
You can enter the festival area from several spots, with two main ones opposite each other. You start with the free to enter section featuring all sorts of vendors before and around the pay to enter section. There was a great variety of these ranging from Kentucky Proud items, crafts & artisans, jewelry, woodworking, clothing, direct sales companies, political, community, and businesses. There were several farmer market offerings including lots of samples, homemade jellies, candy, barbecue sauce, hot sauce, spice mixes, and more, so bring a good size bag to shop and maybe a cooler for beer cheese, produce, or meat. We also noticed what looked to be a motorcycle and off-road vendor off to one side street. Several commercial beer cheese vendors had merchandise like t-shirts and cozy with their logos for sale and some vendors in the free section gave away freebies including water or sold refreshingly cold bottles of another Winchester original, Ale-8, for just a dollar!
When you get to the star of the show, Beer Cheese Boulevard, you pay $5 cash each for a wristband and voting ticket, then follow a line down and around to just under 10 commercial vendors, most offering more than one kind of beer cheese with crackers, pretzels, and one also offered carrots or celery. We had such fun sampling and found it hard to choose just one top favorite each!
The free part of the festival had a small food court option, mostly typical festival food and at least one had beer cheese themed offerings. There was also a small beer garden area and a few places selling ice cream or other cold treats. We got so full from tasting beer cheese plus various samples from vendors in the free areas, that we didn't end up buying lunch after all. We bought ice cream and fresh squeezed lemonade, which offered regular and sugar free options. There was live music in at least two areas and a DJ at the courthouse who played family friendly songs from a variety of decades.

The whole event felt family friendly except, understandably, the beer garden, and that there wasn’t any designated smoking or no-smoking areas. Everything is pretty spread out so even though well attended it didn't feel shoulder to shoulder crowded. Waiting in line for the beer cheese samples moved along at a decent place and chatting with fellow beer cheese lovers was a great way to pass the time. The vendors were personable and very nice to our child. We noticed an inflatable and some sort of swing and other rides off to one or two side streets, but didn’t venture farther to check that part out more because our kiddo was quite happy already. The festival had outstanding directional signage, which made it easy to get around. We saw a good amount of police officers so felt even more secure than we already did with the friendly atmosphere.

By guest contributor: Angela
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