Sacramento Beer Week: 37 Breweries, the Showcase, and Ten Days of Pours

Thirty-five tents form a horseshoe around the grass at Heart Health Park on the closing Saturday of Sacramento Beer Week, each one a regional brewery pouring whatever they’re proudest of that year. The conversations under the tents are about water chemistry, yeast strains, and the cellar a particular barrel came out of. Pours are four ounces. A band plays on a stage most people stop listening to once the rare beers start coming out. The Brewers Showcase is what a reunion of an entire brewing region looks like with the public let inside the gate.

Table of Contents

• ✦ Key Takeaways
• What Sacramento Beer Week Actually Is
• The Anchor: Sacramento Brewers Showcase at Cal Expo
• 2026 Spotlight Events Worth Building Around
  • Sunrise Sippin’ Passport: LogOff, Movement & Burning Barrel
  • Passport to Pints: A European Tasting Voyage at Geisthaus
  • 2026 Brewers Olympics at New Glory
• More Events Worth Putting on Your Radar
  • Opening Weekend (April 25-26)
    • Fruhlingsfest at Geisthaus
    • Triple P Challenge: Puzzles, Pizza, Pints
    • First Anniversary Party at Moirae
    • Mini Pie + Beer Pairing
    • Classic Car Show at Movement
  • Mid-Week (April 27 – May 1)
    • Drink Like a Judge: Guided Tasting
    • Pints & Pilates
    • Bloody Beer Lab
    • Beer Dinner at Taste Restaurant
    • Stout Float Flight Day
    • Taste of the Galaxy
  • Closing Weekend & Beyond (May 2-4)
    • 2nd Annual LogOff Lagerfest
    • Cinco de Mayo Feast: Beer, Mezcal & Fire
    • Calligraphy Class: Sip & Script
    • Mother’s Day Charcuterie Workshop
    • Bird Watchin’ & Beer
    • Star Wars Trivia & Beer Release
• A Map of the Sacramento Beer Scene
• Brewery Directory by Neighborhood
  • Midtown & Downtown Sacramento
    • Alaro Craft Brewery
    • At Ease Brewing
    • Bike Dog Broadway
    • Mattie Groves
    • New Helvetia Brewing
    • Oak Park Brewing
    • Touchstone Brewing
  • East Sac, North Sac & West Sacramento
    • Bike Dog East Sac
    • Bike Dog West Sacramento
    • DarkHeart Brewing
    • Geisthaus Brewing
    • Jackrabbit Brewing
    • King Cong Brewing
    • New Glory Craft Brewery
    • Porchlight Brewing
  • Auburn & The I-80 Foothills
    • Auburn Alehouse
    • Crooked Lane Brewing
    • Knee Deep Brewing
    • Moonraker Brewing
    • Two Ass Brewing
  • Roseville, Rocklin & Lincoln
    • 5150 Brewing
    • Dueling Dogs Brewing
    • Moksa Brewing
    • The Monk’s Cellar
  • Davis, Yolo & Dixon
    • Blue Note Brewing
    • Dunloe Brewing
    • Ruhstaller Hop Gardens
    • Three Mile Brewing
  • Folsom, Rancho Cordova & the East Side
    • Fort Rock Brewing
    • LogOff Brewing
    • Movement Brewing
    • Red Bus Brewing
  • Outer Ring: Lodi, Vacaville, Garden Valley & Nevada City
    • Barmhaus
    • Flatland Brewing
    • Lodi Beer Company
    • Solano Brewing
    • Three Forks Bakery & Brewery
• A Sacramento Beer Style Primer
• How to Plan Your Beer Week
  • If You Have One Afternoon
  • If You Have a Saturday
  • If You Have a Weekend
  • If You Don’t Drink Much (Or At All)
• Logistics: Getting Around, Eating, and Staying
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Article Updates

I’ve gone intermittently over the years. The breweries show up. The collaboration beers are usually worth tracking. The Showcase itself makes the case for craft beer better than any tasting flight ever has. The rest of the week rewards attention more than volume, which is the inversion most casual drinkers don’t expect when they hear “beer week.”

Sacramento Beer Week 2026 runs April 24 through May 3, with more than a hundred individual events at breweries, taprooms, restaurants, and other businesses from Auburn down to Lodi and out to Davis. This guide is the in-depth companion to the official rollout. The dates that matter, what the Brewers Showcase actually is and how to read its ticket tiers, a directory of every Sacramento Area Brewers Guild member organized by neighborhood, a primer on the beer styles you’ll encounter, a decision tree for how much time to commit, and the logistical stuff (parking, designated drivers, food breaks) that benefits from being collected in one place.

