Ticket sales open for Bendigo On The Hop

THE ever-popular Bendigo On The Hop annual self-guided Winter Craft Beer Festival is back for another round this August, with super-keen ale enthusiasts and their cohort able to get their hands on tickets from today.

Since its first incarnation in 2014 the festival has maintained an unrivalled level of popularity, while at the same time striving to remain sustainable.

Hence, in recent years the capped number of tickets have sold out well in advance of the occasion.

Chris Adkins, chair of Bendigo Beer, the not-for-profit founding organisation and operator of the event, said the ongoing success of the day is thanks to several factors.

“We’ve seen a couple of different festivals try to grow relatively rapidly and get a little bit too big, which we haven’t tried to do,” he said.

“I think the other thing has been the festival itself (is) very unique.

“That’s been a big part of it, because there really aren’t any other events like this, where you’re going around, seeing different venues and parts of the town, and having different breweries in each of them.

“Plus, we have a focus not just on independent beer, but we will often have a lot of more local and regional breweries too, not just within the central Victoria area, but particularly within Victoria itself.

“I think that strikes a chord as well, where we’re not trying to reach too far.”

As a not-for-profit organisation, Bendigo Beer relies on the assistance of volunteers to run the craft beer extravaganza, of which Mr Adkins said there’s always room for more.

“There’s a (great) group who get involved every single year and we always have a few newbies as well coming through, which we always love to see,” he said.

“If they volunteer for the first half of the (day), they get a free ticket to enjoy the second half themselves.

“For those people (on the second shift), we’ll always try and shout them a couple of beers at the venue that they’re helping out at (and) we always take care of them at the after party.”

Bendigo On The Hop 2025 takes place on Saturday 30 August from 11am to 6pm at numerous venues around town.

Tickets are available from 10am today via the Bendigo Beer website, where anyone can also register as a volunteer.

Further details regarding participating venues and breweries will be announced in the coming weeks.