Thousands attend local beer festival

Thousands of people complimented Saturday’s warm weather with an ice cold beer.

Eastern Idaho’s 18th annual Beer Festival took place Saturday afternoon in Idaho Falls.

Attendees sampled over 300 different types of beer, ranging from ales to stouts and even micro-brews. For the nonalcoholic drinkers, soda was available along with nonalcoholic beer.

Beer Fest organizers say all of the proceeds go to local charities that differ year to year. However this year, the Breaking Boundaries group, Tautphaus Park Zoological Society and the River Discovery group were selected as the recipients.

“We had some pretty good sales this year, so we’re excited about that,” said Gregg Smith, Beer Fest organizer. “Online sales at 5 last night were already at 5,000 so we have about 6 or 7,000 here today.”

Smith says he sees an increase in attendees year after year.

Of course, for those who maybe had a little too much to drink, cab services were made available.