First Brew Fest at 507 Taproom and Filling Station highly successful

For the first time in establishment history, the 507 Taproom and Filling Station hosted “Brew Fest” and welcomed thirsty customers for a day of beer tasting and live entertainment.

The event occurred on Saturday, July 19, and 507 Taproom and Filling Station owner Bill DeVore said the local business estimated that just over 400 participants attended the event. DeVore said he’s thrilled to see his business host events that Yelm hasn’t seen before, such as the first annual Brew Fest.

“Saturday was a great success. A lot of people came and enjoyed different beers they probably wouldn’t have tried before. We figured that throughout the day we probably had over 400 people. Some showed up for the music, some showed up for beer, and some showed up for both. The inside of the establishment was busy, too,” DeVore said. “To be quite honest, we didn’t make any money. We broke even, but that’s not why we do it. We do it because we’ve never had a Brew Festival in Yelm before, and we wanted to do something different. We wanted to provide something that hadn’t been seen, and a lot of people came in.”

Several local musical talents graced the stage throughout the day for customers in attendance to enjoy, with Yelm High School teacher Emily McIntire kicking things off. She was followed by Lefty Daytona, who asked if he could return to 507 Taproom and Filling Station in 2026 if a similar event is hosted. Then, a young band composed of college students, “Ambiance,” took the stage for their first act of the summer, DeVore said.

We are the Strays was the second to last band to hit the stage, and according to DeVore, the local band “always does a great job” with their performances. The main attraction of the evening was Dakota Poorman and his band, and DeVore had nothing but great things to say about the local act.

“He kind of lifts everything up, and he rocked the joint. That’s what he’s here for,” DeVore said.

Piggybacking off the success of the first ever Brew Fest in Yelm, DeVore said he’d like to host more festival-style events in the future. He said the 507 Taproom and Filling Station could potentially hold several big events in 2026.

“We’d like to do a spring beer festival and an Oktoberfest sometime in September or early October,” DeVore said. “We’ll plan for that next year. We won’t be able to do it this year, but it’s something we look forward to hosting. We’ve never seen anything in Yelm like (Oktoberfest) either.”

With the traffic coming in and out of the local business last weekend, DeVore said he organized the event in part to make sure nearby business owners were aware of the high volume of customers. He believes he did his best to accommodate business owners in relation to the great deal of customers in the area on Saturday.

“I feel, overall, we tried to accommodate the businesses around us. We did parking over in the big field, and thankfully Prairie Park Holdings was willing to rent us that field. We tried to minimize any other impact it could’ve had on businesses,” DeVore said. “We’ll keep trying to find things that Yelm has never done before. We’ll try and push through to make it happen now that we have the space to do it.”