Media Release

Australia’s favourite craft beer festival is Brisbane bound

One of the country’s leading craft beer festival experiences is adding Brisbane to its calendar for 2019.

Founded in 2011 at The Local Taphouse bar in Melbourne, GABS Beer, Cider & Food Fest presented by Dan Murphy’s already welcomes over 40,000 people to events in Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland. As well as being judged one of the top 20 beer festivals in the world by US magazine The Beer Connoisseur, GABS (otherwise known as the Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular) has also been repeatedly voted Australia’s favourite craft beer festival in a major annual survey of 18,000 craft beer lovers by Beer Cartel.

Co-Founder Steve Jeffares said it was the right time to bring the iconic event to Queensland.

“For us, GABS has always been about sharing our love of craft beer and cider with as many people as possible, so bringing the festival experience to Brisbane has long been on the agenda. We’re thrilled to now be able to make this a reality, and can’t wait to showcase the booming craft beer scene to Queenslanders in true GABS style!”

Billed as a celebration of craft beer creativity and diversity, the centrepiece of the event are the 160+ ‘Festival Beers & Ciders’ made especially for GABS each year by Australia and New Zealand’s leading brewers and cidermakers, of which approximately 100 will be served at the new Brisbane event.

Many of those breweries also set up interactive stands at the festival, providing attendees with the chance to chat with brewers as they sample from their ranges of core and limited-release beers. Jeffares stated that local breweries would be well represented.

“There is so much great beer coming out of Queensland right now, with breweries like Balter, Green Beacon, Hemingway’s, Newstead, Aether and many more making the sunshine state one of the hottest destinations in the country for beer lovers. We’ll be offering Queensland breweries one of the first opportunities to book a stand at the Brisbane event to ensure the locals are out in force.”

While beer and cider are the stars of the show, GABS is perhaps just as well known for putting on a spectacular event, complete with circus performers, gourmet street food market, panel discussions with industry leaders, cooking demonstrations, whisky bars, beer hall games, their incredibly popular ‘house band’ The Ale Capones and even a giant indoor Ferris wheel in some cities.

The inaugural Queensland event will be held over two five-hour sessions at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, right in the heart of the bustling South Bank precinct, on Saturday 27 April 2019. Jeffares anticipates between 6,000 and 7,000 attendees in the event’s first year.

In addition to launching in Brisbane, the other Australian events will also be expanding in 2019, with the introduction of a new outdoor food truck park in Melbourne, and a 25% increase in floor space at the Sydney festival, which will make that event the biggest one-day GABS festival ever staged.

Exhibitor registrations for all GABS Beer, Cider & Food Fest events will open on Monday 12 November at 12.00pm AEDT / 11.00am AEST, with all available stands expected to book out very quickly.

For the new event in Brisbane, organisers are introducing a ‘Locals Priority Booking’ period for the first hour of registrations from 11.00am – 12.00pm AEST, where an allocation of stands will be made available only to Queensland based breweries and cideries to book.

Registrations to brew a Festival Beer and/or Cider will open in January 2019. This is open to any craft brewery in Australia, New Zealand or around the world, whether they are exhibiting at GABS or not.

More information can be found here.

GABS Beer, Cider & Food Fest presented by Dan Murphy’s is proudly supported by Ariston, Little Creatures, The Local Taphouse, Yenda and Kegstar.

Event dates and projected attendance

BRISBANE: Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, South Bank Saturday 27 April 2019 Forecast attendance: 6,000 – 7,000

MELBOURNE: Royal Exhibition Building, Carlton Fri 17 – Sun 19 May 2019 Forecast attendance: 24,000

SYDNEY: Sydney Showground, Olympic Park Sat 1 June 2019 Forecast attendance: 11,000

AUCKLAND: ASB Showgrounds, Greenlane Sat 29 June 2019 Forecast attendance: 7,000