Charlotte Oktoberfest tickets on sale Friday

The sweltering summer in Charlotte continues, but it’s not too soon to start thinking about fall plans – especially with news regarding arguably the city’s top craft beer festival.

This Friday (August 7), tickets will officially go on sale for Charlotte Oktoberfest, which will take place Oct. 3 at the N.C Music Factory grounds. This is the 17th year of the annual festival that is put on by the Carolina BrewMasters.

This year’s festival will feature more than 90 breweries, with a heavy emphasis on local and statewide breweries. Charlotte and surrounding area breweries confirmed so far include Ass Clown, Bayne, Birdsong, Blue Blaze, D9, Fonta Flora, Heist, Lenny Boy, NoDa, Olde Mecklenburg, Red Clay Ciderworks, Sugar Creek, Unknown and Wooden Robot (Duckworth’s, Good Bottle and Salud Beer Shop will also be represented at the festival).

Lagunitas is the national sponsor of Charlotte Oktoberfest and is joined by Allagash, DuClaw, Founders, Great Lakes, New Belgium and Stone, among others. Click here for a full list of confirmed breweries so far.

This year’s musical acts are Tantrum and Simplified and there’ll be food trucks and other vendors as well. One of the great things about Charlotte Oktoberfest is that the festival gives back to local charities (it was able to donate more than $80,000 last year), and the 2015 beneficiaries are Ada Jenkins Center, Beds for Kids, Greater Charlotte SPCA and Operation Homefront-Carolinas.

Ticket sales go live at 11 a.m. Friday, and once again you’ll have the option of premium admission ($65) and general admission ($45). Premium admission gives you the opportunity to go into the festival at 12:30 p.m., which is 90 minutes before the gates officially open at 2 p.m. (Trust me, the extra $20 is worth it to go around and sample the beers you want to try first among a smaller crowd.) Each festivalgoer will get a six-ounce souvenir glass upon entrance to use for the unlimited sampling, which ends at 6 p.m.

More information about the festival can be found at CharlotteOktoberfest.com, and I’ll have a fuller preview in a future On Tap closer to the event.