Brisbane's Gin Festival is back this weekend and it's bigger than your average Sunday session

Brisbane's biggest date with gin is only a few days away, and this one is bigger than your standard Sunday session.

The Brisbane Gin Festival lands at the Exhibition Building, Brisbane Showgrounds in Bowen Hills, running Friday 17 July from 5.30pm to 8.30pm and Saturday 18 July across two sessions, 1pm to 4pm and 5pm to 8pm. More than 40 Australian craft distillers are setting up shop for the weekend, which is a serious number for anyone who thought gin was just one bottle behind the bar.

Your ticket gets you unlimited gin samples across the session, a proper tasting glass to take home, complimentary tonic and soda water to build your own combinations, and a tote bag for the inevitable bottles you will end up buying anyway. There is also a Taste Theatre running talks throughout the weekend for anyone who wants to actually understand what they are drinking rather than just working through the room.

Food trucks are on site if you need something more substantial than a garnish to soak up three hours of tastings, and full bottles are available to take home if a distiller wins you over. Given the sheer number of producers in one room, that is basically guaranteed for most people who show up with an open mind.

This is the kind of event that ruins supermarket gin for you, in the best possible way. Once you have tasted forty different craft distilleries side by side, the bottle you usually grab off the shelf starts to feel like settling. That is either a genuinely useful piece of self discovery or an expensive new hobby, depending on how you look at it.

Sessions are timed and capped, so if this is on your radar, sort tickets now rather than hoping you can wander in on the day. Three days out is exactly the window where the good sessions start selling through.