What Sacramento Beer Week Actually Is

Sacramento Beer Week launched in 2010, organized by the Sacramento Area Brewers Guild (a nonprofit founded in 2003 to represent the region’s independent brewers). The format borrowed from older beer weeks in San Diego and Philadelphia: turn ten days into a coordinated regional showcase, let each brewery program its own events, anchor the closing weekend with one big festival where everyone pours together. Sixteen years later, the model still works. Sacramento’s craft beer scene has grown into one of the densest in California, and the week is the only time of year you can sample the whole spectrum without driving four hours of loops.

The shape of the week is consistent year to year. Opening weekend tends to feature firkin nights, brewery anniversaries that brewers schedule to coincide, and the first wave of collaboration beer releases. Mid-week is where the more curated events live: brewer’s table dinners, beer pairings, cellar tappings of vintage barrel-aged pours, food truck takeovers. The closing weekend builds toward the Showcase on Saturday, with most breweries running their biggest single-day pours that morning before pivoting staff to Cal Expo. Sunday is recovery, but several breweries still pour through the afternoon.

What’s worth understanding before you start: this is not a single ticketed event. Beer Week is a loose umbrella under which thirty-some independent breweries each program their own ten days. There is no master ticket. There is no single master app for the week. Each brewery posts its own schedule on its own social channels, and the Sacramento Area Brewers Guild rolls up the bigger picture across its website (sacramentobeerweek.com) and Instagram (@sacramentobeerweek). The thing that makes the week feel cohesive is the Brewers Showcase on Saturday and the shared collaboration beer that the Guild releases each year (recent themes have leaned into “Rising Together” with a different motif annually, including a Star Wars-themed Dark Side / Light Side pairing).

The Anchor: Sacramento Brewers Showcase at Cal Expo

Plan the Showcase before you walk in. Most people try to hit every tent in four hours, which is a fool’s errand and gets you a hangover. The better play is to scout the program ahead of time, identify the seven or eight breweries pouring something special, and let the rest happen by accident. Vintage cellar pours, single-keg collaboration beers, and small-batch sours that never see distribution are common; this is the only afternoon that most of those beers leave the brewery.

The mechanics: Heart Health Park (formerly Hughes Stadium, on the Cal Expo grounds at 1600 Exposition Boulevard) is fenced off for the afternoon, every Sacramento Area Brewers Guild member sets up under tents, and the gate opens for unlimited four-ounce pours. Recent years have featured 35-plus breweries, plus seltzer and cider producers. Live music plays on a stage. Food trucks line the perimeter. Local artisans sell glassware, T-shirts, and the occasional collaboration crowler.

Three ticket tiers, last confirmed at: VIP $60, General Admission $45, Designated Driver $20. VIP gets you in at 2 PM, with a quieter first hour where breweries pour their flagship and rare beers without the crush. GA opens at 3 PM. The event runs until 6 PM. Parking at Heart Health Park is included with your ticket and is the rare Sacramento event where you can park on-site without a separate fee. The 21-and-over rule is enforced and IDs are checked at the gate.

The Star Wars overlap is a thing. The Showcase has, in recent years, leaned into the proximity of “May the Fourth” with a Dark Side / Light Side collaboration beer release, costumed staff, and themed glassware. Whether the 2026 edition continues the bit depends on whether the 2026 Showcase actually falls on May 4 (Monday in 2026, so probably not) or pivots to Saturday May 2 instead. The Sacramento Area Brewers Guild’s Instagram (@sacramentobeerweek) and email address (info@sacareabrewersguild.org) are the best places to confirm the final 2026 date.

2026 Spotlight Events Worth Building Around

Beer Week 2026 is dense with programming, but a handful of events stand out for the format, the partners, or the way they reshape your day around them. Three to put on the calendar, all on the closing weekend:

More Events Worth Putting on Your Radar

The three Spotlight events anchor Beer Week, but the calendar runs more than 80 events deep across 10 days. Here are 17 more worth building a day around. The full list lives at sacramentobeerweek.com and on the Sacramento Brewers Guild Instagram @sacramentobeerweek, both updated through opening weekend.

Opening Weekend (April 25-26)

Mid-Week (April 27 – May 1)

Closing Weekend & Beyond (May 2-4)

A Map of the Sacramento Beer Scene

One of the things that makes Sacramento’s craft beer scene different from, say, San Diego’s or Portland’s is the geographic spread. There is no single “brewery district.” Midtown has a respectable cluster, but the foothills on the I-80 corridor toward Auburn produce some of the region’s most awarded beer (Knee Deep, Moonraker, Auburn Alehouse), Davis has a small but serious scene, and a few outlying breweries (Solano in Vacaville, Three Forks up in Nevada City) are worth the drive on their own. The geographic spread is part of what makes the Brewers Guild’s regional reach so impressive. Here’s the map.

