San Diego Brew Fest

Would you believe that two people who enjoy beer so much have never in their lives attended a beer festival? (I don’t count Hop Con, as it’s a specialized event.)
One thing is for sure: attending this first beer festival truly opened our eyes. We went with a friend of mine (and randomly met up with one of my brothers at the event), and enjoyed three hours of tiny beer samples and long lines for food trucks.
I know that doesn’t sound like a good time, but it absolutely was. I enjoy people-​watching, and this was a great event at which to sit back — or stand in line — watching the mass of drunken humanity seething around you. People were in such great moods! There was laughter, frivolity, attempts at starting «the wave» between all the people in line for the loo…
And the beer selection was great. There were way too many tents to visit in one three hour period, but we gave it our best go. There were a few surprises, as far as beer concoctions went, and also quite a few that were given an emphatic thumbs down.
But that’s the fun of an event like this. Sampling brews you normally wouldn’t notice, enjoying the sweet flavor of liquid barley with a group of friendly strangers, and singing along to the 80’s songs that were being performed by the two excellent live bands that day.
Really can’t ask for much more. The event was well-​managed and seemed to be efficiently run, from the front gate to the exits at closing time.
Makes me eager for the next few festivals on the horizon. Oh, you bet your sweet patootie there are more beer fests looming on the horizon!

I attended this event in 2013 and this year (2015), and I enjoyed my time both years! This year it’s called San Diego Beer Fest? By EventBrite.
This year I got VIP entry for $ 40, and I highly recommend it. Since you’re in an hour earlier, the lines are A LOT shorter (almost no wait time) and you avoid the risk of having a type of beer you like run out.
This beer fest definitely has a great selection of breweries/​beers from all around the country. This gives you a chance to sample a lot of brews that you haven’t heard of or aren’t very common out in bars in SD. I’ve also attended another SD brew fest (comic con) which mainly had local micro-​breweries and was nothing special.
The only downside (minus 1 star) is shade, like someone previously mentioned — but being VIP helped since I got most of my beers in early on, and didn’t have to wait long in lines later so I could just relax in the shade under some trees.
I was a bit sad to see there were less «free-​food sample» booths this year. The last time I was here, Slater’s was giving out their infamous ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ burger! But that is a small, nitpicky side comment & doesn’t take away from the overall experience.
Organization wise, everything was excellent: fast check in (2 minutes to get my ticket scanned and get my glass), plenty of toilets that stayed pretty clean through the whole event, fast pours for the most part, and a live band that kept everyone in good spirits!
Overall this event delivered exactly what was promised! Great selection of beers, good music, and good food! Bring a pretzel necklace and get silly shwasted with San Diego’s finest brews!

San Diego Brew Fest 2015 was my first beer/​brew buffet fest, and in my opinion, was a perfect way to be introduced to this wonderful San Diego beer festival tradition. Located in a magnificent city of friendly, beautiful people and where craft beer is popularly brewed and perfected, San Diego is the perfect spot for hundreds of brewers and breweries to come together and share their best creations.
The weekend was a busy one for breweries. While an even larger beerfest went on in Del Mar, Liberty Station had it’s own, and was still very popular regardless of another beerfest being in town, so popular, that despite a large number of breweries present, many brewers still ran out of certain beers in their selection near the very end.
A beerfest is like winetasting, only, you get a nice cold 4oz or more shot of a random beer that you have little idea what the experience will be like. The anticipation is quite exciting each and every time. With winetasting, you have your variations of whites and reds; with beer tasting you have your lights and darks; beer also has many variations with various alcohol percentages (ales, lagers, stouts, porters, malts, ambers, blondes, creams, fruits, goldens, honeys, pale ales, reds, wheats, peppered, sours, the list goes on…). A playground smörgåsbord of what seems like a neverending variety of beers invites you to try each one, although, you will likely never get around to it and probably pass out or blackout far before you even get close.
San Diego Brew Fest 2015 was a very successful one. It was my first, but my experience was a success. While I would rate this beerfest 5 stars because of the great time I had, it gets 4 for long lines, though they moved pretty fast. Lines can also be deceiving — many a time there is a line due to a chain reaction of drunk folks lining up, not really the quality of the beer, and you might have that booth with the most awesome beer with no line at all. Lines aren’t all that bad either since you also need to take a break here and there, and remember to eat something and drink plenty of water, because some of those beers creep up on you! How about 4.5 stars?
Luckily you are in San Diego, where a variety of delicious eateries and inviting hotels await after a long day of beer buffet drinking debauchery. Remember to keep hydrated, drink responsibly, and have a designated driver!
Looking forward to more of these in the near future!

