For the seven years that I’ve been attending Bonnaroo, the Broo’ers Festival — Bonnaroo’s own in-house beer festival — has been a constant. It grows, it shrinks, it mutates this way or that. Breweries come, breweries go, but it’s always there, offering a spot of shade and a beer that’s colder than any water in sight. Last year, I had the chance to take a look at the festival within the festival, and inspect its place among the four-day fray.

This year, I was more struck by the absurdity of it all. Why would anyone — a festival-goer or a brewery — subject themselves to the conditions of Bonnaroo? The maddening heat. The unbearable humidity. The undeniable stench of a collectively unwashed mass. What about the weekend makes it worth breweries sending a team of employees on a road trip to camp for four nights for a beer festival in the middle of nowhere that serves a bunch of people who aren’t in their distribution market?

Sure, the music atmosphere is pretty cool. And you get access to a much wider swath of beer-drinkers. But why does a craft brewery even want to be at Bonnaroo? Is it really worth the time and energy and hassle? Responses were largely dependent on the size and persona of the brewery. Those on the smaller, quirkier end, replied with a resounding yes. Some on the larger, corporate sponsorship side greeted the question with more of a meh.