The Kings Island Banshee Brew festival is taking place May 6-7 and 13-14, 2016. This years event has been greatly expanded with even more beer vendors, live entertainment, and food.
References:
Specific Banshee Brew Fest Details
Get the dish on the Banshee Brew Festival dining
We were there on opening night to take in the event, try the food, and for those of us not a Designated Driver, sample some craft beers. So let’s take a look at each of the menu options offered. As a reminder, your ticket to the Banshee Brew fest includes two tickets for redemption of two of the meal options listed below.
Mesquite Grilled Jumbo Chicken Wings Served with Broccoli Salad
Three jumbo chicken wings are grilled and served alongside a serving of broccoli salad. The wings were nicely prepared and juicy. The broccoli salad happen to be our favorite dish of the entire event. The nice creamy sauce and perfectly prepared broccoli tasted awesome. The leftover sauce on our plate also worked great on the wings.
Italian Sausage Served with Tortellini Salad
A large Italian sausage was steamed or boiled and served on a poppyseed bun with a side of tortellini salad with olives and feta cheese. The sausage was really surprising as it was very flavorful and the bun was a good quality and did not fall apart. Our only disappointment was it was not served with onions and peppers like it was billed. There also was no sauce available which could have really helped improve the sandwich.
The tortellini salad was good though did not pack a ton of flavor. We think for this event though the simpler version of all the meal options was really perfectly tailored to the audience. A beer connoisseur is not there to necessarily sample really extraordinary and flavorful meal options. They are looking for simpler food options to go along with the craft beers. In that regard, the chef really chose some great options (though we would love to see the pierogi from last year return).
Pulled Pork served with Coleslaw
One of the easier dishes parks seem to be making for the special events these days is a pulled pork option. They are pretty much a “set it, and forget it” option as far as cooking, pack a ton of great flavor, and appeal to a wide variety of guests.
Besides the broccoli salad, we happen to think the pulled pork and coleslaw was overall our favorite tasting plate. A large pile of pulled pork is topped with BBQ sauce and served alongside a large pile of coleslaw. We LOVED how Kings Island did NOT attempt to serve the pork on a bun! This way guests could take a forkful of pork AND the coleslaw together, creating a very great flavor packed bite.
The coleslaw was also well prepared and not too peppery nor did it have a “cheap” taste of the already prepared versions you often find at the grocery store.
Roasted Corn with Chicken Quarters
A whole ear of corn with the husk on is served with a chicken quarter. This is the largest of the meal options served. However, it was also the most bland. While the chicken was moist, it lacked in flavor and would have been nice if served with some sort of sauce.
The ear of corn was sweet, but lacked any butter or flavoring. We would have liked to seen it brushed with some butter and perhaps some sort of spice like paprika and chive.
The meal was not bad, just not our favorite due to the lack of flavor. As mentioned above, the simple food options could have been more the nature of the intended audience, though we would have liked to see some additional condiment options for those of us more daring.
Be sure to head out to the Kings Island Banshee Brew fest, as the final weekend is coming up.
* If you liked this post, join other readers who have signed up to for our free Newsletter…because then you will never miss another update!
A special thanks to Kings Island for sponsoring our visit to the Banshee Brew festival.