Brewery Directory by Neighborhood

Every brewery below is a Sacramento Area Brewers Guild member and participates in Beer Week each year. Several non-Guild taprooms (Burning Barrel, Movement Backstage, Mindscape Fermentations, the Rancho Cordova Barrel District collective) also program events during the week, and dozens of restaurants and bars across the region run ticketed pairings, tap takeovers, and themed dinners. Addresses are taproom locations; some breweries also have satellite locations not listed here.

Midtown & Downtown Sacramento

The most walkable cluster in the city. You can hit four or five of these on foot in an afternoon if you start at Touchstone and end at New Helvetia.

East Sac, North Sac & West Sacramento

Beyond the grid. Several of these are destinations on their own, especially New Glory and Bike Dog East Sac.

Auburn & The I-80 Foothills

The Auburn cluster punches well above its size. If you’re driving up from Sacramento, you can reasonably hit three of these in a day. Knee Deep and Moonraker between them have shaped what Northern California IPAs taste like.

Roseville, Rocklin & Lincoln

The Highway 65 corridor north of Sacramento. Moksa is the standout if you only have time for one.

Davis, Yolo & Dixon

The west side of the river. Smaller scene than Sacramento proper, but Ruhstaller’s Dixon location alone justifies the drive.

Folsom, Rancho Cordova & the East Side

The US-50 corridor. Movement and Fort Rock anchor the Rancho Cordova industrial-park scene that has quietly become one of the most active.

Outer Ring: Lodi, Vacaville, Garden Valley & Nevada City

Worth the drive if you’re already passing through. Three Forks in Nevada City pairs a brewery with a bakery and is a destination on its own.

A Sacramento Beer Style Primer

Sacramento doesn’t have a single signature style the way some cities do (Portland’s IPA, St. Louis’s lager, Brussels’s lambic). What it has is a cross-section, with the regional bias tilted slightly toward hop-forward beers because of proximity to California’s hop-growing tradition (Ruhstaller actually grows its own hops in Dixon, an increasingly rare integration). What follows is the menu you’ll most often see at Beer Week pours, with notes on what to expect and which Sacramento breweries do each style well.

If you’re new to craft beer entirely, the safest way to start at the Showcase is the pilsner / lager end of the spectrum. They’re the easiest to drink, they tell you the most about a brewery’s basic technique (lagers hide nothing), and after four hours of pours, your palate will thank you for not opening with a triple IPA. Most veteran Beer Week attendees alternate styles by ABV: a 5% pilsner, then a 7% IPA, then a 4% sour, then a 6% lager, repeating. Drinking eight 4-ounce pours of double IPA back to back is a rookie mistake that ends in a 4 PM nap on the Cal Expo lawn.

How to Plan Your Beer Week

The honest framework: ask yourself how much time and how much liver you have. Beer Week rewards a focused plan over a wandering one. Driving from Sacramento up to Auburn and back to hit one event is rarely worth it; clustering two or three breweries in a single neighborhood works much better.

Logistics: Getting Around, Eating, and Staying

Transportation. Sacramento RT light rail does not directly serve Heart Health Park; the closest station is Cal Expo on the Gold Line, about a twelve-minute walk. For Showcase day, plan on Uber or Lyft both directions and budget around $25-35 each way from Midtown. Surge pricing at 6 PM (when the gate empties out) is real and unavoidable. If you have a designated driver, Heart Health Park parking is included with your ticket, which is the rare on-site free parking in town. For mid-week brewery events outside of the Showcase, most Midtown spots are bike-accessible and the Sacramento bike infrastructure is consistently usable. The Auburn cluster requires a car.

Food. Eat before you start drinking. Start with a real Sacramento breakfast rather than a granola bar in the parking lot. The Showcase has food trucks but the lines move slowly and pricing skews toward festival markup. Most brewery taprooms either have full kitchens (Auburn Alehouse, Lodi Beer Co, The Monk’s Cellar) or rotating food trucks that work the Beer Week schedule. The Sacramento restaurant scene is also worth using around brewery stops, and late-night happy hours stretch the dinner window if a brewery closes earlier than your appetite. Midtown in particular has dozens of options within walking distance of the Touchstone / Alaro / Mattie Groves cluster. Don’t try to do a brewery crawl on an empty stomach. The four-ounce pours add up faster than you think.

Lodging if you’re visiting. Midtown hotels (Citizen, Kimpton Sawyer downtown) put you within walking distance of seven or eight breweries and the food scene. Old Sacramento and the Embassy Suites Riverfront are convenient for the Brewers Showcase via a quick rideshare to Cal Expo. If you want to base in Auburn for a foothills-focused trip, the Holiday Inn off I-80 puts you within ten minutes of all five Auburn breweries. For a Davis trip, the Hyatt Place near UC Davis is the most convenient. Book early; Cal Expo events tend to push lodging prices up the closer you get.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is Sacramento Beer Week 2026?

