MILLS RIVER, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Cheese-crazed crowds and pickle-passionate people flocked through heavy rain to Mills River Brewing Company this weekend for the brewery’s second annual Cheese and Pickle Festival. The event featured a pickle-bobbing contest, an abundance of fried cheese and vendors hawking pickle wares of all kinds.
The free festival was held at 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, May 23 at Mills River Brewing Co., 336 Banner Farm Road. Business was booming, despite nearly an inch of measured rainfall dumping on the party.
Everything on the festival menu
It seemed like every corner of the Mills River festival was decked out in green and yellow. Behind the balloon-festooned doorway, people packed into the cavernous brewery space. Along one set of tables, a Bloody Mary bar offered all kinds of cheese and pickles for drink adornment. On the right side of the space, employees hustled to deliver steaming trays of burgers, fries and fried cheese to customers. Outside, DJ Jason blasted music as rain pounded down on the hillside. Festival-goers sipped on beers garnished with pickle spears. Around back, vendors sold pickle and cheese-themed products under white tents.
The event may have been elaborate, but its origins were simple.
“We’re just trying to have a fun way to bring customers in the community out and support vendors,” said Riannon McNeil, bartender, manager and event planner for Mills River Brewing Co.
Why pickles?
“Huh? Doesn’t everyone like pickles?” McNeil laughed.
The event planner manned a drink cart with menu items including a “Pickle Martini,” appropriately concocted with two ounces of Rain Vodka.
Vendors reported an excellent turnout, despite the rainy weather.
“Originally, I think they only were gonna have like half the vendors that they were supposed to have, and then they had like seven or eight thousand people say they were interested on Facebook. So, they invited more vendors to come in, and rain or shine, people showed up, that’s for sure,” said Elizabeth Rideout, owner of Sea of Sweets Bakery. “I sold out of sourdough within an hour, sold out of jumbo macarons and my cheesecake mousse pretty recently.”
Rideout took the festival theme as an opportunity to bake several pickle-flavored treats, such as a pickle macaron.
“I made some pickle macarons, so I did a little bit of pickle juice in the shells to give it a little bit of flavor, and I used Grillo’s Pickles, not a bread and butter, so it’s a nice dill flavor. And then the frosting is a cream cheese frosting with a pickled curd, so think lemon curd, but pickles,” Rideout explained.
One vendor, the blind-date-with-a-book business Read Me Unconditionally, prepared their books with pickle decorations for the event. Yet another sold goat cheese to eager passersby.
Pickle carnival
In addition to food, drinks and shopping, there was a carnivalesque atmosphere lent to the festival by curios like a pickle brine dunk tank, a pickle-bobbing competition in an inflatable swimming pool and trophies awarded for the bobbing champion and the best homemade pickles.
Adam Laucher, a Mills River Brewing Co. employee, took on the mighty responsibility of sitting on the “pickle tank” throne.
“I’ve been dunked a few times,” Laucher admitted.
Shortly thereafter, a contestant paid the five dollar fee and sent Laucher into the tank with a deftly-thrown ball.
Pickles to the people
Vendors and Mills River Brewing Co. staff were not the only ones having a good time at the festival. Meredith Williams celebrated her birthday at the brewery with her friends and kids after learning about the festival on Facebook.
“I love cheese and pickles!” Williams exclaimed.
Her sentiment was shared all around.
