When community members dare to defy the cold, they do it at one of the most unique beer festivals around, otherwise known as the 2024 Frozen RiverFest.
Taking place at Soldotna Creek Park, this year’s event had 15 brewery vendors, including brewers like Kenai River Brewing Company, Turnagain Brewing, and Midnight Sun Brewing Company.
As for food, four vendors were present, including the winner of the Soldotna Chamber of Commerce’s Presidents Award, Wok n’ Roll.
For individuals who weren’t trying the local brews, there was free hot chocolate and coffee from Kaladi Brothers Coffee to keep everyone nice and toasty.
And as for live music, both The Roland Roberts Band and the House Band played for two hours each.
According to Soldotna Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Maddy Olsen, individuals had the option of obtaining taster admission, or non-drinker admission. However, the more popular choice by far was being a taster.
A total of around 1,000 attended this year’s event, which is on par with previous years. All of the proceeds from tickets will be used to support local projects and programs.
“All the funds raised from Frozen RiverFest goes to chamber community event like Frozen RiverFest’s and our St. Patrick’s Day Parade… our Music in the Park, Lemonade Day, Progress Days, Christmas in the Park, and of course our scholarship program so any funds that the chamber is raising at any event those are the types of programs that this money is going to,” said Olsen.
When it comes to your preferred drink of choice, everyone’s got a favorite. But at this year’s event, everyone had a favorite for the second year in a row!
“We had a People’s Choice award, so for our events, when you get admission, you have your drink tokens that you purchase more and you’re giving out these drink tokens to the Brewers. Well, we weigh those tokens and at the end of the night, whoever comes in with the most weight-in token wins the People’s Choice award. So this year, Naptowne Brewing won People’s Choice Award and they won that award last year as well …they opened last year actually right around Frozen RiverFest so it’s exciting they were new for us last year and they got People’s Choice Award and they must be doing something right because they got it again this year,” said Olsen.
Olsen says that it was extremely fun to see folks coming to the event. Regardless of it being a beer fest, it wasn’t uncommon to see families bringing their little ones to get some food, listen to some live music, and watch some fireworks.
“It’s another event to bring people together, especially you know, we’re going through the hardest months of the winter. We are craving the summer music series and our, you know, just being outside, being together, being a community a lot of that can go away in the winter time so this is just a fun way to get everybody out defying the cold and continuing that community spirit,” said Olsen.
Olsen does mention that this is the Chamber’s 9th year of hosting this event. She and her team are already brainstorming ways to figure out how they can make their decade celebration even more special.
