THAT’S A WRAP! OUR 2022 SUMMER HIGHLIGHTS
That’s a wrap on Summer 2022! How is it already fall in the mountains? Summer is always short and sweet in the high country and this summer was especially sweet! Here are a few of our favorite highlights from another memorable summer in the mountains.
BACON AND BOURBON HIGHLIGHTS
Our first and most delicious festival of the summer, Bacon & Bourbon Festival, was full of salty and sweet surprises around every corner. What were our favorite updates to the event this year?
GRILLZEBO
This year we brought more bacon and pulled out the Camp Chef Grills to cook every bacon strip in the heart of the festival. We constructed our very own Grillzebo to cook all those delicious bacon strips right under your noses.
Grill + Gazebo = Grillzebo – (n.) A fireproof, weatherproof structure made specifically for safe, outdoor grilling in any weather.
Shout out to our awesome Operations department for designing and constructing our very own in-house, Bacon Grillzebo!
HELL’S BELLES
Bacon and Bourbon Festival 2022 also brought the much-anticipated return of the bacon festival classic, Hell’s Belle’s, an all-female, ACDC Cover Band hailing from Seattle. These ladies rocked the main stage on Saturday afternoon and were definitely a highlight of summer 2022!
WINE AND JAZZ HIGHLIGHTS
This classic event is the pinnacle of July festivals in the mountains and is always a highlight of the summer. We kept Keystone classy with free live jazz music at the wine tasting event featuring wine, food, beer, and spirits.
Saturday of Keystone Wine & Jazz Festival featured Jessy J, an American saxophonist who is touring her 2022 album, Blue. Jessy J is no stranger to Keystone Festivals, but this year she and her band came back with a tangible energy that spiced up the busy afternoon in the mountains. Festival guests of all ages picked up on her fun-loving energy that helped us dance the afternoon away!
TOYOTA REFRESHERS
A new favorite festival booth and highlight of 2022, Toyota brought the refreshment with free, ice-cold drinks down by Ina’s Bridge at several festivals this summer. These fruit and veggie-infused, non-alcoholic drinks brought cool moments to a hot summer, and helped us all stay a little more hydrated at the wine sampling event of the summer!
BLUEGRASS AND BEER HIGHLIGHTS
This summer marked the 25th anniversary of this craft beer event in Keystone. We mixed old traditions with new twists to create a huge celebration for beer lovers from all corners!
Dewey Beer Co
While we love our local breweries who pour at this festival every year, it’s fun to spice it up with new brewery participants, and that’s just what Dewery Beer Co did in 2022! Hailing from Delaware Beach, Dewey Beer Co brought their whole crew and made the most out of their trip out here to the high Rockies. To top off this east-coast brewery’s Keystone debut, Dewey Beer Co also won best brewery at the festival by popular vote! It’s always a highlight of our summer to see newcomers embrace the Keystone lifestyle, and we hope to have these guys back in 2023!
Kitchen Dwellers
‘Wow,’ is all we can say about Kitchen Dwellers’ Sunday set at Keystone Bluegrass & Beer Festival 2022! Not only was this band a highlight of the festival, they were a highlight of the whole summer. Fans came from near and far to convene in River Run Village for Kitchen Dwellers Keystone Festivals debut, making for an unforgettable Sunday at the 25th anniversary of the bluegrass festival.
OKTOBERFEST HIGHLIGHTS
Oktoberfest is the cherry on top of the summer festival season where we celebrate Labor Day Weekend and the love of beer. If you’ve never been to this one-day event, stop by and make a new friend next year! Prost!
Stein Hoisting
Since debuting the 3 different stein hoisting contests (mens’, womens’ and kids’) at Keystone Oktoberfest in 2019, the competitions have grown in popularity each year and have become a cornerstone of the final event in Keystone Festivals’ summer lineup.
While we are still
fine-tuning our hoisting judging skills, it is fun to see the competitiveness ramp up a little bit more each year as contestants train in advance and return to try to defend their titles. An added bonus to this festival highlight? The hilarious pictures that come out of the yearly contest!
What was your 2022 summer highlight in Keystone? There were so many other memorable mountain moments this year, it’s hard to choose!
Watch the summer wrap up video here to see the moving moments of summer 2022.