The Marietta Roots craft beer festival, benefiting the William Root House Museum & Garden, returns Sept. 13 for the ninth year.
Breweries participating include local businesses Red Hare Brewing and Glover Park Brewery, along with Cultivation Brewing of Norcross and Horned Owl Brewing from Kennesaw.
In addition to beer, the festival will offer sparkling water, soda and food from Marietta Melt Yard, Jimpa’s Catfish and Sugar Shane’s.
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Trevor Beemon, who has been executive director of the Cobb Landmarks and Historical Society for the past 10 years and is the founder of the festival, noted that “the craft beer market is challenging, and lot of breweries are closing down or downsizing. So, I think it’s a huge testament that there are still breweries willing to help out.”
Beemon also is proud of the way the festival brings brewers and beer lovers together in a personal way.
“A lot of the beer festivals that I attend have tap trailers now, and there are volunteers pouring that don’t know what they’re pouring,” he said. “What we’re doing is kind of a return to the old-school beer festival. The brewers are out there in the tents, talking to people about the beers and how they’ve been crafted with ingredients harvested from the Root House gardens. Everything that’s planted was available in Georgia in the 1850s, and some of those things were hops.”
Glover Park brewer Kevin McNerney has been a longtime supporter of the festival. He will be back this year with a beer dubbed the Figster, made with local honey and turkey figs from the Root House garden.
McNerney’s partners, Sam Rambo and Hank DuPre, are multigenerational Marietta natives, with deep connections in the community.
“The whole event is a pretty interesting cross section of people,” McNerney said. “It’s mostly locals and people who are history buffs. That community is really tied into the Root House and Marietta history.”
Red Hare brewer Bobby Thomas has worked at the festival for seven years. “It’s an event that’s actually been fun and family-friendly,” he said. Made with Centennial hops and lemon balm grown in the Root House garden, Lemon Balm lager is a perennial favorite from Red Hare.
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“Fresh hops are hard to find around here,” Thomas said. “I’ve taken my kids and my wife over and we’ve picked hops at harvest time. The first time, it was hit or miss, and then it just blew up. We each had a 5-gallon bucket and we were filling them up.”
Thomas said he assumes that similar harvesting took place in the past at the house, built circa 1845, using hops and herbs to make elixirs and beer. “The history of the house itself is part of it, and it’s fun to be part of something that’s local and historic,” he said.
Marietta Roots. William Root House Museum & Garden. 6-9 p.m. Sept. 13. $35 online, $40 walk-up. 80 N. Marietta Parkway NW, Marietta. 770-426-4982, williamroothouse.com/roots.html
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