Came here today and was really underwhelmed. This could be such an amazing event if only some simple changes were made.
— You are putting this event on the first day of summer in San Diego. Besides for the tiny seven umbrellas scattered throughout the huge event and bumming shade off of some vendor’s tents, there was NO shade. Standing in line for 10 — 15 minutes at EACH stand was a pretty miserable experience when it was 90 degrees outside. I have never seen so many medically concerning sunburned people in my entire life. This is my number one complaint — SHADE where the lines of people are standing. Seems so simple yet was nonexistent. If they had the main event start at 3 or 4, it would cut down on how miserably hot it is dramatically and there would be PLENTY of light for hours and hours.
— As mentioned in the first bullet, the lines to some of these vendors were just stupidly long. Waiting 10 — 15 minutes in every single line for a tiny 4 oz. taster gets old very quickly. This event has apparently gotten too big for the organizers to handle.
— When I first arrived, I had 2 mobile tickets. One was for me, the other was for a friend coming later. I had already sent the friend her ticket. I specifically told the girl at the front to only scan my ticket and not the second one. She scanned both and then tried to tell me she didn’t. My friend was given HUGE hassle by some annoying rude little blonde chick trying to get in when we tried to explain that her co-​worker messed shit up.
— There is nowhere to sit down except for the grass. For $ 40 a ticket, I would expect at least renting some plastic chairs and tables.
— As mentioned above, the lack of extremely basic and common sense accommodations does not justify a $ 40 price tag for me much less a VIP ticket.
— They ran out of the plastic customized taster cups and started giving people standard plastic cups. Again, for $ 40 a ticket… no. Also, for the people in the reviews who are requesting glass cups… please take a moment to imagine thousands of drunk people bumping in to each other and dancing around with glass cups. There is a very clear and valid reason they don’t use glass.

After going to the awesome LA Brew Fest put on by Drink Eat Play, I strongly felt like I needed to hit up this event in SD. I loved the venue. Having a beer fest in an open outdoor setting felt like we were at Coachella or something. It was love and beer and it was great.
It was great until the port-​a-​potty sinks ran out of water. Yep, first you wait in a long line to use some port-​a-​potty then you have to wash your hands and there’s no water. But wait, that doesn’t even start my experience here. They ran out of their signature tasting mini mugs and started handing out basic plastic cups to everyone. Uhhh no. I didn’t prepay to be given a basic plastic cup. Not that I’m all fancy or anything but the basic cups were about 8 ounces. After 4 «tastes» in that cup (especially since the beers were all pretty hoppy and strong) I woulda been all kinds of crunk up in that brew fest. So then I saw some of the signature tasting cups and I asked for one of those instead of the basic cup that I coulda brought from home. The girl at the front told me NO, not just no, but NO and that they were only for customers that pre-​paid. I told her I did. grabbed my tasting mug, and went to start my tasting.
The activities, like Beer Pong, were cool if you just need games to drink. I thought there was a good selection of food trucks. Definitely something for everyone. I even liked the band that played covers of some pretty cool songs.
The one thing I HIGHLY recommend for Drink Eat Play are dump buckets and water at every station. It would be nice to rinse my mug so my Pale Ale doesn’t taste like the Imperial Stout that I just tried.

This was my first time to an event like this and I have to say I was not dissapointed. We paid for the extra hour VIP ticket, and it was well worth it, I highly recommend it. You’d think 3 hours of unlimited beer would be enough, but nope, you need 4, haha! The lines were actually not as horrendous as I thought they would be. It was quite easy to just get beer from a tent, I think the longest I waited was probalby like 5 minutes (maybe 10 at the booth with the Hard Cider, but it was well worth it!). I don’t know exactly how much beer I drank but I can say that my cup was hardly ever empty lol. There could have been a couple more food truck selections though, and since it was just a big open field, they could have sprung at least for some tables to sprinkle around, like the tall round bar tables, to at least be able to eat. Other than that, the atmosphere was fun, chill, and I’ll definitely be trying this again next year!

Plus: Lots of space, fast lines, big sampler cup! Parking in the ACE parkinglot overnight is allowed and free which saves some cash on the ride there when you can just pay for one cab back.
Cons: NEED MORE TIME. The lines to get in are HUUUUUGE and by the time we got in it was close to 4 pm (ends at 6) and I don’t want to feel rushed going through the tastings cause then we are basically just at a frat party, racing to the drunk. Also there weren’t as many food trucks as I expected, isn’t this something a food truck would really love to be at? Tons of drunk people making poor food decisions?
Maybe if I had bought one of those deals and not paid the full price it would’ve been different. Next year will definitely seek out a deal for sure.

