Untappd Festival: ”The only thing you sometimes have control over is perspective. You don’t have control over your situation. But you have a choice over how you view it.” -Chris Pine

I can’t begin to express how excited I was when I heard that Untappd was hosting their first ever beer festival in Charlotte at the Bank of America Stadium. I’m new to Charlotte, about 3 years, and although I’m not a football fan, I thought it would be pretty cool to drink beer on a NFL field. Pair that with the line up of breweries, and I was in beer heaven!

I took a Uber down to the stadium with some of my friends that afternoon and I couldn’t wait to get inside. While I was excited about the beer, I think I was even more excited that some of my closest friends and bar patrons had agreed to wear my “Beer Chick” shirt to commemorate the experience.

So there I was, black combat boots, with a black tutu and my “Beer Chick” shirt and I knew I could conquer the world!

The clock striked 3:00pm and we impatiently waited to descend upon the field where “Beer Heaven” awaited us.

I got my cute, yet flimsy tasting glass and was ready to orchestrate my attack. I think my main focus was trying stuff I had never tried before. I was very familiar with Charlotte local breweries, so I really wanted to try some stuff from other places.

I think the first thing that impressed me about the festival was the Jumbotron listing live check-ins on the Untappd app. I had always been terrible at checking in my beers, so why bother today. Lol But to see “Sam’s” face pop up on the screen with, over 800 check-ins really made me feel like crap. Lol

As I went around to different breweries, I honestly don’t think the lines were too long. They moved fairly quickly, and what did you expect at a 13,000 ticketed sold out event!

The storm hit and we left for a bit and then came back once they announced it was safe to re-enter. I think my favorite part about the festival was trying out some of the smaller breweries that were set up outside. There was a lot of great variety, and everyone was so nice and gave generous pours!

Overall, I would not call the Untappd festival the fyrefest of beer fests. I genuinely had a great time with my friends and was able to connect with people and share with them my “Beer Chick” vision.

​Did Untappd execute everything 100%? No. But I think they will learn from the mishaps this time around and make next year even better!

I look forward to attending next year. Checkout some pictures from the festival below.