Beer Cheese Festival in Winchester, KY

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This past weekend (June 2018) my family and I attended the 10th Annual Beer Cheese Festival in Winchester, Ky. This was my first time attending the beer cheese festival and my fist time trying beer cheese to the best of my knowledge. It was a long, fun filled day with the family.

The beer cheese festival takes place the second Saturday in June every year in downtown Winchester. It is a free event to attend unless you want to buy something or taste the beer cheese. The beer cheese festival supports local Kentucky businesses. It is supposedly the only beer cheese festival in the world but I'm not sure if that is legit or just an advertising technique.

According to the schedule, they kicked off the festival Friday with a 5k and a Rock the Block Summer Concert. We missed this of coarse because we don't live in Winchester but we made it to the festival on Saturday.

The beer cheese festival had a lot to do and a lot to look at. The entire downtown was blocked off for the festival with at least a hundred different vendors. Two of the streets were full of local vendors selling crafts, jewelry, shirts, wine and handing out free items such as sunglasses, candy, snacks and my favorite, free bottles of water. One side street was full of food trucks and vendors along with a kid play area that attached to the other side street that was a beer garden and had ice cream vendors.

One of the three main streets

The center street was roped off for the beer cheese tastings along with live music. They called this Beer Cheese Boulevard. If you wanted to try the beer cheese, you could purchase a wristband for $5. The festival was crazy packed and we had to wait in a long line that wrapped down the center to try the beer cheese.

Once we got to the first beer cheese booth it moved at a decent speed. Most of the beer cheese booths gave you a decent size sample on a cracker, a few had pretzels. The majority of booths had the option to choose between mild or spicy beer cheese. I stuck to tasting the mild beer cheese because I'm not a huge fan of spicy foods and some of the mild beer cheeses had a kick to them so I couldn't imagine the taste testing a spicy one.

After you tasted all the beer cheese booths, you could vote for your favorite with a ticket you were handed at entry. If you want, I'm sure you can circle back around the booths or at least your favorites for another sample. There were nine or ten different beer cheese booths if I counted correctly.

You could also buy a container of beer cheese from your favorite booth or at the Beer Cheese Store set up right outside the roped off area.

Overall I really enjoyed the festival. We let the kids try some of the beer cheese and they seemed to like it. They kept asking for more but I think they were just hungry so we grabbed some extra crackers for them.

I think my husband liked the beer cheese more than I did and if I found it to be to spicy, I passed it onto him. I think my favorite part of the festival was checking out all the handmade and local businesses. The beer cheese wasn't to bad either, definitely worth a try and a visit if you are in the area next June.

If you do decide to check out the beer cheese festival next year I recommend packing drinks, a stroller if you have little ones, lots of sunscreen, walking shoes and cash. I noticed several ATMs if you forget. There is also a ton of other food and beverages for sale but if you bring your own drinks, you can skip the lines and save a little money.

You can check out the official website at beercheesefestival.com to learn more about the festival.