Muskoka 2/4 craft beer festival brings spring crowds to Huntsville
River Mill Park packed in spring beer fans as Muskoka 2/4 paired more than 50 craft beers with music, games and local food in downtown Huntsville.
River Mill Park again turned Huntsville into a spring beer stop on Saturday, May 16, when the Muskoka 2/4 Craft Beer Festival ran from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. with more than 50 craft beers, live music, games and food vendors from local businesses.
Organized by the Huntsville/Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce, the festival sits squarely in the Chamber’s push for downtown activation, tourism revenue and local business exposure. The Chamber, which says it has more than 600 members, treats the beer fest as one of its flagship signature events, and that matters in a market where breweries are competing for attention beyond the taproom. At a one-day event on the Muskoka River in downtown Huntsville, producers get a direct line to drinkers who might not otherwise make the trip to every brewery, while local food businesses and vendors get the same regional audience.
Hallie Clover, the Chamber’s executive director, said, “We are super excited, this is the kickoff to summer.” The festival’s own description framed the day the same way, calling it a beer festival “smashed together with music, food and a full day of fun.” That mix is the point. Festivals like this do more than move samples across a counter, because they package beer with a place, a soundtrack and a reason to linger.
The Muskoka 2/4 has done that before. A 2019 report said the fourth annual festival drew more than 1,500 people to River Mill Park, with more than 20 beer, cider and distillery vendors coming from as far away as Montréal, Sudbury and Georgian Bay, alongside eight local food vendors. An earlier 2022 listing said the event featured 15 breweries pouring more than 50 craft beers, a sign that the formula has stayed consistent even as the crowd and the lineup have shifted year to year.
That staying power fits the wider Ontario beer picture. A 2022 report commissioned by the Ontario Craft Brewers Association counted 414 craft beer businesses in the province and said bricks-and-mortar breweries are present in communities where more than 90% of Ontarians live. Another provincial industry report said the number of breweries grew from fewer than 100 in 2010 to more than 320 by 2019. Against that backdrop, a spring festival in Huntsville is not just a seasonal outing. It is part of how local beer keeps showing up where the crowd already is.
Know something we missed? Have a correction or additional information?
Submit a Tip
