HopsFest

Overview

We hope you're thirsty, Melbourne. The city's newest craft beer festival kicks into gear next month and it runs for a whole five weeks. Descending on The General Assembly from August 26 to September 29, the inaugural HopsFest celebrates a different Aussie brewery each week, dishing up a froth-tastic program of brewer sessions, bottomless beer feasts, tap takeovers and daily 'hoppy hours'.

A series of educational Beer Banter Thursdays sessions will feature brewer chats, masterclasses, trivia, giveaways and snack-matched beer tastings, clocking in at a very reasonable $30 a head. Meanwhile, HopsFest's Boozy Bash Saturdays will deliver a series of free weekly afternoon parties, complete with beer tastings and live tunes from 4–7pm.

Then on Sundays, the $49 Bottomless Brew sessions will see you sitting down to the best kind of boozy lunch, where a food menu is matched with two hours of free-flowing tap beer from that week's showcase brewery. Adelaide Hills' Prancing Pony kicks things off the first week, with plates like burnt honey- and bush spice-glazed lamb ribs, and popcorn chicken with smoked chilli aioli.

Abbotsford's Moon Dog takes the reins for week two, followed by 4 Pines, Pirate Life and Colonial Brewing Co.

What's more, all throughout HopsFest you'll score $10 'brewer's choice' pints all day, along with weekly changing beer-matched lunch specials (such as a pint and pie for $25). And from 4-6pm each day, 'hoppy hour' sees all the brewery's tap beers slashed to just $10 a pint.