8 Beer Festivals Worth Traveling for That Aren’t Oktoberfest

St. Patrick's Day is to Ireland what Oktoberfest is to Germany—a celebration of beer and heritage. Ireland honors the cultural and religious holiday with parades, pub crawls, music, and food. There's perhaps no better place to raise a pint than Dublin's Guinness Storehouse at St. James' Gate, which hosts a weekend St. Patrick's beer festival each year. A silky pint of black Guinness straight from the source pairs perfectly with the live music and Irish food the factory offers exclusively during this celebration.

The four-day festival is walking distance from Dublin's best pubs and sites, including the Old Jameson Distillery and the Brazen Head—Ireland's oldest pub (established 1198). Or, simply lounge at Guinness's top-floor Gravity Bar for sprawling, 360-degree views of the celebrating city.

For a stateside beer festival that packs the best culinary offerings and craft beer, head to the Portland Brewers Festival, celebrated every July. As the top food and drink city in America, Portland boasts a massive brewing scene that culminates at this "pilgrimage to Beervana" held during one of the Pacific Northwest's few dry months.

The four-day festival draws more than 80 craft brewers and 80,000 attendees. Like Oktoberfest, it isn't ticketed. Anyone can attend and purchase a $7 plastic souvenir mug to be filled again and again throughout the festival—each full pour costs $4. The 2017 Brewers Festival will be Portland's 30th, making it one of the longest-running U.S. craft beer festivals in the country.

Live entertainment, artisan vendors, food carts, and, of course, beer tastings, make it a must-experience event. You'll even see beer drinkers in lederhosen, as if Oktoberfest were rescheduled for summer in Oregon.

Stuttgart's autumnal celebrations of beer and carnival are near-identical to Munich's Oktoberfest, making it the world's second-largest beer festival. Like Oktoberfest, Cannstatter Volksfest offers German beer tents, food vendors, live oompah music, and family-friendly carnival rides. It was founded only a few years after Oktoberfest, and both festivals are free to enter and attract millions of people every year.

Oktoberfest is bigger thanks to its international reputation, and draws six million people. Stuttgart is in many ways the festival road less traveled: About four million people attend, and tents aren't typically packed to the brim before noon. You'll have plenty of elbow room to prost and lots of time to try all the food and drink you'd like. This festival is still massive, but lacks the rowdy crowds Oktoberfest has become known for. It's still wise to reserve spots in a beer tent if you go, but it's not a necessity like it is in Munich.

Denver does many things well—ski resorts, hiking trails, culinary offerings, and wineries included—but beer might be its most beloved. Denver is home to the Great American Beer Festival in October: a brewery festival and competition that typically sells out every year within an hour of tickets going on sale.

Founded in 1982, the three-day Great American Beer Festival brings together the largest collection of beer in the country, and includes tastings, food and beer pairings, educational classes and panels, and 96 styles of beer.

Welcome summer with a world-famous beer festival in Prague, the quirky, hard-partying capital of the Czech Republic—which also happens to be the birthplace of pilsner. Eastern Europe boasts incredible craft beers, and Prague reportedly consumes the most beer per-capita in the world.

And it shows at the Czech Beer Festival: The 17-day celebration draws tourists and locals alike for culinary offerings and beer from dozens of Czech breweries. Hoist a stein in the balmy spring weather and enjoy much more than just beer—this brew festival also serves up wine, coffee, cocktails, and non-alcoholic drinks, plus local cuisine. It's sure to have something for everyone.

Halfway between bustling Los Angeles and hip San Francisco lies a little-known craft-beer haven. San Luis Obispo is the birthplace of the California Festival of Beers, and home to SLO Craft Beer Fest. The Craft Beer Fest is held every February and makes for the perfect beer and food-filled getaway.

San Luis Obispo also features one of the only craft breweries that will let you stay the night: SLO Brew, a brewery complete with a music venue and just-opened SLO Lofts for a truly beer-centric experience. Just head upstairs after a tasting or show—no designated driver needed.

This wouldn't be an honest list if it didn't include Germany more than once. And while Munich and Stuttgart certainly top any collection of beer festivals, it'd be a mistake to leave out gritty Berlin's International Beer Festival.

The sprawling event takes place every August and features more than 300 breweries from about 85 countries to make the world's longest beer garden—2.2 kilometers separated into 22 different beer regions. The madness only lasts two days, but it includes plenty of live music, food vendors, drinking, dancing, and lederhosen.

Sam Adams may come to mind when you think of Boston beer, but Harpoon Brewery is actually the city's biggest. It hosts the semi-annual American Craft Beer Fest and a two-day Octoberfest with strong German influences each September.

The last weekend of September in Boston's Seaport sees more crowds than usual thanks to Harpoon's steady offering of outdoor beer tents complete with lively oompah bands in lederhosen, authentic sausage and bratwurst, and all the craft beer you can comfortably drink—including Harpoon's sought-after IPAs and seasonally brewed Octoberfest.