IRVING PARK — Horner Park’s beer fest returns Friday with more than 35 local craft brewers, food trucks, live music and a new goal: helping turn the park into an accredited arboretum.

Launched in 2017, proceeds from eighth-annual Horner Brew Fest go towards the protection of the park’s ash trees from the emerald ash borer . But for this year’s fest, organizers with the volunteer Horner Park Advisory Council also hope to use a portion of the funds raised to help turn the park into a tree sanctuary.

Horner Park now has at least 70 different species of trees in its diverse ecosystem. And the park’s record of preserving the endangered ash trees could give the council a real chance at qualifying to become an arboretum under an international program known as ArbNet , said advisory council member and festival organizer John Friedmann, who is known as the “ Lorax ” of Horner Park thanks to his work to help save the trees at the park.

The Horner Park Natural Area trail in Irving Park. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago

If the effort to recognize the park as an arboretum is successful, it would be a feather in the cap for an effort to preserve the tree canopy at the park.

That effort dates to 2013. That year, Horner Park lost three ash trees to the beetle, dropping its total to 65, because of an infestation of emerald ash borers that plagued trees citywide. The rest of the Chicago parks system saw more than 25,000 ash trees cut down and removed around that time because of the beetle, Friedmann said.

The park then started treatments of the trees with an injectable insecticide. The treatment against the beetle costs about $100 per ash tree and protects the tree for at least three years.

In 2017, the advisory council decided to launch a beer festival via a collaboration involving Horner Park Supervisor Deb Groh, council President Peter Schlossman and Friedmann, he said.

“We had no idea if it would be successful,” Friedmann said.

That first year featured 13 breweries and six of them — Begyle Brewing, Dovetail Brewery, Eris Brewery and Cider House, Half Acre Beer Co., Maplewood Brewery & Distillery and Old Irving Brewing Co. — have been at every festival since, Friedmann said.

The funds turned out to be sorely needed, as the park district stopped funding the inoculation program in 2019.

And the festival turned out to be a hit: While the first year the council sold about 270 tickets, last year organizers sold 600 tickets.

“Ten years later Brew Fest has more than doubled in size and has become the go-to summer party for the community,” he said.

Now, Horner Park has 89 of the critically-endangered ash trees, thanks to the conservation efforts and additional trees that were donated, Friedmann said.

While some of the additional money raised through the fest will go towards other park improvements, a portion will help the council submit an application to the ArbNet initiative , which is overseen by the Morton Arboretum, American Public Gardens Association and Botanic Gardens Conservation International.

“Arboretum status opens up the whole world for more grant solicitation. It’s a lot easier to raise money when you’re an arboretum,” Friedmann said.

The ArbNet application itself is free, but the advisory council aims to create an interactive database of the park’s trees to help their chances and plan for future conservation programming at the park. Plans include hiring a professional arborist to help catalog the woody species at the park, including its different ash tree varieties, Friedmann said.

And the database wouldn’t just be a simple spreadsheet, but feature a public-facing, interactive portal which patrons can use to go on self-guided tours and be the basis of other interactive educational experiences at the park, Friedmann said.

Two people walk up the Coiled Serpent Mound in Horner Park on June 5, 2024. Credit: Alex V. Hernandez/Block Club Chicago

Some programming could be similar to when the park hosted the Chicago Children’s Theatre’s Walkie Talkies interactive walking tour and the interactive experience available at the park’s Coiled Serpent Mound , which debuted in 2024 and can be accessed via a geotagged QR code on a stone plaque on its summit, Friedmann said.

“There are costs associated with creating a comprehensive database that we can expand to self-guided tours and for other educational uses and interactive experiences for students and park patrons,” Friedmann said.

The council plans to submit the application this month, Friedmann said.

Friedmann also sees the park as a way to preserve ash trees far in the future and in places outside Chicago and even Illinois.

“The goal of the whole ash tree preservation initiative is to make Horner Park a living seed bank. So then future generations can repopulate the country with ash trees,” Friedmann said.

The accreditation process could take as little as a week if the park’s application meets all the necessary criteria, which includes having 25 different labeled species or varieties of woody plants, said Andrea Brennan, ArbNet Manager at the Morton Arboretum.

The arboretum status would apply to the park’s entire 55 acres, including 13 that have already undergone an extensive ecosystem restoration since 2014 as part of a $5.6 million project that has since attracted bald eagles and other wildlife.

Part of that work included restoring the park’s oak savanna habitat, removing invasive species, making landscaping improvements to restore the area’s natural features, improving the riverbank and adding a walking trail along the shoreline.

Horner Park Advisory Council volunteers — including John Friedmann (front) — at the 2025 beer festival in the park. Credit: Provided.

Brewery Lineup, Other Details for Horner Brew Fest

Friday’s fest will take place from 6 p.m.-10 p.m. at Horner Park, 2741 W. Montrose Ave.

This year’s brewery lineup includes Art History Brewing, Black Horizon Brewing Company, Buffalo Creek Brewing, Burning Bush Brewery, Crust Tap Room, Haymarket Brewery, Hop Butcher for the World, Midwest Coast Brewing and more.

Food trucks attending include Irving Park Pizza & Patio, Fat Shallot, Cafe Tola as well as Soul + Smoke. And this year’s live music will be provided by Chicago street festival regulars Soul Daddy .

General admission tickets are $54.20 and designated driver tickets are $17.14 before fees. Tickets can be purchased at this website . The event will be held rain or shine, organizers said.

You must be 21 years of age or older to attend. No children, strollers, nor pets are allowed, organizers said.

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