Back Roads Brews and Blues Fest, Orange’s new beer and music festival, gets underway this Saturday and Sunday with two huge days of craft beer, games and an incredible line-up of music.

Hosted by Orange’s Badlands Brewery, Back Roads will be held in the Sale Street carpark with 12 top-tier independent breweries from across NSW confirmed for the two-day event including Mountain Culture (Katoomba), Wildflower (Sydney), Willie The Boatman (Sydney), Reckless Brewing (Bathurst), Welders Dog (Armidale), New England Brewery (Uralla), Badlands (Orange), Three Tails (Mudgee), Gypsy Fox (North Richmond) and Cosmo (Locksley).

The huge line-up of live music includes some of Australia’s top blues and roots musicians, such as the Aria Award-winning William Crighton and band, Jeff Lang, Claude Hay and the KungFu Mustard, Ebi Nori (aka Phoebe Parsons), Tim Brennan, and local favourites Javier and the Wave and Jaffer.

Badlands Brewery owner Jon Shiner said he’s excited to bring a unique family-friendly festival to Orange where the music and the beer share equal billing.

“We love our music here and we're big supporters of live music, and as far as I know, we're the only festival, where it's not a craft beer festival with someone plucking away or a music festival with a craft beer stall — I'm pretty excited about it!” Jon said.

Badlands Brewery opened its new taproom adjoining the Sale Street carpark in June last year. Jon said he immediately saw the potential of the site and carpark to do something special.

“We thought, there's a good opportunity; here's a whole heap of space that doesn't get used much at weekends. What could we do with it once a year?” John said.

Part of the Sale Street carpark will be closed from Friday, October 25, to Sunday, October 27, with music, games and entertainment running from 2–8pm on Saturday and 12pm–5pm on Sunday.

“So we've got this huge lineup of incredible musician – all very different and all amazing – and it’s all going to happen out in the car park there,” Jon said.

“And then we've got 12 craft breweries, including Mountain Culture from Katoomba who've been voted the number one beer in Australia…  we've got Small Acres Cyder, Orange Mountain Wines, three food trucks, and lots of games!

“I'm pretty proud of what we put together, but we just need to get the community behind it and get people to come along and enjoy what we're going to be offering. Not just this year but in years to come. We've got our DAs approved for five years through council, so we're in for the long term!”

For more information and tickets to the Back Roads Brew and Blues Festival, visit: www.backroadsfest.com.au