North Texas Daily

Christina Ulsh / Senior Staff Writer

The dark clouds loomed overhead. It was frigid. People were bundled up in their beanies, scarves and coats. Light rain fell in intermittent drops.

After three bands performed, the drops turned into heavy rainfall. Groups of festival-goers were forced under tents intended for sheltering volunteers and beer troughs. Eventually the downpour subsided. The gripping cold remained, however.

“It was definitely 40 degrees warmer in Austin last night. But your hearts are warm,” Menomena drummer Danny Seim said to the Denton audience during the headline performance.

Despite the weather, North Texans gathered in the public parking lot next to the downtown Wells Fargo to sample craft beer and listen to indie music Saturday afternoon at Canned Festival.

Canned Festival was crafted by the organizers of Untapped Festival. Both festivals focus on music and beer that are considered “indie.” Canned, though, emphasized the environmental sustainability of using canned beer products.

Canned volunteer Aurora Arellano decided to offer her unpaid time handing out samples of good beer to receive good beer in return, she said.

“Obviously, this is more of a beer festival than a music festival,” Arellano said. “Music is kind of a backdrop for the beer.”

Ethan Metcalf also came for the beer. He said he and his friend were on a mission to get as many Indian Pale Ales (IPAs), which he described as very hoppy beer, as they could. Hops are plants and are one of the ingredients in beer.

“We decided Deep Ellum has the best one here today,” Metcalf said.

Metcalf tried Deep Ellum Brewing Company’s Rye IPA for the first time at Canned and said he sampled it at least three times.

Canned attendees could buy beer tickets if they were 21 years old or older. Each beer ticket was good for six 4-ounce samples of craft beer, which is beer that is made in small-scale amounts by independent brewing companies.

Anna Lam and her husband Chris Lam had beer criteria for their samples as well.

“Our goal is to try all of the Texas beers [here],” Lam said. “Keep it local. Try something different.”

While the beer was the main event for a portion of the crowd, others were more focused on the music.

Caleb Campbell doesn’t drink, and came for the music. Campbell has been a fan of Pageantry, one Denton band that performed, since its beginning, he said. He came namely to see them play.

“I wish [the event] was a little bigger,” he said. “It gets kind of boring to walk around this one little thing over and over again.”

Tina Friedheim drove from Fort Worth to see nationally known Menomena play.

“It was really, really hard to find,” Friedheim said. “We saw where it was [online and] GPS-ed it. It kept putting us in the Square, and we weren’t coming down this way [east of Locust Street]. We were going all the way around it.”

Friedheim resorted to going to Oak St. Drafthouse, a bar that was sponsoring Canned, to get directions to the event, she said.

Patrick Patterson also came from Fort Worth to see the Helio Sequence, who played his favorite song last, he said. While he had been in town for most of the event, he came to Canned right before the band went on and left almost directly after the set.

“I paid 20 bucks and left,” Patterson said.

This was the first Canned event in Denton. There were 37 breweries, 70 beers and 7 bands in attendance. This event was 100 percent wind-powered, according to Untapped’s website.

Headliners Menomena perform at Denton’s first annual Canned Festival on Saturday in the Well Fargo Bank parking lot in the downtown square. Feature photo by David Hollaran / Contributing Photographer