Location(s) Belgrade, Serbia | Years active 2003 - present | |
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Genre rock, pop, world music, electronic music Dates Five days, in August each year. | ||
Belgrade Beer Fest (Serbian: Beogradski festival piva, Београдски фестивал пива or Бир фест) is an annual festival of beer in Belgrade, Serbia. Started in 2003, the festival is held annually over 4 to 5 days as a showcase event for various beer producers. In addition to domestic and foreign brews, the festival features live music performances each evening. It has quickly grown in size and popularity: in 2004, it attracted over 75,000 foreign visitors to Belgrade and in 2005 it was the second most visited festival in Serbia with 300,000 visitors. In 2009 it attracted more than 650,000 visitors, and in 2010 the festival attracted about 900,000 visitors.
Contents
The festival entrance is free.
Accolades
On December 31, 2005 the British newspaper The Independent named Belgrade Beer Fest "one of the worldwide events to visit in 2006".
Incidents
On the last day of the 2007 edition of the festival, August 19, 2007, the body of a 22-year-old Branko Jovanović from Belgrade was found dead and partially consumed in the bear cage at the Belgrade Zoo (also located at the Fortress). It is believed that the man, possibly drunk or drugged, may have fallen from a restaurant overlooking the bear cage, which is an open-air structure, with no roof. Two adult bears had dragged the man's body to the feeding corner of the cage. The investigation department of the court claimed that there were no indications that the young man was murdered. Subsequently, the next year's edition of the festival was relocated from the Fortress.
On August 20, 2011, one attacker randomly stabbed eight visitors of the festival with a knife. He was later identified as Ljubomir Trifunović from Belgrade, and was sentenced to seven years in prison.