Beer takes over Providence even more than usual in October. Part of that takeover is PVD Craft Beer Week. Once a PVD tradition, this beer week took a few years off to regroup. Now it’s reemerging, like a well-aged cask, ready to host fresh fermentation. Basically, we missed it and wanted to bring it back.

The week leads up to the Battle Royale of regional beer fests, Beervana. It’s a chance to give your tastebuds a warm-up, sort of stretch them out a little before the big game. And explore a small sample of the breweries that will represent at the main event, while reaching out to new beer locations.

The plan is to have a different tap takeover or sampling party from 6 – 8:30pm each night of the week. Different brewery, different craft-oriented bar pub or restaurant each night, and a different tournament each night. By tournament, we mean things like cornhole, jenga, flip cup and foosball. Intellectual stuff.

While that should be fun on its own, there’s also an overall contest – at each thing you can get a sticker, and more stickers if you win tournaments or just get lucky. The most stickers at the end of the week wins a grand prize. AND there will be a multi-day puzzle (Escape Room experts at Escape RI are helping us with that), where those who solve it win more stuff.

We’re still working on what all the prizes will be, but we know we’re also giving away passes to Beervana, the best beer fest evah, each night.

To participate, you get an event card – you can order online or get one at the door at any given night’s location. That card holds your stickers, gets you access to anything exclusive, lets you take part in the tourneys and gets you discounts on food (20% mostly) and drink specials at each location.

Compete in cornhole, foosball, Jenga, coaster tossing, DJ Bingo, pin the tail on the mermaid and the infamous, also-took-last-year-off sporting event, Wild Colonial’s Grog Dog Jog, where relay teams, generally in costume, compete (in the broadest sense of the word) to run a mile and a quarter, chug a brew (alc or non) and down a hot dog (or vegan equivalent). It’s much harder than it sounds.