Author: John Fladd

Northeast Coffee Festival spans the coffee spectrum

Karen Bassett is the owner of Wayfarer Coffee Roasters in Laconia. She is also the director of this weekend’s Northeast Coffee Festival in Concord.

“This is actually Year 5 [of the Festival],” she said, “but it is the third year in Concord. The Northeast Coffee Festival is a hybrid-type event which brings both coffee professionals and coffee consumers together. It’s a two-day festival in Concord. There are two parts of the festival. One of them is the outdoor Community Market, and that is free and open to the public. It includes over 30 vendors, so coffee, tea, some pottery, some community vendors. We also have a massive main stage right on Main Street for a live music series; there will be live music and DJs all weekend. We have food trucks. We have a beer garden. We have an outdoor demo stage for coffee demonstrations, which is really cool. So that’s all outside and free and open to the public.”

The other half of the Festival, Bassett said, is designed around the interests of coffee professionals and avid amateurs.

“On both Friday and Saturday,” she said, “the other part of the festival is our educational programming. We have brought in 55 speakers from all over, really all over, lots of New England coffee and tea professionals, and have curated an educational series of workshops, panels, small group discussions, demonstrations, hands-on learning across seven different workshop tracks. We have workshop tracks about roasting, cupping (which is coffee tasting), sensory, espresso and tea. We have a panel track and then we have a ‘Beyond the Cup,’ small kind of casual conversations on a specific topic. It’s all pretty incredible.”

Bassett said the Coffee Festival’s organizers have made it a priority to be inclusive.

“There’s some high-level education,” she said, “but there is something for everyone, no matter where you’re at in your coffee journey or tea journey. Each workshop is indicated if it’s for beginners, intermediate, or advanced coffee drinkers. So you can curate a choose-your-own-adventure-style workshop.” It’s set up for professionals who are producing coffee, she said, but also for enthusiasts who are drinking it, and some people just like the concept of coffee.

“That’s what makes this festival really unique and special. Many industries have their own trade show, you can go and you can be in a convention center with thousands of vendors, And while that certainly has a place, this festival’s mission is to bring coffee and community together. And so we’re really trying to form real connections and provide opportunities to network between coffee producers, coffee importers, coffee roasters, and tea as well, of course. And baristas and people who just love coffee. So it’s kind of spanning that whole supply chain all the way like from the seed to cup.”

Some of the most popular sessions each year, Bassett said, are advanced latte workshops. “That’s always super well attended,” she said. “That’s the fun — you see on social media, people pouring these beautiful designs in their lattes. That just kind of brings people from all across. the industry. That’s a lot of fun, especially for baristas and consumers and people who visit local coffee shops. We also have sessions on how to brew better coffee at home. I think that one’s a great one for someone kind of entering this and maybe like, ‘oh, I don’t know what ones are for me.’ That one’s a great one for people to come to. The list could go on and on. If you’re a cafe owner, there’s a lot of ones about how to just run a better business, how to kind of lead from your heart, how to build a good culture, how to build a training program.”

The Northeast Coffee Festival
When: Friday, May 15, and Saturday, May 16
Where: Main Street in Concord
More: Many of the event’s activities are free and open to the public. Tickets to attend sessions and workshops are $99 each, through the Festival’s website. Visit northeastcoffeefestival.com/passes.

Featured photo: Coffee Festival. Courtesy photo.

Tickets sell out fast for this big food event

“I call it the Poutine Super Bowl,” Tim Beaulieu said, “especially in New Hampshire. This is where it all started.” Beaulieu is the founder and organizer of New Hampshire’s PoutineFest, an annual celebration of everything poutine. Poutine, a French Canadian dish made from french fries, gravy and cheese curds, is a staple of New Hampshire’s Franco-American community. “It was my grandfather who inspired me to get involved in [Franco-American] culture, and after seeing what they did with poutine in Montreal I realized, ‘Oh, my god, we have to do that here.”

“So we took some of those pieces from Montreal up in Quebec,” Beaulieu said, “and made them a little bit more New England-y. Essentially, [PoutineFest] is a big poutine sampling event that is family-friendly. We have entertainment. But mostly we have local restaurants, pretty much all from New Hampshire, to see how their poutine compares to each other. We have a couple that come up from Mass and a couple that come over from Maine, but the New Hampshire event is primarily New Hampshire-based. We do have sister events in other states now … in Vermont, Maine, and this year for the first time the city of Boston. So we’re calling this event the Granite State PoutineFest now, and it’s kind of the flagship of all of them.”

For many years, Beaulieu said, PoutineFest was held at the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Merrimack, but since the brewery’s closing last year the festival has changed its location and its schedule.

“So Aug. 29 is when it’s going to be this year,” he said. “We used to do it in October for probably four or five years after Covid, but when Anheuser-Busch closed we did a bit of a scramble to find a good, suitable location. And most of them had late summer offerings, so we moved it to August. We’re going to be at 603 Brewery. The thing I like about them is that they’re so close to the town of Londonderry and they have experience doing events and they’ve kind of seen what we’ve done in the past. There will be slightly different beer offerings, which is great, because that works for me. But it will still be family-friendly, which I like. And it’s something that we both share as values.”

Beaulieu sees PoutineFest as an opportunity for independent restaurants to showcase their interpretations of poutine as they compete, whether they present traditional takes on it or more interpretive ones.

