Full disclaimer: Josh and I have been calling this event by the wrong name, even when we went last year. As much as we think Brew in the Zoo makes more sense, the event entails brews at the zoo.

This is one of our favorite brew events of the year. It takes place at Forest Park Zoo in Springfield, MA and is a fundraiser for the zoo to support operating costs. Local breweries have tables set up throughout the zoo, and you can walk around and get samples while also checking out the animals. There’s also a homebrew competition; Josh and I usually just hit up the local breweries.

The breweries we sampled from included:

• Loophole Brewing
• One Way Brewing
• Broad Brook Brewing Company
• Iron Duke Brewing
• Altruist Brewing Company
• Amherst Brewing
• Abandoned Building Brewery
• Rustic Brewing Company
• Vanished Valley Brewing Co

For the most part, I’ve either had beers from those breweries while going to the actual taproom, buying it in stores, or trying it at other brewfests. Josh and I have a pretty good idea of which breweries we like more—or at least I do since I’m a bit more of a beer snob than he is.

There were a group of peacocks and peahens that were just freely roaming around the zoo, so you had to be on high alert. And those goats were super needy; Josh is convinced they saw us from across the way when we were visiting other goats, and as soon as we moved over to their pen, they were all up in our business.

Here are just some of the other animals we saw. The zoo isn’t super big but a lot of their animals are ones that couldn’t be released back into the wild for really any reason—like medical or just bonded to humans—so I like that they have a comfortable and permanent home at the zoo where they get cared for.

For the most part, we saw the same animals we saw last year, however, there were a few new ones that had arrived last fall. I like to check out their signs to see their names, how old they are, and their history at the zoo. Toward the end of the time we were there, a few keepers were in the exhibits feeding the animals, like we watched two lemurs eat a banana.

We left around 3:45 p.m. and grabbed dinner out to bring home. We both enjoyed the afternoon, and thankfully it wasn’t as hot as it was last year. Still one of our favorite brewfests, and why not support the local zoo and animals while tasting beers?