbel from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, actually in Chico, Calif., among many others.

“These are very scarce and hard to find,” Vinson said. “Kentucky Breakfast Stout goes for about $22 a four-pack — if you could get it.”

But Beer Fest can get it because “We go with the attitude that the quality of what you taste is important,” Vinson said.

Last year’s Beer Fest drew “well over 1,000 people.” Vinson said, and he expects this year’s event to sell out, as it did in 2010. A ticket to this year’s event costs $40 and can be purchased at junglejims.com or by calling (513) 674-6000. There is also a non-drinker ticket that costs $15. Water, pop and food are available for non-drinkers.

If this year’s event does, in fact, sell out, next year’s Beer Fest will offer another opportunity, because the event will expand to two days.

“We have to go to two days because there’s only so many people we can put in there,” Vinson said.

C

ontact this reporter at (513)

705-2836 or erobinette

@

coxohio.com.