April 24 through May 3, 2026, ten days. The Sacramento Brewers Showcase is the closing-weekend anchor, traditionally on the Saturday within the Beer Week window (which would be May 2, 2026). Confirm with the Sacramento Area Brewers Guild on Instagram (@sacramentobeerweek) before you book travel.

How much does Sacramento Beer Week cost?

Most events are walk-in and free to enter. You pay only for what you pour. The Brewers Showcase is the main ticketed event: $45 General Admission, $60 VIP, $20 Designated Driver. A few mid-week dinners and ticketed pairings add cost ranging from $40 to $100 depending on the brewery. Budget $100-200 for a weekend that includes the Showcase plus a few brewery stops.

Do I need tickets in advance for the Brewers Showcase?

Yes. The Showcase has historically sold out (or come close to it) in the final week before the event. VIP tickets sell out first, often a week or more out. General Admission is usually available until a few days prior. Designated Driver tickets are typically available at the gate. Buy through sacramentobeerweek.com or via the Sacramento Area Brewers Guild’s official ticketing partner.

Is Sacramento Beer Week 21 and over only?

The Brewers Showcase is strictly 21+ and IDs are checked at the gate. Individual brewery events vary; many breweries are family-friendly during normal hours, and several program kid-friendly Beer Week events (food trucks, live music, paint nights) where children are welcome. Check each brewery’s social media or website for specific event policies.

How many breweries are in the Sacramento Area Brewers Guild?

Thirty-seven member breweries as of 2026, spread from Nevada City and Auburn down through Sacramento, Davis, Lodi, and Vacaville. Several non-Guild taprooms (Burning Barrel, Movement Backstage, Mindscape Fermentations, the Rancho Cordova Barrel District collective) also program events during Beer Week. The Sacramento region has more breweries per capita than any major California metro outside San Diego.

Where is the Brewers Showcase held?

Heart Health Park (formerly Hughes Stadium) on the Cal Expo grounds, 1600 Exposition Boulevard, Sacramento. Free on-site parking is included with every ticket tier. The venue is enclosed by a perimeter fence, with multiple gates controlling entry to the VIP area and the main floor.

What kinds of events run during the week, beyond the Showcase?

The full programming spans firkin nights (cask-conditioned pours), brewer’s table dinners, beer pairings with chefs, vintage cellar tappings, food truck takeovers, live music nights, art markets, charity fundraisers, and themed events ranging from karaoke to puppy adoption fairs. Each brewery sets its own schedule. The variety is the point.

Where do I find the official 2026 event calendar?

The Sacramento Area Brewers Guild rolls out the official Beer Week calendar at sacramentobeerweek.com and on its Instagram account (@sacramentobeerweek) in the run-up to opening weekend, with #SBW2026 as the official hashtag. Once the week is underway, the most current information lives on each individual brewery’s own Instagram, where they post their daily event lineup, food truck rotations, and special pours. Following four or five of the breweries closest to you is the most efficient way to stay current.

What is the best brewery for someone new to craft beer?

For a soft introduction, head to a brewery with a wide stylistic range and food on-site: Auburn Alehouse, New Helvetia, or The Monk’s Cellar in Roseville all fit that profile. They each pour something approachable across pilsner, lager, IPA, and seasonal offerings, and a full kitchen helps you pace yourself. Avoid starting at Moonraker or Knee Deep if you don’t already enjoy hop-forward beers; they’re spectacular at what they do, but it’s a deep end of the pool.

Are there alternatives to Sacramento Beer Week if I miss it?

The California Brewers Festival, presented by Point West Rotary, runs in September at Cesar Chavez Plaza in downtown Sacramento and follows a similar single-day-festival format with most of the same Guild breweries pouring. The Sacramento Republic FC’s BrewFest at the Cal Expo soccer matches is a smaller seasonal option. Otherwise, individual brewery anniversaries and release events run throughout the year; following four or five of your favorite breweries on Instagram is the easiest way to stay current.

Article Updates

April 25, 2026: Initial publication. Sacramento Beer Week 2026 dates confirmed (April 24 through May 3). Brewers Showcase ticket pricing reflects last-confirmed numbers from the Sacramento Area Brewers Guild. All thirty-seven Sacramento Area Brewers Guild member breweries listed and verified against the Guild directory at sacareabrewersguild.org/breweries/. Three closing-weekend spotlight events added on day-of: the Sunrise Sippin’ Passport across LogOff, Movement, and Burning Barrel in Rancho Cordova; the Passport to Pints European tasting at Geisthaus benefiting the Brewers Guild; and the second annual Brewers Olympics at New Glory.