The first Covington Sausage and CiderFest drew a large crowd of nearly 400 Saturday evening at the community park.

The event featured cider sampling, music and an array of sausage grilled to perfection by City Manager Regan Bolli who was the Top Chef of the festival.

The Covington Kiwanis Club sponsored the festival as a fundraiser for the Kiwanis Club’s service programs and projects including The Eliminate Project, Children’s Cancer Program and many others.

For the first time, an evening festival featuring cider and sausage will be from 4 to 8 p.m.  Saturday at the Covington Community Park –  the Sausage and CiderFest.

The public can enjoy sampling a number of ciders and sausages from 16 different vendors.

The Covington Kiwanis Club is producing the festival as a fundraiser for the Kiwanis Club’s service programs and projects including The Eliminate Project, Children’s Cancer Program and many others.

“The city (of Covington) is proud to be a main sponsor and help out with event planning,” Communications and Marketing Manager Karla Slate said in an email.

Slate said the idea behind the cider and sausage festival came about because the Kiwanis Club has been toying with the idea of a fundraising event with an Oktoberfest theme.

She added “the city was also looking for a way to promote Covington as a community that had great events and reasons for people to come here.”

From there the idea for Sausage and CiderFest was born.

Hard cider is becoming more popular, Slate said, and there are a number of cider businesses around the area.

“We also wanted to pair it up with some kind of food element,” Slate wrote. “People love beer and brats, so why not sausage and cider?”