The Trigger Agency’s Beer, Bourbon, and BBQ Festival will return to National Harbor, Maryland this June 17-18. This event brings a ton of people together to sample, well, you guessed it, beer, bourbon, and BBQ. How can you go wrong?

Friday and Saturday each have different events. For example, Friday night you can attend the “Whole Pig Pickin’” while Saturday has a number of different kinds of bacon for VIPs to sample.

There are a number of different types of tickets to this event, including VIP tickets for Friday night, regular and VIP tickets for Saturday, and the “Grand Poobah” ticket which gets you into both. You can read about the differences between these tickets on the site, but the long story short is that the VIP ticket for Saturday costs more money but gets you two extra hours of sampling. Sampling, by the way, is unlimited for the beers and bourbons, so bring lots of Gatorade. The drink menu looks pretty good this year and seems to feature more craft beer than it has in years past. That isn’t to say you won’t find some macrobrews floating around in there.

It seems like this is a good time to point out that the BBQ portion of the Beer, Bourbon, and BBQ festival is not included in the price of the ticket. There are a number of different BBQ vendors and teams there that you can purchase food from a la carte, so be prepared for that.

For those of you who haven’t had the joy of traveling to National Harbor, it’s kind of in an odd location. There are a number of ways to get there, by car, shuttle, or water taxi. I’ve done all three, but the water taxi has been the best so far. Yes you have to get down to Old Town Alexandria, but it’s a nice ride and that salt alt really gives you an appetite. The shuttle, when last I took it, was extremely poorly run, ran infrequently, and was a huge headache. I don’t recommend it (there’s a pro-tip for all of you out there).

Sponsorship

Anyway, the Beer, Bourbon, and BBQ festival is a good time. Yes it’s crowded, but it’s a pretty fun time filled with three of life’s great pleasures and live music to boot. Fortunately, it’s pretty well run. This is at least the third or fourth year they’ve hosted this, and it is managed smoothly. Worth a trip if you’re interested in spending a whole day sipping bourbon and beer and gnawing on pork.

Have you been to Beer, Bourbon, and BBQ in the past? Would you recommend going again? Let us know in the comments!