Greetings Team!
Oh, SIPtemberfest! Dance with me darling!
Hmm? Wha? SIP?
Oh, boy, SIP! I’m coming!
OMG! SIPtemberfest!
This is – gasp – the Tenth Anniversary of SIPtemberfest! Ten! Ten years ago, iPhones made their debut, the first episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians aired, Donald Trump shaved Vince McMahon’s head bald live at Wrestlemania, and SIPtemberfest was an itty-bitty beer tasting on the porch of Mad River Glen. Who knew we’d be where we are today!?
Ok, so it’s really not that surprising how far the craft beer industry has come in the last 10 years, and thanks to all your continued support, SIPtemberfest is still going strong as ever. To celebrate we are adding a new event to our line up: SIPCoffee! If you’re even half as in to coffee as we are at SIP HQ, you know that the craft coffee scene is looking a lot like the craft beer scene was way, way back in the 2000’s. We are so excited to partner with Vermont’s roasters to bring you what we hope will not only be just as awesome an event as SIPBeer, but also a great way to cap off your weekend!
Please see below for all sorts of important SIP Info, including Ticket Sales information and our Epic Contest!
-Thanks and cheers from Team SIP!
…and without further ado, here are all the things:
SIP 2017 Featured Artist: Natasha Bogar For our 10th, we have partnered with an artist who knows a thing or two about festivals. If you’ve been to Hop Jam or the old Northeast Kingdom Music Fest, you’ve see Natasha’s work hanging from the stage, or gracing the panels of stunning one-of-kind tents. You’ll also find her work all over Bolton Valley Ski Resort, on the cover of the 2017 Stowe area guide (pictured) or in local shops like the Stowe Street Cafe (where you can also buy it!) We are thrilled to see what she comes up with for our 2017 SIPtemberfest Artwork, but in the meantime, you can learn more about her work here: Webpage | Facebook
Meet the Dinner Brewers: The Last Supper! Unfortunately, this will be the last year of the Meet the Brewers Dinner at Mad River Glen! Yes, I know – sad face. But fortunately, we are already making plans to go out in Da Vinci-esque style! We will announce the Brewer hosts, menu and everything else you’ll want to know very soon so stay tuned. As always, the dinner will be a four course meal, each course paired with beers from two select brewers. Tickets are very limited to this event and will only be available online.
Brand Spankin’ New: SIPCoffee We are so, so, so excited to announce the first ever SIPCoffee, a coffee tasting modeled after our beer tasting. It will take place following Saturday’s beer tasting, Sunday, September 24 from 11am-2pm, right in the base area of MRG.
Here’s the format for SIPCoffee:
- Tickets will be $20 each and will include a SIP tasting mug and 12 tastes. Tickets will be available online only.
- Gates will be open from 11am-2pm and will take place in the same area as our beer tasting.
- We will have live music and local food vendors. (Hint: have you ever heard of Blueberry Bacon Donuts?)
- Additionally, Mad River Glen is currently planning to serve their famously delicious diner-style breakfast in the cafeteria while the Pub will be open serving their lunch menu and featuring a selection of coffee beers on tap. Single Chair Rides will also be available.
We still have things brewing for SIPCoffee – we will post more details soon.
Vermont’s Best Little Beer Fest: SIPBeer SIPtemberfest is turning 10 because it is exactly what it is and we aren’t going to mess with that. So SIPBeer will take place as usual, Saturday, September 23 from 1-5pm in the base area of Mad River Glen. Tickets will each include a tasting glass and 10 tasting tokens. We will once again host two pop up sales for local ticket purchases and offer online sales. See below for details.
The one way we’d like to celebrate is to see as many people as we can wearing SIP hats, hoodies and t-shirts from years past. We will have our annual Scavenger Hunt again too so their might be some sweet bonuses if you dig through your box of beer-shirts and rock the SIP Swag!
WICKED IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT PARKING: PLEASE CARPOOL! PLEASE CARPOOL! PLEASE CARPOOL! PLEASE CARPOOL! PLEASE CARPOOL! MRG has a relatively small parking lot and the State is NO LONGER ALLOWING PARKING ON THE ROAD! This is a really big deal!!! We will offer our free shuttle service again and MRG is working on some incentives for those who fill up their cars with Sippers! Please consider your travel plans for getting to SIPtemberfest when purchasing tickets and try to come with as many people in as few vehicles as possible. Thanks in advance for signing up for the shuttle or packing more than one or two people into your vehicles. Thanks also in advance for being respectful to our parking attendants and shuttle drivers who work hard to help you have fun! We will post more info about this as we have it. Carpoolers get excellent beer karma!
Tickets We are going to do both online and pop up sales again this year. Here’s the deal:
- Pop Up Sales – Back by popular demand, we will do two Pop Up ticket sales at which people can directly buy up to 2 tickets to SIPBeer – Saturday’s Beer tasting. We will sell up to 150 tickets at each Pop Up. These will be CASH ONLY SALES! We will be in Waitsfield on June 6 & Waterbury on June 13. We will post the specific locations and timeframe, within one hour of sales opening to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (Fun Fact: this is the only time we ever use twitter anymore.) This is to prevent ‘liner-uppers.’ Sales will take place in a convenient location, sometime between 4-8pm. So hang out at a good watering hole in the area and wait for us to post. If you’re not on social media, we betcha you have a buddy who is, so buy them a beer at the watering hole while you wait.
- Online! We will sell 450 SIPBeer tickets online, June 20 at 7am. These will be first come, first served, and we expect these to sell out very quickly so set your alarm. The link for online sales will be available at a later date.
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Meg’s Events mascot-at-large, Sid Vicious, shows of her threads. #SIPtemberfest #SIP10 #SIPItAll
SIP10 Epic SIPItAll Contest: We are gonna give away a sweet ticket package to celebrate our 10th Anniversary! It will include two tickets to Friday’s SIPDinner, two tickets to Saturday’s SIPBeer and two tickets to Sunday’s SIPCoffee. And two t-shirts and two hoodies and two hats and more SIPtemberfest swag for a retail value of over $450! Wanna win? All you have to do is take a photo of you wearing SIP swag and post it to Instagram with the hashtags #SIPtemberfest #SIP10 #SIPItAll. You can enter as many times as you like! Get creative: use props, get your posse or your pets to pose with you, choose some crazy location, try out a slo-mo or a boomerang video! Is there such a thing as a photo haiku? Key words to think of: beer, friends, fun, 10! Entries accepted as soon as you’re done reading this. Deadline for entries is Sept 4th to give you time to plan and go big! We will post shortly thereafter to our blog announcing the winner.
Call to Volunteers! With the addition of a third day of SIP, we are looking for MORE volunteers! If you are interested in joining a super cool team, doing relatively easy labor and fun work with perks like beer, coffee and t-shirts, then this is the volunteer job for you! Please contact us today for more details. Thanks in advance!
