Shade City Brewfest is coming back on April 21 & 22, 2023 and we are looking for people, businesses, and organizations who want to be involved!
What Is Shade City Brewfest?
Started in 2022, Shade City Brewfest is a two-day, sustainability-focused, ‘70s-themed celebration of Idaho’s beer scene featuring dozens of breweries, local sustainability-focused vendors, food trucks, and music.
Held on Earth Day at the Idaho Botanical Garden, Shade City is committed to delivering a low-waste event that improves our waste reduction practices each year. Our goal is to learn, evolve, and do better for our environment while gathering as a community to celebrate and share environmentally-friendly practices. This one-of-a-kind brewfest aims to highlight ways that businesses can still hold awesome celebrations and events without creating tons of waste. Shade City was created by Lost Grove Brewing, Idaho Botanical Garden, and Treasure Valley Canopy Network.
Shade City 2022
The inaugural year of Shade City Brewfest was a huge success! Around 3,000 patrons came to sample beers, explore the beautiful Idaho Botanical Garden, dance to ‘70s tunes, and learn about what businesses across the Treasure Valley are doing to increase their sustainability efforts.
Some of the exciting accomplishments from the first year included:
Avoiding the purchase of plastic beer sampling cups by asking patrons to bring their own cups and providing gently used and cleaned cups from the Idaho Youth Ranch if they did not bring their own
Having food trucks use reusable bamboo flatware for their food service. Plates were cleaned and reused at a dishwashing station managed by volunteers from Roots Zero Waste Market
Screenprinting shirts on-site with Brigade Screenprinting so that no excess merchandise was created
Printing promotional posters on the back of used posters from the Morrison Center
Using paper beer tickets made from recycled paper instead of traditional beer tokens
Incentivizing bikes and alternative transportation to reduce carbon emissions by offering free beer tokens
Generating only about 10 bags of trash for a two-day event with thousands of people
Shade City 2023: Bigger, Better, Greener
We already know we can make a huge difference in waste reduction and shrinking our carbon footprint with a little bit of effort. Looking ahead to 2023, we are bringing back all of the tactics mentioned above… and then some! This year we are aspiring to:
Compost all food waste with the help of Timber Creek Recycling
Partner with Climate Hound to purchase carbon credits that will offset emissions from 2022 and each year moving forward
Staff trash stations with the help of Roots Zero Waste Market volunteers to correctly sort recycling, compost, and waste.
And more!
In addition to bringing more sustainability efforts, we are also adding an after-party! Following the Brewfest on Saturday, Shade City will be hosting a concert in the Old Penitentiary with multiple awesome bands and plenty of delicious beer. More details to come!
Tickets to Shade City Brewfest will go on sale on Feb 26.
Interested in Getting Involved with Shade City Brewfest?
We are always looking for awesome sustainability-focused businesses, nonprofits, and people to partner with for the ‘fest. And there are multiple ways to get involved! If you’re an interested brewery, vendor, potential sponsor, or want to volunteer, shoot us an email!