The beers are returning to the boardwalk.

The Asbury Park Beerfest is back at Convention Hall and the Grand Arcade on the Asbury Park Boardwalk Saturday, Jan. 26, and Sunday, Jan. 27. Sessions are noon and 6 p.m. Saturday and noon Sunday.

It's an epic celebration of suds, and we're bringing you all of the essential information you need to know before this big beer weekend.

1. Local love

More than 50 breweries from around the world will be represented at the festival, with 11 New Jersey breweries among them.

The Garden State breweries expected to take part in the Asbury Park Beerfest this weekend include:

Asbury Park Brewery

Dark City Brewery (Asbury Park)

Last Wave Brewing Company. (Point Pleasant Beach)

Icarus Brewing Company (Lakewood)

Forgotten Boardwalk Brewing (Cherry Hill)

Cricket Hill Brewing Company (Fairfield)

Wet Ticket Brewing (Rahway)

Flying Fish Brewing Company (Somerdale)

Jersey Girl Brewing Company (Hackettstown)

Belford Brewing Company (Belford)

Cape May Brewing Company

Last year's Asbury Park Beerfest drew more than 5,000 people. On-site voting in 2018 named Asbury Park Brewery the best Jersey beer at the festival, while Cooperstown, New York-based Brewery Ommegang was named Best in Show.

2. Hot ticket

Tickets, $40 in advance and $45 at the door, are sold out for both Saturday sessions. As of this writing, tickets are still available for Sunday's noon session.

Your admission gets you a commemorative tasting glass, which you can fill with beer samples from the dozens of breweries in attendance throughout the four-hour session.

There will also be vendors on hand selling boardwalk cuisine, merchandise and more.

Designated driver tickets are available for attendees 21 and older for $10 on the day of the event.

Convention Hall and the Grand Arcade are located at 1300 Ocean Ave., Asbury Park. For more information, visit www.asburyparkbeerfest.com.

3. Giving back

This year's Asbury Park Beerfest supports Highlands-based environmental organization Clean Ocean Action and Best Day Foundation, a California-based volunteer organization that helps children and young adults with special needs participate in activities such as surfing, kayaking and more.

4. Inside stories

Cherry Hill-based Forgotten Boardwalk Brewing has been a longtime favorite at the Asbury Park Beerfest, and with good reason; the company makes distinct beers rich with Jersey history and energy, from the Morro Castle smoked porter to its funnel cake ale.

(For more on Forgotten Boardwalk, watch the video at the top of this story.)

Owner Jamie Queli said the company is planning to showcase its new West Coast-style IPA, Fake Radio War. The beer's name is inspired by Orson Welles' 1938 broadcast "invasion" of Grover's Mill via "War of the Worlds," but the beer itself is a nod to brewing history — specifically, the landmark West Coast-style of India Pale Ales.

"No one wants to drink beer traveling 3,000 miles anymore, which I understand," she said. "The classic West Coast beers were generally a little more resiny, a little more piney. They did have fruit character."

That beer style stands in contrast to the currently-booming New England IPA craze, with emphasizes thick, hazy and dank brews.

"The East Coast beers now or the New England-style IPAs that are coming across these days are juicy and not resiny, not bitter," said Queli. "Which, they're lovely styles, but I kind of just missed the reason why we all fell in love with the IPA in the first place.

"So I started to go to a bunch of stores, picking up some West Coast beers, and they're all old, you don't know when they were delivered or packaged. So I was like, 'I'm in a unique position to solve this problem and just make a West Coast-style beer on the East Coast.' "

Meanwhile, Icarus Brewing of Lakewood will be showcasing two of owner and brewer Jason Goldstein's juiciest NEIPA stars this weekend: the double-dry hopped We Want the Idaho Gold and Spelt Check.

"I could talk all day about how good our porters and stouts are, and I think we're just as known for some of our stouts at this point, but certainly the New England IPAs are what people are starting to kind of know the Icarus name for," said sales manager Shane Gertner. "Things like Yacht Juice, certainly, have become far and above our most popular and well-known beers.

"But when we bring something like We Want the Idaho Gold that's been double dry-hopped with Idaho 7 (hops) to really show off that hop, those flavors are just going to pop in a way that I think kind of stands out as unique to Jason's brewing and Icarus as a whole."

Beerfest serves as an annual opportunity to observe the growth and expansion that the New Jersey craft beer scene has seen. From his perspective, Gertner said there's a lot to be excited about.

"I've been so impressed and just proud of what New Jersey is doing as a whole," said Gertner. "A lot of folks like to ask me, 'Who are your competition, those guys down the road or those guys in the next county?' and I always tell everyone, 'There's no competition, it's camaraderie.'

"It's a big family and a community and we help each other out. And so to see the beer that's coming out of New Jersey is amazing."