In light of the announcement today by the Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, declaring Victoria in a state of emergency and on the back of the Government’s ban of non-essential gatherings of over 500 people, Good Beer Week has been carefully considering the ramifications of holding our festival on May 15-23.

Today, we’ve come to the very difficult decision that Good Beer Week will be postponed until further information is revealed regarding the current Coronavirus crisis.

While many events have announced cancellations prior to now, we’ve been hard at work creating contingency plans to try and ensure our dedicated brewers, partners, staff, and beer-lovers would not be negatively impacted by our choice, before making this announcement.

Our strong preference is to hold the festival this year, instead of cancelling, however, this decision will be made in light of advice by the Victorian Government. This is to ensure we continue to support the many businesses, breweries, and individuals who have already dedicated so much time to this event and who may suffer in these unprecedented times.

We understand that, right now, it is difficult to predict how long the current bans will be in place. However, we would like our supporters and the greater community to rest assured that Good Beer Week will go ahead once the Government advises it is safe to do so.

This was an incredibly hard outcome to decide upon, for the Good Beer Week team, who are devastated by the effects Coronavirus has had globally and on our local community. However, our greatest concern is the health and safety of our supporters, staff, brewers, and volunteers.

While these are unimaginable times, our team will continue to do everything we can to support all those in the community, to limit the spread of COVID-19 and to ensure each other’s safety. We’ll continue to stay across the latest advice from the Victorian State Government and Federal Government and will communicate any updates and changes once we know more.

www.goodbeerweek.com.au