Organizers of the annual BC Hop Fest have cancelled this year's event.
The popular event has been running since 2015 and has hosted as many as 1,500 hop-fuelled fans, but Hop Fest Co-Founder Dwayne Stewart, says the province and the City of Abbotsford wouldn’t grant permission for the festival this year.
Stewart says that because of the growing size of the event, and because they don’t sell hops directly to the people in attendance, he was told they weren’t really a farm product festival.
"The only way you can really use hops is in beer," he says.
"We invited our brewers to come out to the farm and we invited the public to come and experience beers made by local brewers that were supporting our local farm."
Stewart is calling on the provincial government to remove restrictions for promoting locally grown products.
"You have to promote your farm in a way that’s a bit different than you did five, 10, 15 years ago."
Even if the challenges the event faces could be addressed quickly, Stewart says it's too late to stage the event this year.
He says he and fellow organizers hope to host the festival again in 2020.
