This year's Newcastle Beer Festival was the event's biggest ever, by every metric.
Yet event co-founder Luke Tilse said it was also the smoothest event in the festival's eight-year history.
"It was like a wedding that went off without a hitch," Mr Tilse said.
"It was unreal, it was the best one we've ever done. Every year you have minor problems or minor things you want to improve - this year, I can't see how to improve."
The festival was held at King Edward Park and attracted nearly 3500 people, who consumed about 12,600 litres of beer from 42 different brewers.
Mr Tilse said it was heartening to see those figures fly in the face of a cost-of-living crisis and the constant messaging from the nation's leaders for households to tighten their financial belts.
"To be honest, I'm sick of people saying we should give up buying the things we love... you would never hear of France or Italy telling people to stop buying coffee," Mr Tilse said.
The festival boasted dozens of independent beermakers, including renowned brands Mountain Culture, Grifter, BentSpoke, Capital, Willie The Boatman and Lord Nelson, alongside Newcastle's FogHorn, Method, Shout, Grainfed, Rogue Scholar and Good Folk.
The Herald asked Mr Tilse if he had plans to expand the festival, which he co-owns with Taiyo Namba of Nagisa and Susuru, next year off the back of this year's success.
"We've got a good formula, so we'll just keep it coming," Mr Tilse said.
"We might aim for 4000 people next year. King Edward Park is a great venue, its comfortable and we can scale up as much as we like.
"One thing we won't be changing is the local band's only policy.
"We want to showcase the up and coming talent, and we want to keep it a beer trade show, so we want the focus on the brewers."
