Why settle for a jack-o-lantern when you can have a well-over-a-thousand pound pumpkin filled with pumpkin beer? If Pumpkin Spice Lattes and grocery store pumpkin carving kits are too tame for your fall taste, make the pilgrimage to the great, big pumpkin at the Great Pumpkin Beer Festival in Seattle and drink from the spout stuck into this massive gourd. If we haven’t been clear, this is a pumpkin and beer festival, and the Big Pumpkin is flanked by 80 other seasonally (read: pumpkin) flavored beers and ciders produced by brewers from around the country. It also hosts a pumpkin growing competition where regional farmers who grow with the goal of girth have their bounty officially weighed. Top prize goes to the biggest pumpkin and, as we’ve established, pumpkins can get pretty freaking big. The biggest pumpkin in the competition is the one hollowed out and filled with beer. Attendees come decked out in every shade of orange you can imagine: pumpkin suit orange, astronaut suit orange, jail jumper orange all flash in the crowd. Make no mistake, this event put on each year by Elysian Brewing and The Vera Project is a party party, equipped with a DJ and much drunken debauchery, and you must be 21 or older to attend. All proceeds go to The Vera Project, a nonprofit that supports youth through art and music programs.
Specs
- Single day tickets cost $30 and two day tickets cost $50. Both come with at least six drink tickets. If you don’t want to drink, you can buy a Designated Driver ticket for $5.