The greatest beer festival in Dallas, if not the entire world, returns: The Big Texas Beer Fest is back for 2022, returning to its regular stomping grounds at the Fair Park Auto Building on March 26.

Founded in 2012, the festival is one of the biggest beer events in the Southwest and has received many a nod, including "best beer festival" by the Dallas Observer and Blitz Weekly.

This year's event will feature more than 450 beers, ciders, seltzers, hard kombuchas, and more from 100-plus breweries. It's expected to draw 5,000+ attendees, and has sold out for the past nine years.

In addition to award-winning beers from all over the world, the festival will also feature:

• 10 local food trucks and vendors
• local and regional bands
• non-alcoholic beverages

Free Play Richardson, a vintage arcade, will create a vintage Arcade Alley, in partnership with TUPPS Brewery, where attendees can relive arcade favorites from their youth.

The festival was founded by husband-and-wife Chad and Nellie Ghannadpour Montgomery, beer aficionados who see the festival not only as an opportunity to preach the joys of beer but also forge friendships. (The couple also owns Civil Pour, the coffeehouse at The Hill on Walnut Hill Lane.)

"We love making our festival's mantra of 'Connecting people through beer' a reality," Chad says in a statement.

"We plan all year for this huge party where we can show the attendees what our friends have been working on day in and day out," Nellie says.

This marks a big post-pandemic return of sorts. The 2020 festival was canceled, and the 2021 rendition was delayed by eight months.

"It usually takes place in the spring, but we ended up holding it in November, because it had been such a long time and people were ready to drink some beer," Nellie says.

For 2022, they're moving to a more robust one-day format, and they've also widened their offerings in response to the market.

"It used to be 90 percent beers, but now there's so many other offerings, like ciders and hard seltzers so we've expanded so that people can find what they like," Nellie says. "We also hope they find craft beers they like, as well."

A portion of the proceeds from ticket sales will benefit the North Texas Food Bank. They've raised almost $60,000 for the North Texas Food Bank since the inception.

The festival runs from 3-7 pm. Tickets range from $42 to $75 and include a VIP option, in which you get access to the beer at 2 pm, an hour before official start time, with a smaller number of attendees (and smaller lines). Tickets are available at www.bigtexasbeerfest.com.

There's parking at Fair Park for $10, or you can take DART rail, Lyft, or Uber.