Adelaide’s Beer & BBQ Festival is back to regular programming this winter – with its largest line-up to date (that means more stages and more barbeque). The event returns from July 14 to 16 to smoke out the showgrounds with a program of fire-fuelled cooking from 25 chefs, cooks and pitmasters, including 13 Beer & BBQ debutants and eight exclusive collaborations (not to mention a line-up of craft brewers from around the country and a nostalgic live music bill featuring sets from The Living End, Magic Dirt and Katy Steele).

With around 11 cuisines on the menu, co-director Aaron Sandow reckons it’s the most diverse barbeque line-up yet. “Barbeque is so many different things to different cultures and we are so proud to welcome chefs, producers and fire cooking experts from all over the world to Adelaide in July.” Here are six stalls to check out over the weekend.

Worlds on Fire
Local chefs Alana Brabin and Sarah Turner are teaming up to curate a special program of indigenous barbeque from around the world. On the menu? Vietnamese food truck Moi An (meaning “please eat” in Vietnamese) will be serving its signature street food snacks including nem nuong (a garlicky and sweet barbequed pork) and vegan mushroom and vegetable dumplings; while Central Market stall Something Wild will be upping the barbeque game with crocodile sausages and pickled native succulents between bread, and buffalo curry served with rice.

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African Kitchen Project – by the African Women’s Federation of South Australia, which exists to empower women migrants through skill development and social and economic pathways – will also make a guest appearance, serving a breadth of flavours from the continent including beef skewers and chicken and roasted pepper skewers cooked over coals, plus roasted fish (barra) in northern African spices served with plantain.

Also on the program within a program: Dilicious Timor by chef César Trinito Freitas Gaio, who’ll be in Australia for the first time bringing traditional Timor Leste food exclusively to the festival. Expect ikan saboko (fish fillet wrapped in banana leaf) and sasate naan bibi (goat and lamb skewers), both served with rice cooked in coconut leaf, plus tukir naan bibi (lamb cooked in green bamboo) served with mashed cassava.

Cheekies x Fancy Hank’s

One of Adelaide’s finest purveyors of fried chicken is teaming up with one of Melbourne’s best barbeque joints on some ripper wings and a hot chook sando. The latter will star buttermilk-brined fried chicken thigh that’s slow-smoked then fried in “Nashville oil” and coated in spices then served with slaw, American cheese and pickles in a bun. “You’ll be getting this great smoky depth added to our signature Nashville blend, which will elevate the wings and sando,” says Cheekies’ co-owner Rashad Cezar. There’ll also be vegan and vegetarian versions of Cheekies’ boneless chicken.

Burger Head
The beloved western Sydney burger joint is bringing its crowd favourites to Adelaide including its signature Americana burger – made up of a smashed Angus beef patty topped with 16-hour slow-cooked pulled brisket, American cheese, grilled onions and mustard mayo – and its vegan Mike Tyson burger with pulled barbequed mushroom, crisp fried kale and slaw. If you need a primer on Burger Head, the cult-favourite diner was opened by three young fine-dining chefs with collective experience across Quay, Momofuku Seibo and Sweden’s Michelin-starred Mathias Dahlgren. That training has informed the team’s attention to detail: the patties are minced in-house daily, and all the veggies are sourced within 30 kilometres of their store.

From Blammo
Former Stag and Nola chef Justin Penman has teamed up with Abby Touchette and Geino Varghese from Midnight Spaghetti and Joey Newnes (Arkhe, Press) for a special Beer & BBQ collab making good use of Penman’s line of hot sauces. The star of the menu will be their spin on a kati roll, which is “essentially an Indian street food version of a shawarma or yiros,” says Penman. “We’ll be cooking marinated chicken and lamb on charcoal spits and serving it on a flaky paratha with salad and sauces – a big saucy, meaty, flaky flatbread mess to fold up and eat.” There’ll also be a vegan version, plus a gluten-free version served on fries instead of in the paratha. We’re told the team is also playing around with a tandoori-inspired fried chicken dish. In short, expect big flavours and hot sauces.

Black Iron Smokers
These New South Wales pitmasters are trundling across the Hay Plain with their 1150-gallon, hand-built Texas-style offset smoker named Jimmie. Their signature dish is the 12-hour Cape Grimm MB4 beef rib, which we’re told comes off the grill so tender it can be eaten with a spoon. It’ll be served with slaw and house-made sauce (for $49). Their traditional Texan barbeque menu also features a beef brisket or pulled pork burger (with cheese and slaw, plus crisps and pickles on the side) for $20 each. Or go the whole hog with a tasting plate (for two) with beef brisket, pulled pork, Texas sausage, potato salad, slaw, mac’n’cheese, two slices of white bread and house-made sauce (for $70).

Sneaky Pickle x Signature Smoke
Adelaide’s long-serving barbeque purveyors Sneaky Pickle are teaming up with Brisbane low and slow champions Signature Smoke on a menu of brisket birria tacos (here’s an explainer on birria that we prepared earlier), plus fried chicken tacos, whole hogs head taco plates and “rib’n’pig” barbeque plates.

Adelaide Beer & BBQ Festival is on Friday July 14 to Sunday July 16 at the Brick Dairy Pavilion at the Adelaide Showground. Tickets are available online. For the full food line-up visit beerbbqfest.com.au.