The WildEdge Brewing Collective of Cortez was voted People’s Choice brewery during the first annual Pine River Brewfest Saturday at Eagle Park in Bayfield.
The brewfest featured regional brews and barbecue while raising funds for the Be Frank Foundation, which provides music and outdoor education for youths.
Local breweries at the festival were Mancos Brewing Co. and WildEdge Brewing Collective, along with Fenceline Cider of Mancos.
The festival also included the Bottom Shelf Brewery, Ska Brewing and Carver Brewing of Durango, as well as Eddyline of Buena Vista, Golden Block of Silverton, Pagosa Brewing and Riff Raff Brewing of Pagosa Springs, and Telluride Brewing Co.
Fenceline Cider of Mancos, Durango Craft Spirits and Honey House Distillery took ciders and liquor.
The People’s Choice award was the only award given and was decided by voters.
“We won the whole shebang,” WildEdge manager Amy Meyerhofer said Sunday. “It was cool – great music, people from Durango, the Front Range.”
Meyerhofer said WildEdge probably won the vote on the strength of its IPA-9, a New England-style ale, and its Fields Forever, a strawberry sour beer.
The music started at noon, as locals Garrett and Callie Young, Madison Allen and Agave warmed up the crowd for headliners Parsonsfield, a folk and rock band from Connecticut; the River Arkansas, an Americana band from Colorado’s Front Range; and Sam Morrow, a country musician from Los Angeles.
The WildEdge Brewing Collective next plans to take its award-winning beers to the San Juan Brewfest in Durango on Aug. 25.
