Beer festivals span the year and the globe. Don’t know which ones to hit up? We’ve got you covered. Here are a few of our personal favorites, followed by our bucket list of beer festivals.

Weekend of Spontaneous Fermentation: If you love lambic (and if you don’t, you can leave quietly now. go ahead…), then you just don’t die before coming to this incredibly well-organized festival. A stunning array of lambics in an intimate setting.

Great American Beer Festival: Full of luminaries and luddites alike, this is a doozie and fills Denver with dozens of spinoff events sure to harden your liver.

Qingdao International Beer Festival: China’s take on Oktoberfest, with oompah bands and all. It’s a hoot. You might not get a lot of craft beer, but you can try oddities you might never otherwise get to try. We spent some time in African beer tents.

Annafest: One of Germany’s best beer festivals, Annafest is held in a forest. So grab a Maß and join a band of merry men…

Oktoberfest: Filled with families during the day and fratboys by night, there is something for everyone (save perhaps the vegan) at the world’s most famous beer festival.

Mondial de la bière: Quebec brews some of the best beers in North America, and most of them are hard to find, even in Canada. You won’t find them all at the Mondial, but we can’t think of a better place to start your exploration of Quebecois beer.

Great British Beer Festival: Although not the best context in which to enjoy a pint of bitter, the GBBF does amass Britain’s real ale microbreweries, along with a well-curated selection of international beer under one CAMRAbulous roof.

Life just wouldn’t be worth living if we didn’t have beer festivals to look forward to. Here are a few on our hit list. Sorry, kind midwestern folks, DLD is not on it.

• Great Alaskan Beer and Barley Wine Festival: Because why else would you visit Anchorage in the middle of winter?
• Poperinge: The annual hop harvest in the Poperinge region yields one of the world’s most appealing and historic beer festivals.
• Zythos: Another classic Belgian beer festival we’ve yet to visit.
• Extreme Beer Fest: Sponsored in part by Beer Advocate and held each year in Boston, this festival features the wild and wonderful in emerging craft beer.
• Great Japan Beer Festival: Get an edge in on what may be the most exciting and innovative craft beer markets in the world.
• Stockholm Beer & Whisky Festival: Share your tasting table with some Vikings (even if you can’t drink one under the table).

Picking which global beer festivals to visit can be daunting. Why not use a handy reliable tool like the Ratebeer Events Calendar, which covers all corners of the globe?

Come on, fill us in with your own faves!