I took a date to SD Brew Fest last weekend. Talked my sister and a few friends into coming too. Awesome idea. The setup was simple with all the breweries set up surrounding a square grassy area. There was a lot of delicious beer to choose from and the reps were friendly. Early on in the day I got a chance to chat with some brewers before the mobs arrived. I highly recommend paying for the VIP ticket and arriving early. My date and I had a delicious polish sausage from one of the many great smelling food trucks. The patron was really polish! The music from the stage seemed to be someone’s ipod for the first 2 hours but when the live band came on they played tons of current hits. loved it! Can’t wait for next year!

Has anyone seen discount for this years Brew Fest? Can’t find any…

I was lucky enough to be in San Diego on the weekend of this year’s Brew Fest. What a great way to taste some fantastic local brews! There was even live music and some tasty bites during the VIP portion. As we were entering they gave us our free plastic tasting glasses (I hope next year they consider glass). We started to make our way around and I found a couple of favorites that I kept going back to. My standouts: Stone — Cherry Chocolate Stout and Rock Bottom La Jolla Espresso Stout. I like my beer dark and delicious. The venue was open and grassy with lots of booths distributing beer. On the other end of the grounds they had a stage set up for live local music. As the day passed by the event became more and more crowded. I think the VIP entry was worth it for both the food and short lines. Overall, this was a great way to taste some tasty San Diego local craft brew on a beautiful San Diego afternoon. I would definitely do it again!

Unlimited beer for $ 23? Thank you, Travelzoo!
(note: this deal, alone, probably deserves an extra star… but I’m over it) On that note, here’s a quick breakdown:
HELL YEAH:
Variety is the spice of life — I don’t know the exact number, but there was a good number of vendors (mainly SD based, I believe) Granted, I’m not a huge fan of IPAs, which there seemed to be a number of, but waste not, want not!
Fast lines — thankfully each vendor kept people moving so I didn’t have to wait more than a couple min for my next 4 oz. taster.
Early access — this is where SD beat LA Brew Fest; they actually let us in 15 min early. Whaaaat? They must not know ’bout me — big mistake!
Swag — free key chains? silly hats? hand towels? coasters? I felt like a walking billboard but who am I to turn down a free sticker that says «Nothing goes down better than a Bierbitzch»?!?
OH NO:
Food trucks — granted, I didn’t try them, but nothing really caught my eye.
Music — the band wasn’t terrible, but they certainly won’t be making it big anytime soon. Kinda just background noise (‘cept for when I got a buzz going, then it was kinda catchy)
Setup — it was literally a bunch of tents in an open field, kinda blah. I don’t need feng shui, but this was just boring!
Running out of beer — how you gonna come to a Brew Fest and say «Oh sorry, we’re out.» Everyone paid for three hours of beer and that’s what we expect. Not all vendors did this, but to those who did: for shame!

We snagged up a deal through a website called bloomspot where we paid $ 25 for VIP tickets to the brewfest. We booked our train tickets and were on our way with our favorite beer drinking buddies and basically it only got better from there.
The sun and breeze were perfect, the beer was flowing and grass felt good. Everyone there was just down to have a good time and relax, there was this really cool vibe happening amongst everyone even with the cheesy band and music.
This is a brewfest that can only get better, they have such a great space to bring in more foodtrucks and maybe some icecream/​tropical shave ice vendors. It was a simple event but for some reason one of the best brewfests we have been too.
Bring a picnic blanket or chairs, sunscreen and some water and you are all set.

First off, tickets to brew fest are about $ 40 but I got a sweet deal off Travelzoo and it ended up being $ 23 with service charges and tax included. The ticket is good for a 4oz. taster cup and admission to all the participating breweries and food trucks for about 3 hours.
They had about 60 different breweries come out, some international, a lot of them local to San Diego. If you know anything about this area’s breweries, a lot of them are famous for their IPAs and hopps upon hopps and bitterness so if you’re not a fan, its gonna be slim pickins the rest of the day! Each brewery has their own pop up tent lined up against the border of the park and most of them had 2 taps and you just line up and get your taste on.
There were a good amount of people, enough for a line about 10 deep at some of the more popular breweries but the lines move pretty swiftly so there wasn’t a whole lot of standing around. Some of the tents give away free gifts like t-​shirts, towels, and pretzel necklaces. In the 3 hours given, you could possibly hit up each and every tent although that is a lot of beer (4oz. x 60 breweries = WASTEDDD) i might add that a lot of these microbrews have well above the standard 4% alcohol content than domestic piss beers!
The food trucks were alright, there were about 8 or so of them. Nothing compared to the LA food trucks i’m used to so I wont comment on that. They did have some live music, but none of it was any good to pay attention to. That could be something they could DEFINITELY improve on to make it that much more of an enjoyable experience. Id also recommend you bring a chair or mat to sit out on in the open field. Overall it was a good experience especially for the price I payed.