This is easily the best beer festival in San Diego all year. Essentially you pay a modest fee to drink continuously for up to four hours. Last year even Joose showed up, so you know it's classy too. This year we went to the Saturday eve session, and it was just as we expected.There were some things that caught me off guard though, such as Stone's contribution: IPA. Way to compete guys. There were quite a few empty stations (ran out of beer?), and pretty much every station was staffed by some random dipshit.
For example (at Alpine):
me: "It's good to see you guys out here."
him: "Yeah, we just ran out of Nelson."
me: "Ah damn. Say, how often do you bottle Exponential Hoppiness?"
him: pause. blank stare. pause.
me: ?
him: "uh... I don't work for them."
to myself: "well fuck my face."The more I think about that, the more it bothers me: Why wouldn't you represent your brewery? So what if the place is packed with d-bags just trying to get shit-canned? There's still gonna be at least 25% who do give a shit. I don't know what to think, but it's a little disappointing. At least I noticed the Iron Fist family was representin', and I'm proud of that as a lover of local craft.
On to the good surprises. Finally got a chance to try some New Zealand beverages (Epic, Kaimai,...), some from Beer Here (Denmark), and Dieu Di Ciel (Montreal) - there are so many more I can't remember. My personal standouts: Samichlaus Helles and Gouden Carolus Cuvee. Holy fuck those are ass kicking awesome.
whatever you got drunk, climbed barb wire again, and had fantastic beer at a cheap price stop be snobbish bc there are some people out there who are jealous, aka me
ReplyDelete*being so
ReplyDeleteThey were not permitted to pour their own - apparently brewers tend to give too generous a pour... That said, some of the local folks were there. I had a fun time Friday night hanging out with the Iron Fist guys.
ReplyDelete@cjemmott I see, that makes sense. The generous pours were the best part about it!!
ReplyDeleteYeah, Adolph, I know. But don't worry, we got nice and trashed in your honor.