Burp Fest at Great Taste of the Midwest 2026

In 1987, Carol Tollefson of Hibernia Brewing in Eau Claire approached the Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild — a nonprofit homebrewing club formed in 1983 — with an idea inspired by the Great American Beer Festival: a craft beer celebration for the Midwest. The Guild provided the venue (the Italian Workmen's Club), and the inaugural Great Taste of the Midwest featured nine Wisconsin breweries. At a time when craft beer barely existed in the region, it was a statement of faith in what was coming.

Nearly four decades later, that faith has been spectacularly vindicated. The Great Taste of the Midwest is now the second longest-running craft beer festival in North America, featuring approximately 200 breweries and brewpubs pouring around 1,400 different beers in a five-hour afternoon session at Olin Park on the shores of Lake Monona, with the Wisconsin State Capitol rising in the background. What makes it extraordinary is that every aspect of the festival — from planning and logistics to pouring and cleanup — is organized and executed entirely by volunteers from the Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild. There are no corporate event producers, no management companies, no paid staff. Proceeds go directly to local charities.

Tickets are capped at roughly 6,400 and are distributed through a combination of in-person sales at six Madison-area breweries on the first Sunday in May and an online lottery — a system that has become a ritual in itself. They sell out every year. Named one of the "Top 10 Best Beer Festivals" by USA Today, the Great Taste has earned its reputation not through spectacle but through substance: brewers attend in person to pour their own beer, the lakeside setting is among the most beautiful of any festival in the country, and the whole operation runs on the volunteer passion of people who simply love good beer. In an era of VIP packages and tiered pricing, the Great Taste remains refreshingly democratic — one ticket, unlimited two-ounce samples, no velvet ropes.