New Raleigh beer festival draws capacity crowd as Brewgaloo returns

A new downtown Raleigh beer festival filled Raleigh Brewing to capacity Saturday, offering the clearest test yet of whether the backlash over Shop Local Raleigh executive director Jennifer Martin’s comments about transgender youth had created a real alternative to Brewgaloo.

The inaugural Y’all Means All North Carolina Beer Festival ran from noon to 5 p.m. at Raleigh Brewing Co. and was a joint effort between the brewery and Erica Vogel, owner of the Rolesville boutique Be Like Missy. Vogel said the event grew out of a desire to create an inclusive space, and more than a dozen local breweries signed on. The festival’s social media post said it had reached capacity, a strong turnout for a first-time event built around inclusion as much as beer.

Cat Pearce, Raleigh Brewing’s events and communications coordinator, said the festival was about community and small businesses during a difficult period for the industry. That message appeared to resonate with breweries looking to signal where they stand, and with customers willing to spend their money accordingly. Bond Brothers Brewing in Cary said its participation matched its values, and Whit Baker said, “We support being inclusive, so that was an easy choice,” while noting that the brewery is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

The new festival emerged after Martin’s comments sparked broad backlash in Raleigh’s small-business community. Some businesses called for her resignation, and an online petition gathered hundreds of signatures. Shop Local Raleigh later said it is dedicated to a culture of diversity, inclusion and respect, but the controversy had already split attention across a beer weekend that put two different models of downtown entertainment on display.

Brewgaloo returned to Fayetteville Street the same weekend with nearly 80 breweries, about 45 food trucks, dozens of vendors and live music. Shop Local Raleigh describes Brewgaloo as a two-day celebration that showcases up to 80 craft breweries from across North Carolina and draws more than 50,000 attendees downtown. That scale still dwarfs the newcomer, but Y’all Means All’s instant capacity crowd showed there is consumer demand for a different kind of festival, one that pairs the local craft-beer economy with a more explicit values test.

For Raleigh and Wake County, the split weekend was more than a beer crawl. It was a live market signal about which institutions can still command loyalty, which breweries customers want to support, and how quickly one controversy can create a competing event that fills up almost as soon as it opens.