Festival Review: The Strawberry Festival in Cedarburg, Wisconsin

The 24^th Annual Strawberry Festival occurred this past weekend in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, with an estimated 100,000 people attending. The event was held on the 27^th and 28^th of June, starting from 10 AM and ending at 5 PM and 6 PM, respectively. There were lots of activities planned for this festival, including tastings of various strawberry-containing delicacies such as strawberry wine and strawberry shortcake, the CedarQuaker 500 Duck Race at Cedar Creek Park, and the Big Berry Run (5K race/walk). Plus, there were innumerable food and art tents, and at least six music stages.

I was at Cedarburg's Strawberry Festival on Sunday. I arrived at around 2 PM in the afternoon (I would've been there earlier, but I was distracted by a "you-pick" strawberry farm!). Parking was virtually non-existent around the festival area, which spanned a good chunk of Washington Avenue. However, as soon as I drove out 2-3 blocks into the residential areas, parking again became plentiful.

I made it to the Strawberry Festival and it was packed. While Cedarburg itself is not a big town, it attracts the crowds from nearby Milwaukee, about which I'd forgotten. I couldn't raise my arm to scratch my nose without hitting someone in the process!

But the festival itself was amazing. There were all kinds of strawberry treats at the restaurant booths lining the street. One could choose from items like strawberry shortcake, chocolate covered strawberries, strawberry wine (from the Cedar Creek Winery) strawberry slushes, and even strawberry brats (what else would you expect from Wisconsin?). For my first stop, I went to Mary Jane's Confectionary, where I bought a strawberry shortcake sundae complete with strawberry ice cream. This dessert was great, except for when I got to the soggy and ash-like sponge cake sitting at the bottom of my dish. I guess this is why I don't typically make shortcakes. I also had to grab some chocolate-covered liquid cherries (I know, I should've grabbed the chocolate-covered strawberries). Those cherries were great: dark chocolate covered, and filled in with sweet sugar syrup, plus a candied cherry inside.

After that, I decided to walk around and check out all the artist booths. There were many, many, artist booths. And there were a lot of nice items too, like Swarovski crystal necklaces, crystal wind chimes, some very clever Boticelli and DaVinci reversible art pillows (for example, the Mona Lisa was shown on the front of the pillow, followed by her "back" on the pillow's other side), and elk pens and pencils.

Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me and I went on a mission to find the strawberry brat. It was supposed to be at the Booster Club booth. After scooping out the food court, I still could not locate this elusive brat. I asked for some directions to the strawberry brat and was told it was around the corner at another food court. However, upon arriving there, I was still unable to find this brat. Since I still had a lot of stuff to look at, I gave up my brat quest and went to inspect a booth from a catering company called From Scratch. This booth had some wonderful strawberry salsa and cinnamon chips to sell. I bought a serving of the salsa and chips and had polished off my delicacy in less than 20 minutes.

While there was much food to taste, there were also six music stages to enjoy. At the stage hosted by the Bella Lei salon spa, I became caught up in the music of a band called Zach Wade (featuring Ryan McIntyre). I'm usually not one for festival bands, but this band was quite good. When playing contemporary songs like John Mellencamp's Pink Houses, you swore that was really John singing that song.

I finished off my festival tour by checking out the Cedar Creek Winery, which was selling all kinds of wines, including its Strawberry Blush wine. You just can't beat the taste of strawberry wine on a sunny Sunday in mid-summer.

I will certainly be returning to the Cedarburg Strawberry Festival next year, and maybe this time I'll even locate the elusive strawberry brat. For anyone else who might be interested in Cedarburg's Strawberry Festival, click here.