The Belgrade Beer Fest ( sr, Београдски фестивал пива, Beogradski festival piva) is an annual
festival of beer in
Belgrade
Belgrade ( , ;, ; names in other languages) is the capital and largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. Nearly 1,166,763 mi ...
,
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hu ...
. Started in 2003, the
festival
A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...
is held annually over five days each August as a showcase event for various
beer
Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...
producers. In addition to domestic and foreign brews, the festival features live music performances each evening.
It has quickly grown in size and popularity: in 2004, it attracted over 75,000 foreign visitors to Belgrade and in 2005 it was the second most visited festival in Serbia with 300,000 visitors. In 2009 it attracted more than 650,000 visitors, and in 2010 the festival attracted about 900,000 visitors.
The festival entrance is free.
No festival was held in 2020.
History
Accolades
On December 31, 2005 the
British newspaper ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'' named Belgrade Beer Fest "one of the worldwide events to visit in 2006".
Incidents
On 19 August 2007, the last day of the 2007 Belgrade Beer Fest at Kalemegdan Fortress, the body of 22-year-old Branko Jovanović from Belgrade was found lifeless and partially consumed in a
Belgrade Zoo bear cage (also located at the Fortress). It is believed that the man, possibly under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, may have fallen from a restaurant overlooking the
bear
Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the No ...
cage, an open-air structure with no roof. Two adult bears had dragged the man's body to the feeding corner of the cage.
The investigation department of the court claimed that there were no indications that the young man was murdered. Subsequently, the following year's 2008 edition of the festival was relocated from the Fortress.
On 20 August 2011, an attacker randomly stabbed eight visitors of the festival with a knife. Later identified as Ljubomir Trifunović from Belgrade, the attacker was sentenced to seven years in prison.
See also
*
Beer in Serbia
References
External links
Belgrade Beer Fest- Official website
{{Rock festival
Annual fairs
Music festivals in Serbia
Beer festivals in Serbia
Fairs in Serbia
Tourist attractions in Belgrade
Entertainment in Belgrade
Annual events in Serbia
2003 establishments in Serbia
Music in Belgrade
Music festivals established in 2003
Summer events in Serbia
New Belgrade