Andrew Crighton

Editor-in-Chief

Everyone is familiar with the German holiday of Oktoberfest, the fair city of Pocatello even has an annual event that allows community members to take part in the festivities.

Seeing the popularity of the festival, and how much people like to drink beer and listen to loud music Zoo Idaho decided to hold the first annual OktoBEARfest.

Meant to raise funds to support future Zoo Idaho projects as well as to further conservation education of Idaho’s indigenous animals, the event took place October 21 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

OktoBEARfest gave members of the community an opportunity to sample many different types of beers from a variety of distributors, all while walking through the zoo and taking a look at all the different types of animals that inhabit the various areas of Idaho.

Zoo Idaho stayed open after hours for those who were 21+ only. A $25 entrance fee covered all the sampling, popcorn and chili, as well as a commemorative, small plastic stein with the Zoo Idaho Zoological Society logo on it. The stein was handed out for distributors to pour samples into.

While walking through the zoo and tasting the provided samples, attendees were treated to the music of the local Kyd J Band.

In addition to the mug, other merchandise could be purchased to further fund the zoo. T-shirts with the OktoBEARfest logo, water bottles and hats with the ZIZS logos were all available.

The planned use of the money raised is to aid in building new animal exhibits in the zoo, as well as constructing a new entrance for the zoo.