Forage Festival Armidale: Welder's Dog brings beer festival to carpark

The brainchild of The Welder’s Dog, the festival brings together 17 craft beer breweries from around Australia.

But, with the invitation came a challenge, to create a new beer that represents a foraged or local ingredient from their area.

Welder’s brewers Daniel ‘Beans’ Coffey and Phil Stevens have been busy as bees working on Armidale’s pour.

“We’re locking in a honey and lilac golden sour – it uses natural honey from the Armidale region,” Beans said.

“The honey idea came from us emptying our fresh ginger for the ginger beer in tubs outside – all the bees would come and eat the leftover sugar so we had our own mini beehive for a while.

“The main craft breweries coming are all along the coast, they don’t venture too far rural so it gives us a chance to show the craft beer movement is happening where they least expect it.”

The goal is to make the beer summery, with champage and floral notes from the lilac.

The small town brewery will be joined by New England Brewery, the Deepwater Brewery and Great Hops, up against big labels like Stone and Wood.

Held in the three level carpark next to Welder’s Dog Armidale, the rooftop is reserved for big names like Kasey Chambers, Tim Rogers, Darren Hanlon and The Tambourine Girls.

Lane Sinclair, DJ’s Adi Toohey and Ariane will also hit the stage.

Welder’s Dog events manager Jade Meddemmen said there’s plenty of street eats to go around too.

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“We’ll have beer tastings on the second level and food trucks down the bottom with Night Hawk Diner bringing three food trucks with burgers, tacos and desserts,” she said.

“We were looking to do something that’s new and unusual in Armidale, we love to support independent breweries in Australia and there’s no better way than to bring them together.

“Something cool about independent breweries is that they do have the possibility to do things that are new because it’s not mass produced – it’s about showing off where they’re from and we’ve got guys doing dandelion beers, peaches beers, you name it.”

With only 1000 tickets on offer, festival goers can find more information on The Welder’s Dog Facebook page or buy tickets at moshtix.com.au.

Some tickets will be available at the door but cannot be guaranteed.