“We have a people’s choice award,” he said, “and we also have an overall champion from our chef judges. So we get a little bit of both. We create custom kitchens for all the restaurants outside. The hardest part [of coming here] is most of these poutine vendors are small businesses that don’t have the infrastructure to leave their restaurants. We give them as much product and infrastructure as we possibly can, so they can’t say no, unless they have a scheduling conflict. We also pay them to come; they’re getting paid to do this. It’s not a ton of money, but we’re making sure we cover as many of their expenses as possible.”

The tricky part of attending PoutineFest is getting tickets.

“They are gone in hours,” Beaulieu said. “Everyone remembers our first year back from Covid when we sold out in one hour. It was nuts. But since that time it’s usually a few hours. Our poutiniacs, they set their alarm for 10 o ‘clock on the day of ticket sales. If you’re there at 10, you’ll get tickets. If you wait till the afternoon, there’s no guarantee.”

Granite State PoutineFest
When: Saturday, Aug. 29
Where: 603 Brewery, 42 Main St., Londonderry, 404-6123, 603brewery.com
Tickets: Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 16, at poutinefest.com/newhampshire and will sell out quickly. General admission tickets are $54.99.

Featured photo: PoutineFest. Courtesy photo.

• Doughnuts! The NH Doughnut Co. has opened a new store in Concord at 89 Fort Eddy Road (715-5097, nhdoughnutco.com). It is open Tuesday through Friday, 6:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays, from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

• Mac & cheese & giving back: Mr. Mac’s Macaroni and Cheese, 497 Hooksett Road in Manchester, is partnering with Harbor Care to donate $2 for every “Classic All American Mac” purchased in May to efforts to end homelessness among veterans, according to a press release. Last year’s similar Mac Gives Back May initiative provided a donation of $3,000 to support local veterans in need, the release said. “Funds raised will help Veterans facing housing challenges, including assistance with rental application fees, security deposits,and emergency housing support,” the release said. See mr-macs.com to see the menu. See harborcarenh.org for more on Harbor Care.

• Cookie dough two ways: The martini/cupcake pairing for May at the Copper Door (15 Leavy Drive, Bedford, 488-2677, or 41 S Broadway, Salem, 458-2033, copperdoor.com) focuses on cookie dough. A Cookie Dough Martini will be made with Dough Ball cookie dough whiskey, whipped vodka, chocolate liqueur, a splash of cream and a cookie dough garnish for $14.75. A Cookie Dough Cupcake will combine a brown sugar cupcake with cookie dough filling, caramel frosting, mini chocolate chips, a chocolate cup, and a mini chocolate chip cookie garnish for $12.

• Puttin’ on the spritz: There will be a spritz-making class at Tuscan Market (Tuscan Village, 9 Via Toscana, Salem, 912-5467, tuscanbrands.com) Saturday, May 16, from 6 to 8 p.m. Craft and enjoy three specialty cocktails made with Grey Goose Vodka, Guests will serve themselves while learning the art of the perfect spritz. Additional food and beverages will be available throughout the class. The cost is $59.60 through the Tuscan Market webpage.

• Batch cocktails: NH Liquor & Wine Outlet, Store #50 (Willow Spring Plaza, 294 DW Highway, Nashua, 888-0271, liquorandwineoutlets.com) will host a Monday Funday Cocktail Class – Pre-Batch Cocktails with Broken Shed Vodka, Monday, May 18, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Shake up your Monday with an exclusive cocktail class led by David Bean, the renowned mixologist from Jamison’s of Hampstead. You’ll dive into the world of Broken Shed Vodka while learning the art of crafting elevated cocktails using fresh, all-natural, seasonal ingredients. The cost is $12 per person through Eventbrite.com.

• Viking Feast: Harper’s Eden Catering (35 Manchester Road, Derry, 416-0509, harperseden.com) will host a Viking Feast at The Rugged Axe (377 S. Willow St., Manchester, 232-7936, theruggedaxe.com) Tuesday, May 19, from 6 to 9 p.m. It’s the perfect chance to hang with friends, enjoy tasty dishes and throw some axes. Don’t miss this unforgettable feast filled with laughter and good times. Tickets are $71.21 at harperseden.com/event-calendar.

• Wine and lighthouses: Join LaBelle Winery Derry (14 Route 111, Derry, 672-9898, labellewinery.com/labelle-winery-derry) Wednesday, May 20, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. for a Sip and Paint class with a skilled instructor from Heart Studio. You will create an acrylic painting on canvas of a lighthouse at sunset scene. You may choose to add on a glass of LaBelle wine and/or a cheese plate to help with the creative process. Tickets start at $64 through the LaBelle website.

• Blooms, Bottles, and Buttercream: Wine on Main (9 N. Main St., Concord, 897-5828, wineonmainnh.com) will host an evening of flower arranging, desserts, and wine tasting Wednesday, May 20, from 6 to 8 p.m. Ashley from Savvy Sweets & Treats returns with more delicious goodies. Meanwhile, flower expert Ambra Kash will show you how to arrange your own springtime bouquet with flowers fresh from the farmers market. As you work, enjoy a wine tasting featuring four wines from around the world. Tickets are $103.22 through the Wine on Main website.

• Lavender mocktails: Local Street Eats (112 W. Pearl St., Nashua, 402-4435, local-streeteats.com) will host Love of Lavender: a Mocktail Workshop, Wednesday, May 20, from 6 to 8 p.m. This will be a floral mocktail class in collaboration with Fortin Gage Flowers (86 W. Pearl St., Nashua, 882-3371, fortingage.com). The cost is $45 at local-streeteats.com/events.