It’s back! Beer Advocate’s Extreme Beer Fest returns to Boston to celebrate its 17th anniversary on January 31st and February 1st, 2020. If you haven’t heard the news, Beer Advocate has changed things up this year.

According to their site, the event has been moved from the Seaport World Trade Center to Cyclorama. They’ve also limited the number of available tickets to 725 (vs 4,000 in 2019) per session. By moving to a smaller venue and limiting the size of the event, Beer Advocate intends to make it more intimate for attendees. The decision to downsize the event has been met with mixed reviews on their forums, but the event has sold out nonetheless.

Here at BeerFestGuides, we focus on the data. Although the current lineup is still subject to change, here are our top line takeaways.

• 93 fewer breweries will attend the event this year (2020 Brewery Count: 32 | 2019 Brewery Count: 125)
• 346 fewer beers will be on tap (2020 Beer Count: 123 | 2019 Beer Count: 469)
• The average beer score increased by 0.1 points (2020 Avg. Beer Rating: 4.0 | 2019 Avg. Beer Rating: 3.9)
• Fewer “whales” will be available, although the percentage of whales to average beers has gone up (2020 4.0+ Beers: 51 | 2019 4.0+ Beers: 180)
• The average attending brewery rating increased by 0.1 points (2020 Avg. Brewery Rating: 3.9 | 2019 Avg. Brewery Rating: 3.8)

As you’ll notice in our full guide, many beers do not have Untappd scores. It’s likely brewers are developing beers specifically for Extreme Beer Fest, which can be exciting for those hoping to try cutting edge beer.

We’ll be posting the festivals top 10 beers as the brewers list finalizes. Until then, share your thoughts in the comments. You can also check out our guide for last year’s Extreme Beer Fest here.