Ottawa Folkfest 2014 will be part folk, part story, part craft beer garden and part East Coast kitchen party.

The festival runs Sept. 10 to 14, with Lorde, Blue Rodeo, The National, Neutral Milk Hotel and dozens more acts. The opening night has Foster the People, M. Ward and Blues Traveller. Several dozen other acts range from toddler favourites the Wiggles, to country swing icons Asleep at the Wheel, to Simon Townshend, brother of The Who’s Pete Townshend.

The site, at Hog’s Back Park, between Carleton University and Mooney’s Bay, hasn’t changed much from last year — “still free side, pay side, bike path down the middle,” says festival director Mark Monahan — except for the addition of “a big, massive, craft beer tent.”

The tent will hold 1,000 people, and for the first two nights of the festival it’ll be designated “the Cape Breton Embassy.” Cape Breton musicians Crissy Crowley, Coig, Sprag Sessions and a dozen others will play over the two nights. The next two nights will see the Mellotones, “a great, fun, 11-piece band” from Halifax.”

The tent will be focused on craft breweries, including Beau’s, from Van Kleek Hill outside Ottawa, and Whitewater, Turtle Island, Creemore, Granville Island and others, Monahan says, seated in his new office in Festival House, a deconsecrated church in Westboro now being converted into the home of Folkfest and Bluesfest.

The two festivals are making a swap of sorts this year, when Bluesfest staples Blue Rodeo take the Folkfest stage. Is that a bit of intentional cross-marketing?

“I thought Blue Rodeo is actually a great pick for a traditional Folkfest crowd,” Monahan says. “They are great storytellers. A lot of their songs are related to the Canadian fabric.”

The subject of stories comes up again when I ask Monahan how, for programming purposes, he defines the broad category of “folk.”

“The traditional Arlo Guthries of the world, of course that’s traditional folk,” he says. “But in my mind there’s a real modern folk movement, and there’s a lot of young people – like the Milk Carton Kids, like Wooden Sky — you might call them indie, singer-songwriter, even alternative artists, but they’re telling a story. It’s writing original music, having a focus on great story-telling.”

How does Lorde, the New Zealand teen who in the past year has come from obscurity to be one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, fit into that folk format? Monahan says he was grabbed by the way most people heard Lorde’s music before they knew anything about her, unlike most “stars” churned out by today’s hype-driven pop industry.

“To me it was that sort of enigma, that intrigue — who is Lorde? You’re hearing these songs, very catchy songs, but I would say intelligent songwriting,” he says. “For me it was a great pick.”

Intelligent songwriting will again be a part of free programming that includes song circles, where diverse musicians come together to talk and play, often for intimately small audiences. Monahan hails them as “this incongruous matching of different people and what they produce when they come together.” Free events will also include workshops that give “patrons a chance to see the artist in a different way,” he says. “We want the artists to show something different from what they usually show on stage.”

Festival passes will be $129, and day passes will be $45 to $50. The best deal is 10 a.m. to midnight this Thursday, May 15, when full, five-day passes will be on sale for $99. They’re available online at ottawafolk.com.

You will find the full lineup here.