Bridge Road Brewers have just announced the brewery lineup for the 2023 High Country Hops, with California’s Firestone Walker leading the list of attendees.

The announcement comes along with the confirmation of Matt Brynildson attending as a keynote speaker at the event’s technical symposium ahead of the festival.

The festival, presented by HPA is now in its 9th year, is a celebration of the annual Australian hop harvest. Attending brewers will be showing a series of unique ales made with fresh hops from the 2023 harvest.

High Country Hops invitational beer festival welcomes first-time attendees Firestone Walker, Fox Friday, Mollyrose and Bentspoke and welcomes back Hop Nation, Billsons, Bright, King River and Mitta Mitta breweries.

The festival also has a heavy focus on its diverse and eccentric musical line-up, the full music program will be announced in the new year.

After exhibiting at the Firestone Walker Invitational beer festival back in 2015 Ben Kraus was motivated to create a festival showcasing other brewers in Beechworth.  He is thrilled that it has come full circle and that Firestone Walker will be attending an event partially inspired by them.

“I had attended Birra del Borgos invitational event in a regional town outside of Rome twice as well as the Firestone Walker invitational in California, both events saw a brewery hosting a festival featuring other brewers, something that hadn’t been done before in Australia. This was the motivation to create an event where we could showcase our peers and also celebrate hops and their growers”.

Limited early bird tickets for the festival are on sale now.

High Country Hops will run from March 23rd- March 26, with a mixture of industry and consumer events. The consumer-facing beer festival held on  Saturday March 25th.