On Saturday, February 2nd, we joined beer lovers from Florida and around the Nation to drink and be merry at the 4th Annual WakeFest Invitational along with our host, Dwayne.
What we discovered to be distinctive about J. Wakefield’s WakeFest Invitational is that only “independent” breweries are invited to participate and show off their best and most creative brews. That means all these amazing “mom and pop” participants must be considered independent by the Brewers Association.
In brief, these breweries must produce no more than six million barrels annually, must specialize in beer, and must be no more than 25 percent owned or controlled by an alcoholic beverage industry member whom is not itself a craft brewer.
Who was here?
Over 120 local, national, and internationally known independent breweries were pouring liquid gold at WakeFest 2019. Also, 30 of your favorite “Made in Dade” J. Wakefield beers were on draft at WakeFest Village near the West end of the Mana Wynwood festival lot.
Some of the brews and breweries that really stood out to us were the Jungle Juice DIPA from 3 Chiefs Brewing, the Science Magic American Brut IPA from Brouwerij West, the Contains No Juice DIPA from Alvarado Street Brewing, the Wake & Bake NE DIPA from Mondo Brewing (London), and the Congress Street IPA from Trillium Brewing.
Trillium, Moksa Brewing, and WeldWerks were some of the breweries that got long queues including Swedish brewery Omnipollo with their Coffee-Dunked Coconut Snowball Stout and their Rubus Idaeus Raspberry Sauce Sour. In fact, eight Swedish breweries were proudly posted up at Wakefest.
In addition to Omnipollo (Stockholm), Poppels (Jonsered), O / O (Gothenburg), Stigbergets (Gothernburg), All In Brewing (Gothenburg), Dugges (Landvetter), Brewski (Helsingborg) and Malmö Brewing (Malmö).
Breweries from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden, were present. “We’re bringing some of the best beers in the world here to Miami for one day” said owner, Jonathan Wakefield. “I would definitely keep an eye out for WakeFest 2020. It’s gonna be a big one.”
The options were endless and we had only 5 hours to try them all. The four-ounce pours made it easy to try as many beers as we could and feel as good as we could too.
There was food!
The water stations really helped us take a few breaks from the delicious beer as well as some of the food trucks and stations which included: The Salty Donut, Ms. Cheezious, and The Avenue British Diner. Some of the VIP Area food vendors included: Ariete, Edge Steak & Bar, and Stanzione 87.
All in all we had a blast at J. Wakefield’s 2019 Wake Fest Invitational, we cant wait to go back next year!
Watch below to see the video of the event. Shot by our very own Director of Photography Carlos de Varona.
For more information on JWB please visit: jwakefieldbrewing.com
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