Newport Beer Festival is back, but with a few changes. Here's what to expect.

NEWPORT — Newport’s largest festival for craft beer lovers has announced its 2022 return, hoping to reunite local breweries and beer enthusiasts after having to cancel the event a year prior.

“We’re definitely excited to bring it back,” Festival Director Taylor Votolato said. “The reactions have been just great and more than we could have expected. I think everyone’s ready to get back out into the world and into events and get together, so the timing’s right.”

Originally dubbed the Newport Craft Beer Festival, the event has since been renamed Newport Beer Festival to avoid copyright confusion with Newport Craft Beer Brewery, one of its co-founding organizations. Votolato called it a “beer festival for brewers, by brewers,” where beer producers statewide gather to showcase their latest products to fellow brewers and the general public.

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The new name is not the only change made to the event. The upcoming festival typically takes place over two sessions at the historic Friends Meeting House near Broadway; the upcoming event has just one date set, April 30, and will be set up at Fort Adams State Park, rain or shine. Votolato said the organizers are keeping their eye on the rising COVID-19 cases, so they wanted to make sure their guests had enough room to spread out.

“Future years, we’ll see what things bring as far as where we’ll host it, but we figured this year a little more space would be appropriate,” Votolato said. “Everybody’s health and safety is our number one priority. Usually it's an all-sales-final event since it's a fundraiser and we want to support the guild as best we can, but that said we have already started teasing out caveats that say if we should cancel or reschedule, we’ll issue refunds or reschedule tickets.”

Newport Beer Festival ticket sales benefit the RI Brewers Guild, the official industry association for Rhode Island beer brewers which is now 30-members strong, among them are local breweries such as Newport Craft, Ragged Island, Rejects Beer, Norey’s and Taproot. Votolato said the group uses the money, about $25,000 or $30,000 from each year, for lobbying and sending members to showcases.

“The money really goes back into the local craft beer scene, supporting local brewers and their initiatives,” Votolato said.

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While this year marks the 11th year since the festival first launched in 2011, the upcoming event is officially dubbed the 10th annual Newport Beer Festival, following the first canceled festival last year. Since the event usually takes place in spring, around the same time vaccines were beginning to roll out last year, the organizers postponed to give guests time to become vaccinated. Spring turned to summer turned to fall, which clashed with other local events, so the organizers began planning for 2022 instead.

“We were disappointed we weren’t able to host it but we still wanted to be respectful of the current situation and everyone’s health and safety, and figured that takes priority,” Votolato said. “We started looking ahead to 2022 when we realized 2021 was probably not going to happen.”

Despite these few changes, Votolato wanted to assure festival-goers the upcoming festival will still be the same event guests enjoyed for over a decade. The 40 yet-to-be-announced brewers expected to participate will offer two to four different kinds of 2 oz. beer samples.

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Tickets, which go on sale Friday on the festival's Eventbrite page, are $60 a head for those 21-years-old and up only, and includes a souvenir tasting glass. The organizers are planning to cap ticket sales at 1,200 people, another effort to mitigate any potential CCOVID-19 spread.

“We’ve made a couple changes this year, so hopefully people are receptive and open to those changes,” Votolato said. “We’ll still have the same types of brewers, we’ll still have a big Rhode Island focus, we’ll still have local food vendors and live music, so hopefully they don’t feel like it’s drastically different, but just different in the best ways. We’re excited for feedback and excited to get everyone together, raise a glass, and get back to some sense of normalcy.”

This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Newport Beer Festival returns for 10th year, to be held at Fort Adams