Craft beer festival highlights city of Salisbury, Delmarva breweries

When Ann Hillyer started Shore Craft Beer back in 2014, her goal was to make the region a Top 10 destination for craft beer.

While it’s not quite there yet, events like Saturday help Hillyer put the area on the map.

Saturday, Shore Craft Beer and Delmarva Public Radio are hosting the 2nd annual Shore Craft Beer Fest and Salisbury Riverwalk celebration. The festival, located along the banks of the Wicomico River, features beers exclusively from the Delmarva Peninsula.

“We have world-class beer,” Hillyer, Shore Craft Beer’s CEO, said.

The festival is an effort, Hillyer said, to showcase the area’s beer scene but also put Salisbury on display.

“Salisbury isn’t the first place people think of when it comes to tourism,” she said.

The city is out to change that notion.

Agreeing with Hillyer's statement was Memo Diriker, director of the Business, Economic, and Community Outreach Network of the Perdue School of Business at Salisbury University. But Diriker said he's seen it changing of late, and said festivals like Saturday are “event-based tourism activities that bring heads to bed.”

Salisbury and Wicomico County, he said, are "selling the experience," at events like Shore Craft Beer Fest, the USSSA Softball tournaments and the Seagull Century bike ride.

"Any activity that attracts people to come or stay in the region is going to be beneficial," Diriker said.

Regarding the growth of downtown Salisbury, Diriker told a story about a recent 3rd Friday event there, when he ran into a young professional he knows who had been in Salisbury a few years.

When Diriker remarked about the success of the event, she was surprised. The vibrant downtown, to her, is something she thought was common nature.

“That’s a sure-fire sign of success," Diriker said.

Diriker said each dollar a local resident spends in Salisbury measures at a 1.5 times turnover rate. When people from outside the county come in, Diriker measured the turnover rate at 2.5 times.

Those numbers are conclusions driven from past studies data from the social accounting matrix. For example, when you stay in a hotel and pay for a room, that money being spent is then being used on local goods or services. The visitors account for more because the money being spent was never local to begin with.

The festival, which draws a good mix of locals and tourists, had more than 300 beer drinkers last year and nearly double that in total.

This year could be bigger.

The only gripe Hillyer said she has about this year’s version is the lack of hotel packages being offered by area hotels. The only package on the Shore Craft Beer website is through the Clarion in Ocean City.

Hillyer pointed at recent legislation adopted by the Maryland House that shows a less-than-enthused opposition group to craft beer.

Events like this, she says, helps change that image.

"The more we get to showcase this culture of craft beer, we’ll improve everyone’s outlook on the craft beer industry,” she said.

Festivals and events, Hillyer said, help bring towns and businesses — like breweries —  together.

“People love craft beer and will come for craft beer," she said.

The craft beer they'll find Saturday is wide-ranging. Featured brewery Evolution Craft Brewing Company is offering its Hops Limón IPA, which is scheduled for a full rollout next week.

Other new beers like Fin City's recently-released Bimini Key will be available. The Bimini Key features key limes and is a summer brew. Fin City will also be debuting a not-yet-released beer this weekend.

“It’s a great way to test market any of the new products that we have coming out and get immediate feedback from the customers that attend the events,” said Fin City brewmaster Vince Wright.

Other breweries in attendance will be 3rd Wave, Tall Tales, Dogfish Head, Big Oyster, Revelation, Rubber Soul, Blue Earl and Mispillion River.

Wright, a Salisbury native, said he loves doing events in Salisbury.

“The crowds just keep getting larger and larger, which is great to see,” Wright said.