Fermenta
Spend a day eating pickles, making kombucha and sourdough, and drinking beer in the Mudgee region.
Overview
Good food and drinks, moseying far and wide, learning new skills, hanging out with your nearest and dearest: that's what exceptional weekends are all about. And, if you're looking for something to do on Saturday, March 13, the brand new Fermenta festival also ticks all of the above boxes. It's dedicated to fermented foods, as the name points out, and it's taking place in Rylstone and Kandos in the Mudgee region, around a three-and-a-half-hour drive out of Sydney.
Yes, you'll be heading out of town for this one-day affair, and either satisfying your stomach or adding to your knowledge — or both — while you're there. The big highlight is the twilight picnic, which'll see you sit by the Cudgegong River at the Rylstone Showground and tuck into gourmet hampers filled with produce and wine from the area. For your $85–150 ticket (depending on whether you want a hamper for one or two people), you'll also listen to live tunes.
That's how Fermenta will finish up for the day. Beforehand, though, there are plenty of other parts of the program, so you can pick and choose what you'd like to do (and pay accordingly). At the Globe Hotel, the Globe Beer Festival will be in full swing. Or, depending on your area of interest, you can book into a workshop — including sessions on kombucha, honey ginger beer, sourdough crumpets, sauerkraut, pickling and preserving, and chocolate fermentation.