High Hopes Foundation makes NH its focus at Bacon & Beer Festival
The High Hopes Foundation is a nonprofit organization committed to providing life-enhancing assistance that promotes independence, inclusion and fun for New Hampshire’s chronically ill children. According to High Hopes’ Lisa Rourke, for the past decade the answer to getting buy-in from the community has come down to two factors: beer and bacon.
On Saturday, June 6, High Hopes will host its 10th annual NH Bacon & Beer Festival in Manchester’s Arms Park.
“This is really New Hampshire’s premier all-inclusive event,” Rourke said. “It includes all-inclusive tastings of craft brews, cider, seltzer, all-inclusive tastings of the bacon creations we have going on, and live music.” For Rourke, the key term here is “all-inclusive.”
“I’ve done my due diligence,” she said. “I’ve visited other beer fests to see what’s been going on. I’ve always had a great time, but then I’d get hungry and I’ve had to go pay for food. Not here. The general admission ticket prices are $70, but you don’t take out your wallet once you get in. The food is included, the drinks are included, it’s all included.”
“The High Hopes Foundation exists to serve the state of New Hampshire only,” Rourke said, and that is represented in the food and drink at the festival. “There will be more than 20 local restaurants, and food truck vendors participating. There are about 60 local brewers and makers of cider and seltzers. They all come together to support the Foundation and our mission. We award a people’s choice prize for the best bacon sample. It’s fun to see those guys get real creative. Over the years, we’ve come a long way from a bacon jam and now we’re up to dishes like inside-out pork belly and bacon-wrapped dumplings. It’s been really fun to see those guys having fun and getting really competitive with it over the years.”
Rourke said that because one of the organizers’ main priorities is to focus on the attendees’ good time, the restaurants coming up with these bacon dishes never present them to a panel of judges. “It’s all the people’s choice,” she said. “We have about 1,500 attendees [who] come to the event,” and feeding them something great is critical.
“I think food just brings people together,” she said, “and certainly, especially in the Manchester area, there’s some culinary greatness coming out of there. And we’re excited about a lot of the restaurants we have this year, like Campo Enoteca, Stashbox, and Industry East; those guys are just so good at their craft. And they’re really good at ramping up the crowd. They’re just fun people to be around. For all of us, I think it’s more about getting together over great dishes than anything else, and just coming together for the good of the community and having a great time.”
Rourke said the Bacon & Beer Festival has become the unofficial launching point of the food festival season.
“The other thing I like about this festival,” she said, “is we promote it as a kickoff to summer. So you can go sample from 60 different breweries and figure out what they have that’s new and fresh and that you want to bring to the lake with you all summer. We hope. that attendees have a great time, that they feel good about their ticket proceeds going to a nonprofit that supports our state. And we hope that attendees get to experience different vendors within our state and what they have to offer and hopefully remember them and visit them after the festival.”
And that they eat a lot of bacon.
10th Annual NH Bacon & Beer Festival
When: Saturday, June 6, from 1:30 to 5 p.m., with last pours at 4:30 p.m.
Where: Arms Park, 10 Arms St., Manchester
Tickets: General admission tickets cost $70 in advance or $80 at the gate if they are still available. A three-hour session includes continuous 3.5-ounce brew tastings from 60 brewers. More: nhbaconbeer.com
Featured photo: Lucky Pig BBQ. Courtesy photo.